AT: Thank you. Yeah, well, I’ve worked in the industry more than 20 years now, briefly in Scotland and then the great majority of that time here in Canada. I started out in investment brokerage, which I think is actually very good grounding for anybody who wants to end up on the development side. You learn a lot about finance. You learn a lot about investor intention. You learn a lot about leasing at the same time and so that was a good grounding for me. I had the opportunity early on to be involved with a few really unique deals and that created a lot of experience for me and it also led to an opportunity to join a development company and learn the development business, which I’ve just found fascinating ever since. I’ve really enjoyed that and in my career journey, I’ve had the chance to be involved in everything from entitlements and zoning through the leasing and the actual running the development project through to the dispossession and even the takeout financing. So I’ve seen sort of the gamut of the business and through that, I decided that I wanted to step out on my own. I set up Prevail Consultants and the underlying idea behind the company was just that I enjoy what I do. I feel that every project requires resources, expertise, and time and very few people have all three of those. I at least had expertise and can create time to work on those projects. So that was what led me into the business. On the NAOP side, I first was exposed to NAOP when the chapter started here in Edmonton and I admit I was pretty ignorant of the association and what it did at the time. Initially, I wasn’t too engaged because a lot of what the chapter did at the start was networking and I thought, you know, Edmonton being a smaller market, I thought I’d sort of covered off my networking. But two board members really highlighted to me what the association does on a North America level in terms of government relations work and education and that resonated with me, the idea of really elevating the profession and that got me started, you know, in the U.S. in particular, you know, chapters have a long history of strong advocacy for the industry and so I thought, you know, that’s the sort of thing I want to get involved with and I’ve been, you know, able to, through that, serve as our local chapter president and get involved in the executive committee for North America and this year, 2025, I’m the first ever Canadian to be the chair of NAOP North America. So that’s just a great learning opportunity for me.

DA: Well, I’m really looking forward to gaining your insights then with your, you know, through that lens of the industry experience and then starting your own company. I guess that entrepreneurial spirit and bringing that to commercial real estate and now taking on the leadership role with NAOP. So I think you’ll have a lot to offer our listeners. I’m just curious before we dive in, what do you think has really helped you to be successful? What do you think was unique about yourself or your early days in this journey for you that, you know, has really helped you to sort of, you know, find your expertise, your voice, and whether it be skills, mentors, colleagues, books, you know, the NAOP association itself. But what do you sort of lend, you know, feel really has made a difference for you?

AT: I think being curious, wanting to learn was just a great attribute, especially early on. I didn’t hesitate to ask questions, to speak up, to want to put some time in to learn and I think commercial real estate is this incredibly broad industry, if you want it to be and you can bump up against people who’ve chosen to reduce it down to being about a fee or being around simple things. But if you’re animated by it as I am, and as I see some of our really strongest industry members being, then there’s this tremendous opportunity to be curious, to learn what’s going on in the economy, to watch what’s happening with AI or with warehousing or with multifamily trends, and just bring that day-to-day into your business. So I think that was a great underpinning to a career in commercial real estate. I think the other thing that’s advantageous is whatever you’re going to do in life, be passionate about it. If you don’t enjoy it, my goodness, the amount of time that we all have to put into it anyway, you might as well at least enjoy what you’re doing and so I’ve been mindful, especially in the last several years, I think I’ve been very mindful about working on things that I really believe in or that I have a passion for and over my career, I’ve been fortunate to work with companies and organisations that were passionate, that did want to do something really at a higher quality. So I think those were really good. You mentioned my NAHEP membership. I obviously want to mention that too. NAHEP’s been hugely beneficial to me in a couple of different regards. One is working in a more regional market like Edmonton, but aspiring to have a practice that reflected the best of what’s going on in our industry. There’s a really unique benefit of 55 chapters, more than 21,000 members right across North America. So you get to see what best in class looks like. You get to sit down with people who are doing innovative things. Even at our conferences, a key part of the itinerary are tours, going out and looking at projects and so, you know, I’ve gone out in Phoenix and seen different projects there or Chicago or any number of different cities where you really get to see something new and I think that desire to not just repeat what I’ve previously done, but to look to do something more, I think that served me well and at least in my own case, that’s what’s enabled me to continue to feel passionate about my job in our industry.

