Lori Jiannuzzi
UK Roundup- Alexandra Bryant, Kyle Moran, Espen Thoegersen
Dan Berkus
Brent Gleeson
Warner Bonner
Liz DiLorenzo
Lorenzo Berho

Former USD Real Estate Student Opens Business, Fills Community Need
By Meghan Bokath, Communications Coordinator

Walking into New Generations Learning Center, a day care facility in Scripps Ranch, the first thing you notice is that there is a lot going on. About 15 toddlers are eating turkey bacon and scrambled eggs for breakfast, sitting around a table together with their teachers. The preschoolers across the hallway are gathered around desks enthusiastically learning about shamrocks, and the infants are using baby sign language to signal they want more scrambled eggs.

At the center of the hubbub is Lori Jiannuzzi '99, eight months pregnant and seemingly handling a dozen different tasks at once. As founder and owner of New Generations Learning Center, Jiannuzzi has created what she set out to find after she delivered her first child—a day care center where she could feel comfortable leaving her own children.

Jiannuzzi will tell you she started her business out of necessity. After giving birth to her first child, Noah, in 2004, she got an itch to go back to work. "I was a mom who wanted to go back to work and couldn't find [adequate] childcare," she says. "I was disappointed with my selection. A lot of places are just babysitting until preschool. Children can learn so much sooner."

A USD grad with a bachelor's degree in business administration and emphases in real estate and finance, Jiannuzzi set out to create the day care provider she was looking for. After five years in the real estate industry as an underwriter, asset manager and real estate broker, Jiannuzzi brokered her own real estate deal to obtain the facility for her day-care center. Using a business plan she wrote during her senior year at USD for a class project as a template, she started making arrangements to start her own business. She spent the next two years getting licensed, navigating mazes of paperwork, researching child care systems and obtaining financing.

"I received an SBA loan on this project, in addition to mortgaging everything I've ever owned in my life," she says.

Hard work and a strong entrepreneurial drive is nothing new to Jiannuzzi. The daughter of factory workers from Ohio, Jiannuzzi is the first in her family to receive a bachelor's degree. A few years after finishing high school she moved to California, financed her education at a local junior college, and eventually at USD all on her own.

Now 13 years after starting at USD, Jiannuzzi and her staff are celebrating their one-year anniversary as a center. In addition to offering a progressive curriculum, the center also teaches the children Spanish. Each classroom is equipped with a large, flat-screen TV which doubles as a computer. Webcams can be found in every room of the building. Parents can log onto the center's Web site at any time of day to watch their children in action. The center also has an advanced security system that includes infra-red cameras, motion detectors and requires personal security codes to open every outside door.

The center has its own personal chef who prepares breakfast, lunch and snacks for the children, and makes home-baked bread, cakes, muffins and coffee for their parents every morning. In the afternoon, the chef bakes cookies or brownies for the parents to enjoy when they pick up their children. The center also offers a "Pick up your child and a dinner" option for parents who are too busy to cook.

Jiannuzzi hires only college graduates or those working towards their degree in education or child development. "It is important to create a career atmosphere if you want someone to come in here with a career mindset," she says. To attract the best staff members, the center offers benefits that many in the child-care industry do not receive. "I felt it was really important to offer paid school holidays plus two weeks paid time off, medical, dental, vision and a life insurance policy," Jiannuzzi says. "We are also working on a retirement savings plan with a company match."

After one year of operations, the center now has 75 students and has grossed over $500,000 in revenue. The infant and toddler programs are at capacity, and both have waiting lists. Looking into the future, Jiannuzzi hopes to expand her business to a second location. Despite the challenges of owning and expanding her own business Jiannuzzi says it has all been worth it. "I feel like I have the best job ever," she says.

UK Roundup: Burnham-Moores Center Grads Live, Work Abroad in London
By Meghan Bokath, Communications Coordinator

While Burnham-Moores Center grads have made their mark upon the San Diego real estate industry, they are also filling the real estate ranks in another international city: London, England. Currently three graduates, Alexandra Bryant, Kyle Moran and Espen Thoegersen, are living and working in real estate in London. The Burnham-Moores Center recently caught up with the three grads.

Alexandra Bryant, who received her undergraduate minor in Real Estate from USD in 2004, is currently a senior analyst at Jones Lang LaSalle in London. She has lived there since January of 2005.

