The team led by Raus, who is a principal at Staubach, will focus on suburban accounts, particularly the O'Hare and Northwest submarkets which they have experience in, says Robert Hepding, chief operating officer for Staubach. The team led by Leiding and Kotrogiannis, both senior vice presidents with Staubach, will focus on national accounts. "In the end of 2006, we went through a detailed needs analysis in our annual strategic planning process," Hepding says. "We identified areas of key focus for us for 2007 and both of those groups fit an identified need for us, and they are also great culture fits for our organization." Future plans for the company are to focus on industrial and logistics, he says.

Although Staubach has hired eight former Equis employees within a month time span, it is not a reflection on Equis or Staubach, the companies say. "In our industry, it is overall in a state of flux based on some recent acquisitions. I do not think it is something that is specific to one firm or another," says Hepding, who joined Staubach last year from CB Richard Ellis.

Chris Wood, senior vice president and managing director of Chicago operations for Equis, says there are "ebbs and flows" with the human resources at Equis just like other businesses. "There is a tremendous amount of competition in place right now for broker teams," Wood says. "The timing of these two different teams going to Staubach is coincidental but we wish them the best. [They are] great guys. We wish they had decided to stay at Equis but certainly I understand that they want to do something different."