DA: Right. Well, I think curiosity has definitely been a common thread amongst our listeners. So I get that. It makes a ton of sense and, you know, listen, commercial real estate is the largest asset class in the world. So it deserves passion. It deserves, you know, we’re really thinking big and really love what we do to work in what is, you know, granted a very large industry, but it’s also, it’s a challenging industry. It’s a complex industry and I think that that passion probably has served you well. You know, today I’m super interested in this whole way in which commercial real estate is continuing to evolve to meet the needs of people. It’s customers. It’s the people that occupy spaces and certainly the way in which technology is further enhancing the experience that’s being offered and what I like to say, helping to make these places destinations of choice. I think you’ll agree that the core, the purpose of office has changed dramatically. In particular, if we look at that as an asset class, it’s no longer just about space. It’s really about creating experiences that make people valued, connected, supported and I think the winners in this, you know, particularly in the office category are going to be those that truly understand and are able to merge this notion of experience with workplace functionality, right? It’s no longer building and they will come. So I’m just curious on your thoughts again through the multiple lenses that you have, you know, what you think about the commercial real estate industry and how it’s responding, adapting to this transformation.

AT: Well, I’d like to just go back to something you said a moment ago for a start, which is that our business is immensely complex and I think we ignore that to our detriment. 10 years ago or so, I was speaking at a conference in Toronto well in advance of some of the changes that then became evident in office and I just highlighted that at least in my view, you know, if you look at what’s going on in society, we need to be able to anticipate and respond to that in commercial real estate. Part of our challenge is, you know, we’re building assets that have a multi-decade lifespan and yet we’re dealing with changes in social behavior that are coming fast and furious and are probably going to come faster than ever over the next few years too. So I think, you know, office is a good example where groups that started to really think about what people were expecting, you know, even just the idea that gets overlooked but say personal brand, that we’re in a difficult environment to hire the real number one top talent. It matters to them that the place that they work, that the organization that they are involved with has a personal brand. You know, I did my co-op year at university longer than I’d like to remember and at that time, the attitude was really get hired by a large corporation and then try to work successfully for a large corporation. Many of our new entrants to the industry now are much more entrepreneurial than that. They see the company, when they get into an interview, they’re asking, you know, what are you doing about social issues? What’s your environmental policy? And so if we’re not connecting into some of that as a landlord, we’re neglecting what our tenants are seeking or our users are seeking and then by extension, what their staff are demanding of them. So I do think that the argument or the debate around the space has changed a lot. It’s obvious that that’s happened in office and that’s where a lot of the headlines have been. But that’s equally true, I would say, in something like multifamily. You know, we’ve seen a transition rental product really must be condo quality. You know, before it would, people preferred condo quality, but now it’s more or less essential. People want to see that their building’s been renovated. You’re going to have a really difficult time if you have a two bed, one bath, or you don’t have en suite laundry or these sorts of things that some years ago sort of didn’t matter and people were driven by cost. Now people are driven a lot by their brand and sense of self and so I think we’ve had to adapt to that as an industry.

DA: Well, I think that whole, the whole concept around brand, I think speaks directly to this notion of experience and I think you’re right. I think, and we’re starting to see this now that, you know, building owners, operators, both office multifamily across asset classes are now understanding that their business is a brand. If they have the opportunity to stand for something beyond again, just, you know, a siloed piece of physical real estate that each of those properties, you know, taken together represent the company and represent the corporation and represent potentially the brand and help make the connection to the consumer and I think what we propose is that, you know, the people that occupy these spaces, they should not be seen as and labeled as tenants. They should be labeled and seen as customers.

AT: Yes. 

DA: And then we would think of them more from, you know, like as a consumer marketer and we would understand that our brand really matters. Right?

AT: Well, that’s right and, you know, again, you know, a lot of my work has been in retail. The idea persists even till now that there are experiential retailers and non-experiential retailers. I like to say that every retailer is an experiential retailer. Some people just haven’t figured that out yet and you’ll hear about, oh, you know, so-and-so went bankrupt because sales are moving online. Sears maybe being an example and I said to people, I’ve never met anyone who bought a lawnmower online. So I think the issue was more that the experience wasn’t great, that you didn’t feel animated when you went in and the centers that I see that are really leading the way have created public space. They’ve got public art. They’ve got a mix of tenants that really reflects a place where people might want to come and spend the day. Even you look at your local mall’s food court in 2025 versus, say, 2015 even, the food court offering is very different. The seating experience is different. There has to be a reason now for people to come there and that discipline that was being forced onto the retail industry, I think is being seen now by the office market also. If you don’t provide a reason for people to come, they’re going to choose not to and we can’t assume anything differently than that.

