"We've always described our vision for Transwestern more in terms of the character of our organization than in growth metrics," says founder and chairman Robert Duncan. "We're more focused on creating a working environment that brings out the best in our people, and we measure our success more by what we call the smiles on our clients' faces than by statistics. Like any company, we have our areas of improvement and we're always working to become better, but we're always about the people, culture and the teamwork."

Duncan relates that Transwestern's mantra, "Bold Vision/Noble Mission" is repeated often within the company. "Our methodology is empowerment and the bottom line is performance. We believe that by doing the top-line things really well, well consistently deliver bottom-line results. We have an ambitious vision for the company, to be the number-one real estate value creator in America. And our vision is to set the standard in the industry for quality service by bringing out the best in our people. In short, as long as the firm works to fulfill its mission, the growth will take care of itself.

That growth has indeed occurred, and in a major way. Earlier this year, Transwestern entered into an alliance with BNP Paribas Real Estate, giving the once-domestic company a presence in the global markets. The move was spurred by the changing needs of its corporate user clients, relates Heard. "It became imperative to us in this emerging global economy to be able to serve our clients globally," he says. "So a number of our executive committee members were tasked with evaluating some of the global alternatives."

The firm considered expanding its brand globally as well as forming several alliances with local companies in the foreign markets it was targeting. But, says Heard, "the relationship with BNP Paribas Real Estate really stood out as an opportunity to form an alliance with a single company that had global reach. Not only did we have a shared vision in the way clients are to be served, but we also developed through that process a very good relationship that we thought we could truly galvanize."

With Transwestern as BNP Paribas' exclusive US service provider for corporations they represent outside of the states, and BNP Paribas as Transwestern's exclusive service provider for domestic clients doing work overseas, the alliance can now represent clients in 150 offices across 30 countries around the globe. A steering committee comprised of members of both firms has created a process to transition clients within global and US markets on a seamless basis.

And while he says Transwestern is always in a growth mode and would consider other expansion opportunities that make sense, Heard maintains that "the core of the relationship and the primary substance of what we've created will serve us very well for many years to come." He adds, however, that the company is looking at "several M&A candidates active in the US."

That doesn't mean things have always been in a go-go growth mode for Transwestern. The firm did pull back on expenditures, but in a strategic, focused way. When every company in America realized it needed to cut costs four or five years ago, Transwestern made a commitment to cut as many costs as possible—without reducing headcount or affecting the level of service it delivers to its clients.

"We needed to be thoughtful about what we spent, but also be mindful of the impact," recalls Mark Doran, COO. "Travel is always one of the easiest things to cut: Do I really need to take that trip to go see that client? But we made the decision that in a period of time when your client is under a lot of stress and facing its own challenges, it's important to be there for them. We put a lot of our senior leadership on the road, in front of clients, to make sure they knew that we were there to both understand their issues and how we could help them. Those were the kinds of things that we maintained."

On the people side, adds Doran, "team members are our most valuable asset. We love our team and wanted to keep it together." Rather than layoffs, the staff embraced a policy of shared sacrifices on the compensation level across the board—though Doran notes that the cuts were much smaller for those in support positions than those in leadership, which took more significant reductions.

"That's just the way it should be; we don't deserve a gold star for that. But working together through difficult times really knitted our culture together even stronger. I think it was an approach that honored our people and made them feel like they were a part of a team that was forward thinking and cared about them." He's quick to add, though, that the paycuts were the first thing restored once business started to pick up.

Not only did it retain its existing staff, Transwestern also added to its headcount over the past few years. So when the economy started to improve, it was able to hit the ground running with a full complement of team members on the playing field, rather than having to ramp up and recruit again. "Though the economy is still volatile, we're in a better place today than we were in '08 and '09," says Heard.

As the level of their clients' sophistication has risen, so have Transwestern's efforts to meet their needs. As a result, the firm has invested heavily on its internal systems, processes and procedures to better serve those relationships. A lot of that is technology related— equipping staff with mobile applications, resources and access to critical information, which would allow them more face-time with clients. "Technology is at the forefront of our business; it's really an active function in supporting our people and our client service delivery," says Doran.

These days, he contends, the firm's clients—namely, corporate space users and institutional players—are "trying to partner with firms that have broad capabilities, deep benches and are able to plug into their strategic and tactical objectives and add value. They're looking for high levels of execution."

For occupants and corporate users, the efficiency of space must be balanced with its cost. For institutions, the focus has been maximizing the value of their investments, tenant retention and building efficiency through sustainability initiatives and engineering. "The blocking and tackling that, during an onward-and-upward environment was not as much at the forefront is now very much front-and-center with owners as well as occupiers. We're working hard to stay close to our clients probably more so than ever in terms of understanding their objectives and how we can serve a meaningful role in assisting them."

Those efforts have not gone unnoticed by those it works with. Rodney Richerson, regional president for the Central US and director of asset management for KBS Realty Advisors and its affiliate, KBS Capital Advisors, in Orange County, CA, says Transwestern is one of 10 different management companies it works with nationally. With property and leasing management of some eight million square feet, Transwestern is one of KBS' largest service providers, and the relationship spans over 15 years.