Bryant, who received the Daniel B. Woodruff Memorial Scholarship in the Fall of 2003, is part of the European Retail Capital Markets team at Jones Lang LaSalle, where she advises investors on buying and selling retail property, mainly shopping centers. While Bryant lives in London, her territory consists of properties across continental Europe. "My primary responsibility is to cover countries where we do not have a significant local presence," she says. "I started out working on deals in Romania and Turkey and have also spent time working on deals in Finland." Her real estate transactions have enabled her to travel all across Europe conducting site visits and tours. With so much international exposure, Bryant says that knowing the cultural ins and outs of different countries has proven to be an important aspect of her job. "Especially in terms of retail, it is important to understand the different cultures and that is not something that is taught in much detail in the United States," she says. Among the first things she bought in London when she first moved there? "A book about the modern history of Europe," she says.

Bryant's journey to London started right here in San Diego, at a Burnham-Moores Center event. She met Brenna O'Roarty, who was at the time the head of Retail Research at Jones Lang LaSalle, at the center's Eighth Annual Real Estate Conference in 2004, where O'Roarty was a speaker. After the conference, O'Roarty and Bryant spent time together touring retail locations throughout San Diego. The two got along so well that O'Roarty later offered Bryant an internship at Jones Lang LaSalle, which eventually led to the job offer in London.

Kyle Moran is a development manager at Gazeley in London, where he has lived for six months. An '05 graduate of the MSRE program, Moran's current job duties consist of establishing new offices, partnerships and securing projects on behalf of customers in the Middle East, North Africa, and Central and Eastern Europe.

For Moran, the differences in work culture between the United States and England have proven to be salient. Moran has found that the "work hard, play hard" philosophy to be especially prevalent in London's real estate industry, a philosophy that he says matches his own. "It is not uncommon for a three-hour Friday lunch to include several bottles of wine and cocktails," he says. "On the 'work-hard' side, though, I've come back to the office after hitting the gym at 10 p.m. to find the office still buzzing to meet a deadline." Compared to the United States, Moran notes that deal-making and documentation is far less formal in Europe; however, business attire and business presentations are the opposite.

According to Moran, the most substantial difference between the real estate industries in the United States and England can be found in the set-up of the industries. England's real estate industry has "significantly more structure," he says, and the government requires a two-year trial period to attain certification and continuing education credentials before you are allowed to conduct real estate transactions.

USD grad Espen Thoegersen is currently an associate at RREEF in London. Thoegersen, who originally hails from Oslo, Norway came to the United States in 1995 to attend USD and graduated in 2000. After working in New York and San Francisco, Thoegersen made the leap back across the pond to London, where he has lived since the summer of 2006. He now works for RREEF Opportunity Funds, a subsidiary of Deutsche Bank, where he is responsible for "originating and underwriting value-added and opportunistic deals across all of Europe."

Thoegersen says that the lack of standardized real estate practices across Europe makes conducting business difficult, as different jurisdictions have different tax and legal structures. Despite the challenging legal and business environment, big deals are being made. Thoegersen, for example, is part of a five-person team in the midst of a €5 billion real estate transaction in continental Europe.

Thoegersen echoes Moran's sentiments about London's "work hard-play hard" work culture, which contrasts that of the United States—where typically 'play hard' generally isn't considered as important. In Europe, Thoegersen says: "It's actually accepted to take a day off every now and then."

MSRE Alum Finds Opportunities in Market Challenges
By: Meghan Bokath, Communications Coordinator

Three years ago, Dan Berkus was writing papers, studying for finals and doing homework to earn his Master of Science in Real Estate (MSRE) degree at USD. These days, he is wheeling and dealing as an investment manager for Paragon Real Estate Investments, which he joined in 2006.

Berkus (MSRE '05) is currently in the midst of the most ambitious projects of his young career. He is contributing to an endeavor at Paragon to obtain $150 million in joint venture equity from a major institutional group to acquire existing multi-family properties in Hispanic markets throughout the Western United States. Over the next few years, Berkus hopes to leverage that equity into half a billion dollars of multi-family acquisitions for Paragon.

"It's extremely exciting here, considering I head up all acquisitions for Paragon, and we'd be more than doubling our current real estate portfolio," he says. "Paragon would be going from $350 million in holdings to $800 or $900 million." In addition to his acquisitions role at Paragon, Berkus also oversees the entitlement of a 160-acre industrial development project in Otay Mesa.