DA: I think every asset class now has the opportunity to truly reimagine its business and to your point, it’s not online versus bricks and mortar. It’s not office or at home. There are no extremes any longer. Now it is all of the above and we need to create opportunities for people to come together to shop, to do work, to live. We’ve often said that offices are becoming more home-like. Homes are becoming more office-like. The boundaries are just blurring between all these different asset classes. You’ve talked about food and food services and food courts and now, of course, we have food halls. We’ve had several of them pop up in the Toronto market. They’re a major destination, both for social interaction and just an opportunity to engage and interact with all different food offerings. So it’s an exciting time.

AT: Yeah, and I think that nuance can get lost. People are trying to look for a sound bite and with these trends, there can be resistance, defensiveness, where, no, no, no, that’s not true. You know, everybody has to come back to the office and it’s better and we get more done in person and, you know, we’d probably debate or discuss those things for a while. But I think more importantly, we need to understand the nuances behind that. Yes, maybe you do get more done in person, but then there’s a lot of people who have experienced what it’s like now not to have a commute and so there’s this complicated series of choices that people are being asked to make and, you know, for top talent in particular, the idea that you just be compelled to come back is probably not as true as some people would like it to be. Equally, the idea that, you know, we’re all going to sit around at home. Certainly, I know for myself that I didn’t enjoy that experience, that I still look forward to this day to going out to conferences, to having in-person interactions. So I think that we do well, especially those of us who aspire to really leave a mark in the things that we’re doing. We do well to embrace the nuance in these conversations.

DA: I agree. I agree. You know, moving forward, I think that people are really going to continue to expect this one-stop, seamless, personalized digital experience. We think technology is going to play a big factor in how we start to engage and interact with all the different places we frequent. So, you know, connecting customers to everything a property has to offer, you know, ultimately helping people be more connected, you know, helping them be more productive and making just where they work and live easier and better. So just curious, you know, we believe customer experience and engagement, you know, can be improved sort of one interaction at a time and that creates, you know, all these opportunities for technology to play a role. What are you seeing in your practice and through NAHOP from a technology perspective? What’s working to help improve customer experience? What’s not working? What’s missing altogether? Any thoughts?

AT: I try to cover a few. I think the stuff that gets missed, because again, there’s been such a dominance talking about offices as a sector, but, you know, retailers have done some pretty interesting things. You already highlighted for our listeners that it’s really not this bricks and clicks as two choices, but rather as one model and so, you know, some of the retailers have done really well, even just, you know, when you go onto the website, I’m looking to buy whatever, a new case for my phone. Well, instead of wandering around helplessly for 20 minutes, I now know that there are eight of them in aisle six and I go into aisle six, grab my thing, and I get out of there again and so even those low-level technologies have been helpful. Most of us now have used a conference room where five years ago, the tech was pretty poor. It was difficult to plug in. It was hard to get the speakers to work. That’s come a long way too, and that’s conducive to us getting back into the office and working collaboratively, which we’ve got used to. So I do think some of those low-level things are evident. As far as tech in a deeper way is going, you know, we’ve seen our buildings, a lot of the time the planners like to take the credit for what the developers are doing, but the developers and our building users are often leading the way in where technology is going. So Walmart, for example, 10 or 12 years ago, you’d walk down the aisle of freezers and the lights would turn on as you walked along as a way to cut back on cost. So some of these building technologies, our HVAC systems, the way that elevators operate now so you’re not standing there in that inefficient manner, have really made changes. Now, I will say, though, that these things aren’t a panacea. I try to often think of analogies. You know, if you had a car that was generally unreliable but had all manner of bells and whistles and could drive you along wherever you wanted, you probably still wouldn’t enjoy your experience of using that car and I think that what we need to be mindful as developers and as people engaged in the commercial real estate industry is to think that these things don’t fix underlying flaws. They can enhance what we’re doing. They can make our experience better. But, you know, at the end of the day, too, you’ve mentioned already hospitality. You can go into a hotel and if the staff are abrupt and you’re waiting in line for five or ten minutes to get checked in, the fact that the receptionist, you know, greets you in both of our official languages and says please at the end won’t help and so I think as we innovate and add some of these things, if you’re going to call it a concierge desk, you’re going to have to behave like a concierge and not like a gatekeeper and so it’s really the intent behind some of these things that’s going to allow them to work well.

