Swerdlow, a 25-year veteran of the commercial real estate industry, tells GlobeSt.com that he has been commuting between the East Coast and the West Coast since taking the new position, but he plans to be based in the Newport Beach office once he completes the move. He points out that the Newport Beach office is only a few minutes from the Orange County Airport, which will be convenient for visiting other CBRE offices. "I expect to be in the offices a lot because it's my style to be close to the field," he says.
One of Swerdlow's tasks as the newly appointed division president will be overseeing the integration of the recently acquired Trammell Crow Co. into CBRE in the West. He points out that integrating the Trammell Crow facilities management, project management and other services into CBRE is part of a larger emphasis on integrating services at CBRE.
"Our theme for this year and for post merger is 'perfecting the matrix,' which involves integrating all of our lines of business in all of our markets," Swerdlow tells GlobeSt.com. The theme fits with his background, which includes considerable experience in managing operations in the East before he stepped into his role at global corporate services, where he was responsible for developing GCS' business strategies and managing senior client relationships.
When Swerdlow first joined CBRE in 1990, for example, he was president of the company's New York office and later headed the tri-state region. He says the experience in those posts should stand him in good stead, although managing an office or a division is a more complicated task than it was in those days.
"Whereas 20 years ago we had one or two lines of business running through an office (brokerage and property management), now we might have 10 lines of business running through the same office," Swerdlow says. "Today we are focused on full-service solutions, which requires more sophistication on the part of all managers."
Swerdlow takes over a CBRE western division that includes 4,300 professionals in 12 states and more than $1 billion in business. He notes that besides being home to the headquarters of CBRE, the western division has been a "catalyst for much of our growth."
Before joining CBRE, Swerdlow was a development officer for Hines Interests in New York. He began his professional career at the New York law firm of Barrett Smith Shapiro Simon & Armstrong, where he concentrated on a corporate law practice. In his post as president of CBRE's global corporate services line of business, which he held for five years, Swerdlow oversaw an operation providing services to more than 150 companies worldwide.
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