The joint financing venture comes as a welcome change-of-pace for Berkus, who, in a previous acquisitions role, had been stopped cold by the recent downturn in the market, which has changed markedly since he entered it after graduating in 2005. "My job went from being exciting and dynamic to a standstill, and just not being able to buy anything," he says. "All of a sudden, no deals worked, no landowners wanted to sell. It just made my job so tough."

Berkus believes that experiencing such an extreme dip in the market so early in his career will help him in the long run. "Real estate is a cyclical industry, and I think the earlier you become exposed to the downturn of a cycle, the better understanding you will have of the market," he says. Berkus also remains optimistic about the industry. "With that cycle comes opportunity," he says. "Even during the down times, there are still opportunities to make a lot of money."

In addition to his work at Paragon, Berkus is also actively involved in the USD Real Estate Alumni Association as the co-founder and current vice-chair of the organization. Over the past two years, he has seen the association's numbers swell to over 100 members, and he has been involved in planning the association's social networking, fundraising and educational events. Berkus believes networking connections to be a priceless commodity in the real estate industry and plans to tap into his USD connections to help him in the sourcing of multi-family deals over the next few years.

Former Students Use MSRE Program as Plateau to Launch Online Business
By: Meghan Bokath, Communications Coordinator

For Brent Gleeson, a lot has happened in two years. He graduated from the MSRE program at USD, launched a successful company in one of the largest real estate downturns in recent history, got married, had a baby, launched a new, financial division of his current company and raised a cool million dollars in capital to help finance a third venture. A former Navy SEAL, Gleeson is evidently still not lacking in ambition.

Brent Gleeson, 30, and Brandon Fishman, 26, began working on their business plan for NewCondosOnline.com within their first month in the Master of Science in Real Estate (MSRE) program at the University of San Diego. They used the networking contacts they made during the MSRE program to build rapport within the industry, and sought the guidance of USD professors when creating their business plan. By the time they graduated from the 11-month MSRE program, Gleeson was president, and Fishman was CEO of their new venture. The idea behind their Web site is simple: Offer consumers a single online resource where they can access a broad database of information about condo developments from around the country. Three months before graduation from the MSRE program, they launched the Web site. 

And it took off. 

NewCondosOnline.com now receives 50 million hits a month according to Google Analytics, making it, according to Gleeson, “the largest and most visited new condo advertising Web site in the county.” Gleeson and Fishman started posting profits within their second year of operation, and for the 2007 fiscal year posted revenues of $3.5 million. The Web site has gone fully international, marketing condos from 39 states and 75 countries. They employ 13 full-time employees, and outsource five additional employees for IT, PR and accounting activities.

Fishman and Gleeson travel across the country to promote their business, attend trade shows and meet with developers. In January of 2007, the pair launched NCO Capital as a way to enter the financing arm of the business. They work with banks, hedge funds and other financial institutions to help finance development projects and take advantage of bulk purchase opportunities. In the summer of 2007, they also assumed a 30 percent stake in the online tutoring Web site Tutorzilla.com and raised $1 million in capital to help finance the venture. 

Launching a condo-sales company in a troubled real estate market has been no easy task, but Gleeson cites their diversification into financing, their international platform and focus on the long term as what has helped keep them afloat. In fact, Gleeson says that the current market troubles make the success the pair have achieved that much sweeter. “The fun part is seeing something that you originally built, grow and thrive, especially with the challenges now in the real estate market,” Gleeson says. In addition to tackling these external market conditions, some of the most difficult tasks for Gleeson to overcome have been internal.

“The biggest challenge has been hiring the right people and managing them effectively,” he says. “I have had to tone down my military-esque management style a little because this is the civilian world, and you have do things a little bit differently.” Gleeson has found that many lessons from the SEAL community translate into the business community from expecting “110%” from his employees, to stressing accountability, being proactive and judging employees on results.

Gleeson’s experience in the Navy not only helped mold his managerial style, but it was also this training that brought him to San Diego initially. Gleeson came to San Diego 2001 for the arduous Navy SEAL training program, B.U.D.S. (Basic Underwater Demolition School), and has no plans to leave anytime soon.  “I love it,” he says with a laugh, “And I’m never leaving.”