DA: I agree. I think there’s got to be that commitment to, you know, for operational excellence before you get to the technology. The technology can help bring it all to life. The technology can perhaps make it more seamless. It can make it more integrated. It’s the icing on the cake. But without that commitment to all those other, you know, ways in which you experience the property, you’re right. It’s going to fall short. I think that’s a great point. You know, along with others, I truly believe that commercial real estate is going through a significant period of reinvention, reimagination. I think it’s wonderful for the industry. I think it’s not that I really wanted a pandemic. I think, you know, it had dramatic and many negative impacts as well. But from, you know, from our industry’s perspective, it certainly wasn’t accelerant to thinking and doing things differently. So I’m just curious, if budget were not an issue, if resources were unlimited and you had an opportunity to invest in something new for the industry or for your business, you know, what would you sort of be thinking about as something you would want to sort of really get into deep as a way to build this business for the next three to five years?

AT: Well, one thing I’m a huge believer in is traveling, seeing what’s best practice in other markets, spending time with people who lead in those markets and learning about what they’re doing that’s actually best in class and so if resources and often time is our most precious resource, if time were unlimited, I’d continue to spend even more time than I’m already doing in getting out to other markets and looking at what’s going on. Because I agree wholeheartedly with what you said, our industry’s in a time of enormous change. Some of it was pent up, then people were just missing it and now we’re being compelled to catch up. Some of it is a time of interesting change. So getting out there and seeing what’s new, I think that’s really important. By nature, as I said, I’m curious, I’m interested in what’s going on in the world. So I listen to all kinds of different podcasts. I read a lot of different things. So my second area would be to understand some of the things that are coming through in technology. I listened to a podcast recently on robotics and they were talking two things that are very relevant to our industry. One was a fellow who’s developed a robot that can apply drywall and it was mostly at a commercial property, actually and so you think of the time savings and the engagement that could happen there. Perhaps more immediately obvious is the fact that some of those data entry tasks, some of the administrative things that people used to do, almost certainly those are going away in a world of AI. Myself, with my own firm, I use a lot of tech to prop up what I do, things that 10 or 15 years ago, goodness, even 24 months ago, I might have relied on a colleague to do. Now I can do an awful lot of it with tech. So getting out there and understanding what that’s doing, I’d like to get to more conferences and spend time on that. So that would be an investment I would continue to make, actually, things that would accelerate my ability to focus my skills and expertise where I can really add value as opposed to performing tasks where I’m really just doing low-level tasks. That’s a poor use of my time. It’s a poor use of my clients’ commitment to engaging me and so that would be the second thing and then I think third of all, I think that, you know, I’d like to get more engaged with non-commercial real estate groups, honestly. I think where some of the next wave of change comes from, and even where some in our industry got caught out, was that we were all going to our own conferences, all telling ourselves about, you know, we’d added, you know, three armchairs in the lobby, and that meant that we were having this community focus around our office space. I don’t think the people walking in and out the front door of our business every day necessarily thought that and I think even NAIOP’s very involved in government relations work. We’re also very involved in trying to get the story out to our communities around what value there is in commercial real estate. The fact that people from diverse communities really should be seeing a future for themselves in commercial real estate. Often it’s difficult to find that pathway into our business if you don’t know somebody who’s in the business. So for me getting more involved with non-commercial real estate groups, that’s something that I’d really like to do, actually. I think that’s where a lot of the innovation is going to come from.

DA: That’s really interesting. I think that, you know, it’s not an industry that you necessarily think of first. Certainly it’s an industry. There are certainly lots of people employed in it. But, you know, the question I ask, again, all of our guests, in terms of their journey there, you know, how they got into it. There’s a variety of stories and entry points is staggering. So I think you’re right, you know, a way in which to, you know, connect with other industries and learn more about other industries and find out, you know, different pathways into commercial real estate. So we can also attract, you know, new and different talent. I think we’re going to need that and we’ll talk about that in our closing round. I want to get your insights on that. So we’ll park that and come back to it. Let’s take a short commercial break, Alex, and we’ll be right back.

