Adam Robinson '01 — On the Cutting Edge of Real Estate in San Diego
We recently interviewed Adam Robinson '01 to gain insights into his journey in and passion for commercial real estate. Adam is very active in the San Diego community, engaged with University of San Diego real estate students and is on the cutting edge of real estate in San Diego.
Adam is the founder and president of RPG and has been active in San Diego’s commercial real estate sector since 2001. He began his career as a broker and went on to establish his investment and development company in 2009. His firm specializes in the acquisition, development, operations, and management of various types of commercial properties across Southern California, with a focus on San Diego County. Adam earned a bachelor’s in business administration from the University of San Diego. As a licensed real estate broker in California, he has gained several professional affiliations, including YPO, CCIM, SIOR, and CPM. He is also a member of the Urban Land Institute and serves on the Policy Advisory Board at the University of San Diego. Recently, he was appointed a trustee for the Quail Botanical Gardens and was recognized as one of San Diego’s “50 Most Influential Leaders” by the San Diego Daily Transcript. Adam enjoys exercising, biohacking, pickleball, anything with an engine (bigger is better), great food and traveling.
Read the interview below.
Q: Where did you grow up and what is your educational background? What led you into real estate?
A: I grew up in Los Gatos in Northern California and graduated from USD in 2001. The reason I got into real estate all started when I was 18 years old. At the time, my mom owned an HOA company and a small office building of about 12,000 square feet. She was planning to sell the HOA company and the office building. I convinced her to sell a portion of the office building to my 13-year-old brother and myself and that we would pay her back with the rent we received. We hired a local broker to market the property and within a week he had a few interested parties.
One of the interested parties was a startup that was going to mail DVD’s out to subscribers “Netflix.” We probably could have invested in the company as well, but we passed on the deal and went with another tenant that had $45M in the bank. My mother was charging about $1 per square foot at the time. We ended up leasing it for seven years with four percent increases at $7 a square foot per month. We were able to pay my mom back in six months.
The leasing broker who worked on it spent about a week on the deal and made over $250,000. I saw that and thought, “Wow, that’s what I want to do.” Fast forward several years—I was working as a broker; my first deal was $243 and definitely nowhere near the six-figure payout I imagined. Turns out, it’s a lot harder and way more work than I thought.
Thanks to my mom, for seeing my vision and taking a chance on a young kid who didn’t know a thing about real estate at the time.
Q: What positions did you hold during and after college?
A: After college I got a job as an industrial broker at Lee & Associates. I stayed with them until I started my own investment firm.
After brokerage, I started a real estate company with a fellow alum from USD and pivoted more into real estate investment and ownership. That company was very successful for many years.
Then, I started my own company—RPG. RPG has truly been a labor of love for real estate, for the San Diego community and for bringing unique opportunities to the market.
I also mentor college students from USD’s real estate program, both in the undergrad and the Master of Science in Real Estate program. I believe in giving back to organizations that helped me on the way up. If I can share my mistakes with the younger generation to learn from, then I can say I’ve done a job well done.
Q: How did you start RPG? How many people do you employ and what makes your business model unique?
A: RPG was started in 2016, and we have grown into a team of over 25 people.
RPG is a real estate investment and development firm that is uniquely positioned. We acquire and develop Industrial, R&D, office, retail and multi-family with the largest focus on industrial. We specialize in San Diego County. We’re local and I believe that makes us special. We know the market; we know the community; and we know what is needed in the community.
RPG is also vertically integrated, we have in-house leasing, maintenance, construction and accounting, which allows us to effectively manage all our assets in house. We believe this helps us maintain quality and deliver at a high level across all functions of the business.
Q: What is the most unique, challenging or exciting project that RPG has taken on?
A: We are currently working on a $110 million, 100,000 square-foot mixed-use project in Encinitas, which is where I call home. It is a very unique project west of the 101. What made this project challenging was that we first had to assemble multiple parcels of land to accommodate the project. I spent a significant amount of time finding the right parcels to bring a project like this to fruition, and in an area that was positioned for long term growth. From there, we worked through the entitlement process to have the project entitled for mixed-use. The entitlement process takes time, and a deep understanding of the community and local parties involved. We are working towards breaking ground on the project later this year.
Q: What are the most valuable lessons you learned at USD through the real estate program and how have applied those skills in real-life?
A: One of the most valuable lessons I took away from the USD real estate program, and applied in real life, is the importance of networking with other local real estate individuals. The USD program always hosted events where individuals could connect with real estate leaders in the community and that has been an extremely important part of my career.
The fellow students I sat alongside in the program are now leaders in their field in commercial real estate, and we are all grown up and doing business together.
Q: What impact has having had a mentor had on your career and/or being a mentor influenced another’s careers?
A: Both having a mentor and the ability to be a mentor to others has certainly had an impact on my life and career. I had the same mentor for many years who also at one time was a business partner but has now since passed. It was great to have someone to bounce ideas off, and who I could continue to learn and grow from their expertise.
When it comes to mentoring others, I often get asked, “What should I do?” and I always reply, “I am not you.” You know what makes you unique, what your vision is, what I can do is tell you what I did when I went through a similar experience. Then, they can glean what resonates to them from lessons I’ve learned, mistakes I’ve made, or how I have approached situations in the past.
Q: What are your top recommendations for real estate students to help encourage them to build relationships and have a successful career within the real estate industry?
A: My top recommendations for real estate students are to intern for multiple companies with different real estate disciplines from lending to brokerage to development to entitlements. This will give you a wide breadth of knowledge that will serve your future career, but it will also help you identify which area of real estate best resonates with you. There are so many different disciplines and careers paths so increasing exposure to different aspects will play a vital role in the path that makes the most sense for you.
Another recommendation would be to always be networking. Real estate is a business founded in relationships, so it is important to always be looking for opportunities to network and meet new people in the field.
Q: What sparked your interest in your involvement with the Burnham-Moores Center for Real Estate Policy Advisory Board and USD’s Real Estate Alumni Association?
A: I am a big believer in giving back, just as people have helped me throughout my career. If you have been given help, you need to pay it forward. The Burnham-Moores Center for Real Estate’s Policy Advisory Board is a great committee that I am thankful to be a part of and contribute to in any way to help set the path for others to learn and grow.
Q: What are three things you are most passionate about and what are your passions and interests?
A: First is my family.
Second, I am definitely a health and wellness/biohacking junkie. I love all things wellness and longevity. It is a very important aspect of my life, and just as in real estate, I am willing to push the envelope sometimes in this category. I’ve tried things like plasmapheresis and anything really that is cutting edge.
And naturally, commercial real estate would be my third. I am extremely passionate about how transformative commercial real estate can be for communities when it’s the right project for the right community. Again, this goes back to our core focus at RPG, which is investing only in San Diego. You have to know the community in order to be able to truly understand what it needs and what it will benefit from, so that’s something that has always been really exciting for me. How we have the foresight to bring something that will be truly impactful to the community whether it’s a new mixed-use center or an industrial facility that will drive job growth, etc.
I really enjoy health, wellness and an active lifestyle. I am also very into cars, both racing and collecting them. Right now, I have over 20 cars in my collection. My wife would call it a problem not a collection, but it is something that I truly enjoy. I also really enjoy being outdoors and in nature. I like to spend time bow hunting and shooting, which is another hobby of mine.
Adam Robinson '01