SBA Real Estate Alum Warner Bonner Builds Social Responsibility Into His Work
By: Jeryldine Tully, Communications Director

As a member of USD’s men’s nationally ranked crew team and the U.S. Pre-Elite Rowing Team, School of Business Administration alum Warner Bonner used to dream of Olympic Gold. As a principal at a biotech real estate development firm in San Diego, Bonner now dreams of being awarded gold of a different kind: Gold LEED certification from the U.S. Green Building Council.

Such designations are becoming increasingly important at Phase 3 Properties, where Bonner has focused on biotech development and management projects since he joined the company, founded by CEO Neil Fox, in 2001. Given that the projects Phase 3 is taking on these days involve federally subsidized development plans for universities, research institutions and nonprofits, most are required to be sustainable, as judged by the Leadership in Energy and Environmental Design (LEED) Green Building Rating System.

“We’re on the frontline of putting green technology into play,” says Bonner.

Along with his partners at Phase 3, Bonner is currently involved with three green development projects:

• Pacific Station—An eco-friendly mixed-use site in Encinitas, which incorporates solar panel systems in the form of roof shingles;
• The New York Science Center—The $350 million conversion of a 500,000 square foot industrial armory that will use heat recapturing, natural ventilation and co-generation systems; and
• The Asia Pacific Research Center—A 450,000 square foot $300 million development that intakes deep frigid seawater as the source for a green HVAC system.

The level of science that goes into such business deals has provided Bonner with on-the-job educational opportunities he never imagined.

“I graduated from USD with a 3.0, and I had to work hard for that 3.0,” he says. “Now, I’m dealing with the brightest minds in the world—brilliant scientists working on a cure for cancer and AIDS. It’s opened up a whole new world for me.”

It’s also dramatically changed his view of what “quality” development is.

“When I got into real estate, green technologies were not what I was focused on,” says Bonner, who graduated from USD in 1997 with a bachelor’s degree in business administration and an emphasis in real estate. “I was thinking real estate: do well, make money.” Now, environmental considerations are at the forefront. “There is a responsibility back to society,” he says.

The challenge, Bonner says, is balancing the social responsibility with the financial. “These deals don’t typically pencil initially,” he says. “Biotech companies burn through capital, making them tough to finance. The hard costs can run up as high as $1,700 a square foot to build. It makes the Bellagio look cheap.”

To close the gap, Phase 3 relies on sources such as state tobacco settlement funds, New Markets Tax Credits (NMTC), and other subsidy programs, which provide businesses incentives to develop research space in emerging markets.

The processes involved in such government-linked funding are intricate and seemingly infinite at times, not to mention fraught with risk. Says Bonner: “A lot of times, we’re just a little over our skis.”

The lesson, he says, is clear.

“If you start acting like a ‘bling bling’ developer, you’re in trouble. You’ve got to stay humble in this business. Pride cometh before the fall.”

USD Real Estate Alum Studies Urban Design at Harvard
By: Meghan Bokath, Communications Coordinator

When it came to expanding her knowledge of urban design, USD alum Liz DiLorenzo went straight to the top academic institution in the country. She ended up at Harvard University, and defined her career path in the process.

DiLorenzo, who graduated from USD with a bachelor's degree in business administration with emphases in real estate and finance, recently completed the Career Discovery program at Harvard, where she studied urban planning. DiLorenzo initially joined the program because she was interested in becoming a sustainable commercial developer, and saw urban design and architecture as a conduit to a career in green and sustainable design.

Her summer at Harvard consisted of six weeks of intense studio work, seminars, lectures, workshops and fieldtrips aimed to help young professionals define and clarify their career plans and goals. DiLorenzo spent on average 15 to18 hours a day, five days a week, engaged in some form of coursework. As a student in the Urban Planning concentration of the program, she traveled extensively throughout Boston, visiting job sites and meeting real estate professionals in the city. A typical day included lectures from distinguished guest speakers in the morning, followed by a lunch lecture of industry professionals, and then classroom and studio time for the remainder of the day. Many of the speakers highlighted green and sustainable development.

DiLorenzo started her career on the development side of the industry, where she was initially a real estate and market research analyst at The Corky McMillin Companies.