COMMERCIAL BREAK

DA: And now I’d like to welcome back to the show Alex Thompson, founder of Prevail Consultants, and chair of NAOP North America. Again, so glad you could be with us today. 

AT: Yes, likewise. Thank you. 

DA: So guest after guest on this podcast have echoed the same sentiment that each and every person who enters their building is now viewed as their customer. This might not sound like rocket science, but it’s certainly different. It wasn’t like that all the time. We often thought the real customer was the person who signed the lease. So we now understand that it’s different in terms of understanding the needs of occupants and the voice that they have and how they consume commercial real estate and I think that we’re at a moment in time where building owners now need to think more like the hotel industry or perhaps the retail industry, more experiential, and find ways to differentiate our buildings and to really up the level of offering and that’s not just class A buildings, building out more amenities, which are often expensive and time consuming. I think that we can think about hospitality and we can think about the use of technology to sort of equalize the playing field and make buildings of all sizes, of all classes, of all ages, more competitive. So just wondering in your market through NAOP, what are you seeing from that perspective? And just any thoughts you have on what that means for commercial real estate?

AT: Well, we chatted a little bit before the break about the whole idea of personal brand and, you know, again, this is where I’m intrigued about spending more time with non-commercial real estate people as we evaluate where commercial real estate is going to go. Ten years ago, you really didn’t expect to see the HR manager out on a tour. Five years ago, it became regular. Now it would be normal. In fact, that’s probably the person that you’re trying to talk to the most, especially for office and, you know, I would say for retail, the best developers, the best in class projects that I see when I get out and travel have latched on to what the retailers in their space are trying to offer as an extension of the service that the retailer is providing. So that there’s this common goal between the developer and the retailer to make sure that the overall experience is good, that you don’t have the retailers’ walls defining where their influence is, but that the retailers actually having some input into what they’re doing overall. So I do think that, you know, we’re going to have to see our industry adapt. We have a unique challenge, and I’ve said this, you know, just on the weekend I was having dinner with some friends. We were chatting about my business, my company specifically and I mentioned, you know, back when I had started my co-op year at university that, you know, people were playing, you know, Centipede on their Nokia phone. Well, the difficulty is that that same period of time is, you know, a fairly typical mortgage amortization and so we’re in a strange industry where we’re trying to take 30, 40, 50 year anticipations around work patterns and social behaviour that changes really quickly. I can’t even imagine trying to use a monochrome cell phone today. Or at least if I did, I’d know that I was giving up an awful lot of services and so I think that, you know, as an industry, we just have to embrace that now, move away from some of the more defensive behaviour that you’ll encounter from time to time where people are saying, well, you know, everybody back in the office, that’s what we need. Well, sure, we can get everybody back in the office. But our work habits are different. You know, very few people have a large private office with a space in front of it for their dedicated EA with other people out in the pool in front of them. Generally, a lot of companies have moved away from these patterns and the way that this base lays out is different and rather than resisting that, I think the best companies, you know, certainly as a NEOP member, I’m very proud that if you look at our developing, pardon me, developer of the year award winners, as an example, they’re not regressing, they’re not defensive, they’re anticipatory, they’re making changes, they’re doing things that that their tenants are excited about, whether that’s in industrial, whether that’s an office, you know, change ought to be an opportunity for us to respond ourselves rather than just trying to dig in further into what we’ve already done. That doesn’t work well in our own lives and it’s not going to work well for us as an industry there and so I think that being willing to embrace that change, looking for where we can get advantage. I think the one other thing I’d like to bring up quickly is that it’s tempting for each of us in our personal lives or in our work career to just try to latch on to what somebody else did and well, that worked for them, I’ll try to do that too and just the same way that it maybe doesn’t suit you to go on keto or carnivore or whatever it is, because these things are personal, trying to take somebody else’s approach to their real estate and apply it to your building may not work and you need to be willing to accept it might not work. There’s some buildings in certain markets, especially that don’t compete any longer and those owners will need to be willing to accept that. They’ll need to think about how they’re going to reimagine the building or reimagine that site and just digging in your heels and thinking that you don’t want that to be true. That’s not leadership. That’s intractability and I think the real leaders that I see are trying to come up with new systems. Sometimes it’s really wild and inventive. Sometimes it’s quite step by step sort of iterations of improvement. But that’s where people need to be willing to go. We can’t just dig our heels in.

