Women at top of industrial sector share work ethic, integrity
12:00 AM CDT on Friday, August 22, 2008
Jean Russo led a successful career in labor relations before landing on industrial dirt.
Sharon Morrison stumbled into the business and never left.
Today, they are the top women – and among the top brokers overall – in industrial real estate in the Dallas area. Ms. Morrison leads the industrial team at Jones Lang LaSalle (formerly Staubach Co.) in Dallas. Ms. Russo is a senior director at Cushman & Wakefield of Texas in Addison.
They share some similarities despite entering the industry a decade apart. Both women are known for their work ethic, integrity and organization. Their client lists read like a Who's Who of Texas and U.S. companies. Their biggest deals top 1 million square feet.
Commercial real estate is still largely a man's world. Overall, only 13 women lead U.S. companies in the top 1,000, according to Fortune magazine.
"Women bring different skills and different perspectives to the business world," said Leigh Richter, president of the Dallas chapter of the Commercial Real Estate Women group. Given similar jobs and years of experience, women reported lower compensation and held fewer top-level positions than men, according to CREW surveys in 2005 and 2006.
Neither Ms. Morrison nor Ms. Russo dwells on gender, preferring to let their work speak for itself.
In Ms. Morrison's case, Delta Air Lines' loss was commercial real estate's gain.
During college, Ms. Morrison was an intern at Henry S. Miller and Grubb & Ellis. After graduating from the University of Texas at Austin, she considered law school or becoming a flight attendant so she could travel. But she kept to what she knew: commercial real estate.
In 1991, Koll Co. hired her to lease a 71-story office building in Houston. Three years later, she joined Staubach's fledgling industrial group.
"I just needed a job," said Ms. Morrison. "I stumbled into it and got lucky."
Tom McCarthy, an executive vice president at Jones Lang LaSalle and Ms. Morrison's high school basketball coach, hired her.
"It really was a no-brainer," he said. "I knew she was a winner and that if she decided to do something, she'd do it successfully. She really fits the bill."
The Dallas native was one of four children in a close-knit family with a strong work ethic. Her husband, Kevin, and brother, David Stack (who lives on the same street she does), also work at Jones Lang LaSalle.
Ms. Morrison is a fourth-generation Ursuline Academy alumna. A point guard, she helped the school win the 1987 state championship.
"Sharon has always been very competitive. That competitive drive set her up very well in real estate," said Steve Smiley, president of Dallas-based Hunt Private Equity Group and a family friend. "If she was a matador, she'd have a look in her eye that's it's time for the kill, but she's also a lady. She's not harsh."
A typical day might find Ms. Morrison meeting a potential client, touring a building or negotiating a lease.
Her sports background enables her to talk shop with male clients and peers. Learning to fish and play golf led to Pebble Beach, Calif., and Las Vegas trips for work.
Her management style is the coach-player model. She plans team-building exercises, such as bowling and go-cart racing, for the dozen people she supervises.
"It's often me and a bunch of guys," Ms. Morrison said. "It's OK to be different. It's not a weakness."
In the future, she personally would like to invest more in property. In the meantime, she'll focus on running the merged industrial team at Jones Lang LaSalle.
"I'll stay in commercial real estate," Ms. Morrison said. "I won't ever do anything else."
In 1980, Ms. Russo had to fight to become an industrial broker even though she had invaluable experience.
Armed with a master's degree in labor relations, she had worked as a labor relations manager at tire maker BFGoodrich and as a plant personnel manager at Frito-Lay Inc.
"When I decided to go from labor relations to sales, it was so foreign to what my education was," she said. "I loved what I was doing, but I wanted to own my own business."
Her Italian immigrant parents focused on education. Raised in Miami, Ms. Russo fell in love with Texas after moving here in 1973, so she decided to take a chance.
A friend directed her toward real estate, so she interviewed at CB Richard Ellis' commercial office in Houston, which had no women at the time. A manager told her to return after saving enough money to live for a year. She walked across the hall to the residential office and worked there for two years before switching to CBRE commercial in Dallas.
The CBRE industrial team was like a family with 14 big brothers, Ms. Russo said. She was the only woman for 20 years before joining Cushman & Wakefield in 2000.
"I worked really, really hard and long hours," she said of the early years.
She still does, sometimes eating breakfast in her car. On weekends, she often drives around industrial sites or researches potential clients. (Her husband, Charlie Tozzi, also works for Cushman & Wakefield in Dallas.)
Ms. Russo has arranged more than 600 industrial sales or leases of more than 25 million square feet for companies such as Eastman Kodak, Kellogg and Nokia.
Mark Noble, managing director of Colliers in Dallas, has turned to Ms. Russo for advice on recruiting brokers in the past and tried to recruit her once. Ms. Russo also mentors several young brokers at Cushman & Wakefield.
"I've worked with a lot of people and have not seen many who are as focused as Jean is," said Liz Trocchio, Cushman & Wakefield's executive managing director for Texas. "Being on the industrial side, which has so few women, she has made a name for herself based on her abilities. She has never made it about gender."
Not long ago, Ms. Russo found an old aptitude test and decided to take it. Guess what? She scored best on real estate.
"If I would have looked at that, I would have gotten into this sooner," she said.