"Coming from the developer perspective, we were always focused on profit, profit, profit," she says. Yet, through the Career Discovery program, DiLorenzo was able to gain insight into the bigger picture of real estate, seeing the field through the eyes of city planners, designers, architects, green enthusiasts and financiers. She says she now has a greater appreciation for all the stakeholders involved in real estate development and sees projects with a new perspective—a perspective not solely motivated by profit.

Her final project was an analysis of the South Boston Waterfront, where she and a partner researched practical uses for the site and created numerous prospective drawings, charts and written plans to explain their ideas for the best use for the site. She defended her proposal before a panel of Harvard professors, Harvard alumni and current Harvard students, where her efforts were evaluated. Her critique ended with one Harvard professor saying DiLorenzo's project was one she would have expected to see from a much more experienced student.

Since completing the program, DiLorenzo has decided to focus her career on green and sustainable commercial real estate. The program confirmed her passion for green development, which she will pursue through real estate, rather than architecture or design work. She plans on taking what she learned about green practices and using them in the 11 commercial properties she currently manages for SD Commercial as East Coast divisional asset manager.

MSRE Alum Speaks the "Language" of Real Estate in San Diego-Tijuana Region
By: Meghan Bokath, Communications Coordinator

Refreshed from a 12-day sailing expedition across the Pacific Ocean and poised with a new diploma on his office wall, Lorenzo Berho is ready to make a difference in the business community of the San Diego-Tijuana border region. Having just graduated in July from the Master of Science in Real Estate (MSRE) program at USD, Berho sees industrial real estate as his ticket to promote the economic development and growth of foreign investment in Mexico. Growing up in Mexico City, Berho has first-hand knowledge of business practices in the country. He believes that great opportunities await those who are

willing to adopt more global standards of doing business. "Mexico plays an important role in the global business markets," he says "but there are a lot of issues that need to change and can be improved upon."

Berho and his associates at Corporacion Inmobiliaria Vesta (Vesta), are working hard to make it easier for foreign investment to enter Mexico. Berho is pushing the Mexican business community to adopt more international standards of business, standards he knows are essential for local and international business success. Currently an acquisition and development manager at Vesta, Berho joined the company in 2003 as an asset manager. Vesta, which specializes in industrial real estate, currently employs 16 employees and has operations at three offices throughout Mexico. While the size of the company's operations may be small, Berho feels that the impact of his work is far-reaching. "I really feel that working in industrial real estate in Mexico, you are part of the economic growth of the country," he says. "You are working for the country, for the future of the country."

Part of the challenge of Berho's job is to find foreign investment to fund Vesta's industrial real estate development projects and stimulate the economic growth of Mexico. He also plays a key role in convincing international organizations to bring their manufacturing and distribution operations to Mexico. To do so, he travels extensively throughout the United States and Mexico, managing projects and building relationships with Vesta's partners. Part of the appeal of the MSRE program for Berho was its geographical proximity to Vesta's Tijuana office and the offices of some of Vesta's partner companies in San Diego and the Bay Area.

In addition to the draw of its location, Berho's main reason for joining the MSRE program was to become a better link between American and Mexican business cultures. To create a successful multi-national company, Berho knew he needed to "learn the language" of doing business in the United States. This included learning how to do business in the United States so that business communication and operations between Vesta and other international companies could run more smoothly. Berho knew he needed to bring international business practices to Mexico in order to increase investor confidence in the region. Berho hopes to bring his global perspective to a business community typically ruled by "tradition and consistency" and build Mexico's reputation as a legitimate investment opportunity.

While in the MSRE program, Berho worked part time at Vesta, applying the skills he was learning in the classroom to his day-to-day business activities. Berho's colleagues knew he was in the program, and he says they slowly started coming to him more and more for professional and business advice. They saw he was gaining real estate "experience and skills that not everyone in the company had," and began to rely on him heavily as a resource.

Even though he only recently graduated, Berho "misses the [MSRE] program already." He formed close ties with students not only from his own class, but with students from earlier MSRE classes as well. A small, tight-knit community, Berho says he still sees many of his MSRE classmates, and is working on setting up monthly social events for local alumni to catch up. In late September, Berho and several other MSRE alumni went on a bike trip from Rosarito to Ensenada, Mexico, the type of trip Berho says he loves planning. "I love to bring people to Mexico, to let them see Mexico from a different perspective" he says.