DA: I agree wholeheartedly. I think that in the absence of that kind of creativity and innovation, then it’s just a commodity, which we’re seeing. We know that space is now without that kind of taking a more unique approach to every opportunity. It is a commodity and you can get it anywhere. So I think it forces all of us in this industry to be better, to be far more creative and to your earlier point, look at also shorter timelines, shorter time horizons. We can no longer think that what we do now will last 10, 15, 20, 30 plus years. We need to think what is going to be impactful in the next 90 to 120 days and how long will that last and how during the course of that time period will I continue to monitor how that space is perhaps being utilised and how customers are engaging and interacting and what subtle twists and turns I might need to take along the way. So it’s a different world, a different industry. I think it’s become a lot harder for all of us, which is a dovetail into our next question because as we come into this more complex industry with all of our different backgrounds and perspectives and areas of expertise, specifically around the world of office and the future of work, which is what we’re really honed in on, just what else haven’t I brought up? What else do you think we need to be thinking about to make commercial real estate still a desirable place to be amongst a much larger workplace ecosystem? But we’ve got all these different themes. We’ve got ESG, we’ve got IoT, we’ve got ROI, we’ve got M&A. What are you thinking about that we haven’t brought up yet?

AT: Well, listening to the question, it occurs to me people need access to NAOP’s philosophy of terms for a start because there’s all this jargon that we use that can impede sometimes people from outside the industry engaging with these questions. As far as things that we maybe haven’t chatted about, I think research and so NAOP has a large research foundation. We’ve made a deliberate choice to provide funding to people at universities and post-secondary institutions across North America to further our understanding of the industry by bringing in that academic and that data-driven approach. Some of the landlords that I find exciting, they’re driven by data or data depending where you grew up. They’re driven by these solutions too. They want to understand what’s going on, what’s working. Again, like you said, in office, going beyond how many square feet per employee to what’s actually being utilized. Instead of just assuming that our tenants are excited or our users are excited about some of the innovations that we’re putting in or the improvements that we’re putting in, taking the time to ask, getting that feedback. Some of the companies are doing really well at providing a platform where tenants can give them that feedback. I think as far as where we’re going, people need to get better at listening and I think the best landlords are already doing that. This bifurcation that you sometimes hear talked about, I think is not merely the quality of the real estate, but the attitude of the landlord. There’s a bifurcation between the thoughtful, engaged landlord and the landlord who’s just assuming that one day we’ll all get told to go back 40 hours a week and that’s going to fix things. I think we need to see that. I think the other thing though with office specifically, there’s been this extreme view. We’re all going to come back to work and that’s what we must do. Nobody will ever go back to work. There’s all sorts of good things that we can talk about with office that continue to be true. One of which that doesn’t get as much attention is the covenants of commercial office users are still really strong. If you’re engaging with large organizations, New York Stock Exchange organizations, that’s a tremendous advantage as an office. A landlord and people can tell you all sorts of things about the office is dead and it’s all in trouble and so on. If I’m getting checks from Ernst & Young every month, I’m probably pretty comfortable that I’m getting checks from Ernst & Young every month. That story has got lost. I think that even as people trying to bring in new people to our industry, we need to be able to tell that story too. You mentioned ROI. Well, where’s your ROI coming from if you’re an office landlord? The tenants who are still there are often excellent covenants. You’ve often got recourse to the full parent company on the lease. Conversely, in a retail where I’ve spent a lot of passion for retail, there’s been well-known changes in the caliber of some of the tenants. People that 10 or 12 years ago were in New York Stock Exchange listed don’t exist anymore. I think for office people trying to draw people into the industry, they need to be able to tell that story. Commercial real estate more widely, I spend a little bit of time trying to get out and talk to people in our industry why I think it’s engaging and more specifically why my expertise is still going to be relevant to what they might want to accomplish with their business. The percentage of sales that’s occurring in a store is still very significantly higher than online. Most people don’t think that. We’ve been fed this series of stories that it’s all in trouble. Many of the listeners will be aware that people are renting or they’ll be aware of the affordable housing crisis, particularly here in Canada, although it’s a concern globally. Few people are thinking that some of our best commercial real estate firms are actually people that are leading out in that solution of affordable housing or the transition to rental that we’re seeing in large markets in Canada. I think we don’t do a good job of compelling that young person in high school to think, I’d really like to work in that industry. They may have misconceptions and we need to break through that.