One of the reasons behind the strong link between the two companies, says Richerson, "is the active involvement of, and our relationship with, senior-level executive management. They push for performance from the top down." In October 2010, KBS bought a Houston property for which Transwestern assisted in underwriting. More than 70% of the tenant roster was rolling over in the first three years of ownership, but working together, the firms managed to completely restabilize the asset at higher-than-anticipated rents within the first 12 months of obtaining the title. "We consider them one of, if not the, top service provider in the country for us."

Richerson notes that Transwestern has also sold a number of assets on KBS' behalf in Texas, and taken advantage of its domestic growth as well, enlisting some of its new US teams. In addition, "We've had discussions with them in terms of participating as equity partners on some of their development deals."

CareerBuilder LLC has been a client for nearly four years, since its longtime broker, Vineet Sahgal, moved to Transwestern. The firm assists the online job services company with market analysis, landlord background checks and similar services.

George Cortez, CareerBuilder's global director of real estate and facilities in Chicago, reveals that comparatively, the professionalism he receives from Transwestern is unrivaled—calls are returned within a half-hour and issues or concerns are discussed and addressed immediately. "They also understand our business; we have several divisions, and they sit down with us and go through what every division does," he says. "They understand who our clients are and who our competitors are. They basically do a background check on us, and the information they provide is based exactly on our needs."

Transwestern's expansion has also benefited CareerBuilder, though some clients initially questioned it. "When everyone retrenched or right-sized, I was a little surprised to see Transwestern aggressively move forward. But now, I can see why they did that. They're in a great position as far as being able to support their clients." In fact, Cortez relates that CareerBuilder has done and is currently working on a good amount of business in Europe through its global alliance with BNP Paribas—and "their culture is almost identical to what I'm accustomed to with Transwestern."

Through the past few years, Transwestern has seen the size of its management and leasing portfolio significantly increase, along with its activity in the investment arena. "We're in a much more capable position now than we've ever been," says Heard. While the overall growth has been diversified, he does point to the firm's development and investment business practices, which are areas of renewed focus.

In a way, it brings the company full circle, back to its roots. When Duncan founded Transwestern 34 years ago, the firm was a developer focused on Texas markets. When development slowed down in the 1980s, it then moved into the services business—a reactive move, according to Duncan. "We'd been in the spec development business, but the markets were so bad that we were basically all dressed up with nowhere to go," he recalls. "So we shifted to what the market needed at the time, which was problem solving at the local project level."

At the time, he explains, there was a major movement toward foreclosure and "involuntary ownership" in Texas, and that became the biggest impetus for the firm's growth over a period of years. After that, it was all about growing with the market; Transwestern later crafted what Duncan calls the "Millennium Plan" to become a national, diversified, real estate company.

"We developed concurrent strategies for the three legs of our stool: services, investment and development," Duncan relates. Transwestern created a value-add discretionary fund investment business based in Chicago in the mid-1990s that grew to over $4 billion of equity in 11 funds over the next 15 years. After $10 billion in property acquisitions averaging mid-teen returns for its investors, Transwestern divested the unit in 2010.

The financial debacle of the late 2000s brought Transwestern's core investment activities to center stage. "As investors began to seek more control, better transparency, a closer alignment of interests, reduced volatility and closer proximity to the real estate, our separate account business really matured into full stride," says Duncan."We brought our investment activities under the Transwestern umbrella, offering a fully integrated service delivery system."

By replacing a top-down "allocator" model with a bottom-up "operator" model, Duncan says the firm was able to speed up and improve decision making by having boots-on-the-ground and realtime market reconnaisance at the local project level. For the past few years the investment strategy has involved core and opportunistic product, though, he adds, certain niche value-add opportunities have emerged of late.

Meanwhile, development—the very root of the company—may offer the most lucrative returns, but it's very cyclical and local. "We depend heavily on our decentralized operating model to drive what we call a mosaic strategy, characterized by controlled, disciplined underwriting and financial engineering at the corporate level but with a range of eclectic development strategies emanating from the local markets. We're happy with our market position today and have the readiness in each region to meet the demand for space in all product types, as it arises."

It seems that the more things change, the more things stay the same—Duncan stresses that Transwestern has had the same three legs of its stool for the past quarter-century. Each component may have its own strategy and infrastructure, but the founder says they're fully integrated and all contribute to the firm's vision.

And speaking of vision, what does the company's leadership have in plan for the future? One thing's for sure: don't expect a move into the public market. "We've been a private company for our entire 34-year history and have enjoyed dynamic growth over the past decade, especially the past five years," says Heard. "Our global footprint will continue to grow, but the strategy to remain a private business has really aided our growth by freeing up our senior leadership to meet extensively with clients. Additionally, our executive committee leadership remains closely aligned, allowing us to make decisive course corrections as the forces of the economy dictate."

At this moment, Transwestern is the largest it's ever been by almost every metric—staff, clients served, square feet under management, gross revenue—and given the recent pace of development and investment activity in recovering markets, it will likely add those practices to its list of most prolific areas over the next three years. In five years? Heard expects the only change to be in the size of its business: "We'll be larger and more capable than ever, but we'll remain a very collegial firm and still enjoy the business as much as have."