DA: Fair enough. Alex, our closing speed round is an opportunity to get to know you a little bit better. Here we go. A couple of questions to kick us off. Looking back, what’s one piece of advice that you wish someone had given you when you first started your career?

AT: Actually, I have to say this piece of advice I was given several times that I neglected to take. Be patient. By nature, I think I was, I don’t know, impatient, but sort of impetuous. I think I was so desirous to do my best, to use my skills, to get going that I missed the opportunities that come from being part of a team and just being a little more patient to see those things come together and also, I missed the chances to really celebrate those wins I sort of flew through without seeing them. So that’s a piece of advice I wish I was given and I wish I’d taken.

DA: Yeah, fair enough. What’s your favourite book or podcast that has positively impacted your approach to work or life?

AT: Great. Well, I’m going to go with some recency bias here. I’m reading a book at the moment called Designing the Mind, and it builds on a theory or a theme that I’ve been involved or in studying the last couple of years, which is that so many of the things that we’ve built up as habits are merely that. They’re just habits. They’re ways of behaviour that we are stuck with and so I really enjoy that. So that’s an excellent book. I certainly recommend it to people who are trying to be more responsive or more in tune, more authentic. I think that’s very good. There’s a speaker and leader called Mark Devine, who was a Navy SEAL commander. I was introduced to him by a couple of my closest friends here in Edmonton, and he just has such a practical take on things. I was sort of imagining a Navy SEAL commander, it’s going to be a thousand press ups a day stuff, but he’s actually got some really good tips for how to set out your day, how to be more intentional. So that’s my not very speed round answer, but that’s my answer.

DA: Very cool. I’m going to check that out. Name one way in which technology has improved how you live or work.

AT: I mentioned earlier that I’m trying to be good at using AI to get the things where I’m not really adding a lot of value or not best using my skills. So setting up some of those simple things, Calendly link in my email as an example, just so that I don’t go back and was that Tuesday at nine and that Eastern time or mountain time, all of that’s out of the way and so I can use my skills for things where I can add value.

DA: Fair enough and if you weren’t doing what you’re doing right now, if you could afford to, or were willing to take a left or a right turn, what do you think you’d be doing instead?

AT: Well, people might’ve heard me joke that people that know me know that and I say, if I’d known that the job I wanted was sort of called certified mountain guide, I’d never worked in an office in my life and I too old probably now to be a certified mountain guide and go out every day. But something that would allow me to be more outdoors has appeal. But on it, I have to say, I really love the opportunity as NEOP chair to listen to our members, to be involved in what they’re doing and to, I hope accelerate what our chapters and association are doing. So in that way, honestly, I have to say that this year as NEOP chair is pretty close to ideal.

DA: Amazing. Amazing. Well, and one final plug for NEOP is very deserving. So I’m glad you brought that up. Listen, Alex, thank you so much for coming on the program today. I’ve enjoyed our conversation. I’m looking forward to staying connected with you and supporting you in any way that I can, continuing to dialogue about NEOP and the work that it’s doing and the work that you’re doing specifically. As I mentioned on our last call, I’ll be coming out to Edmonton in the not too distant future. So I look forward to connecting while I’m in town.

AT: Well, likewise, and I’m grateful for the chance to be on the podcast and more broadly, I want to say thank you, David, for facilitating this conversation. I think it’s just so necessary for us as an industry that we’re looking at ways to grow, for ways to learn and I think that’s where all of our best companies are headed. So kudos to you for setting this up. Thank you.

DA: Thank you. I really appreciate that and again, looking forward to staying connected. So cheers. Thank you. 

AT: Thank you.

DA: That’s a wrap on today’s episode of 10. I want to thank Alex for joining me on the program. If you enjoyed this episode, don’t forget to subscribe and leave a review. It helps others find the show. Thanks for listening and until next time, I wish you all continued success in building community where you work and live.