by Michele Newbern Gillis
Staff Writer
Increasing sponsorship, bring value to the members and improving programs are just a few goals of Teresa Durand, the new president of the Commercial Real Estate Women of Jacksonville.
Durand, vice president of Stuebben Architecture, has been involved with the CREW chapter since it was chartered in 2002.
“My primary goal is investing in my membership,” said Durand. “I want to focus more on what the members need and want and providing value to them. If the members are feeling value in their membership, it will just blossom from there. We have been trying to gear our programs so that they touch every member at some point during the year.”
Durand said she would also like to increase sponsorship of the organization. More money coming into the organization will help her provide more value to the members in several ways.
“We are revamping our sponsorship packages this year,” said Durand. “I think that CREW is starting to become more visible in the business community and increased dollars would give us the opportunity to go out and bring in more national level speakers. I think if we bring up the level of our programs by bringing in industry experts, it will help our local membership and credibility.”
Durand explained that with various levels of sponsorship come different degrees of exposure including their logo on CREW’s web site and other correspondence, hot links to their web site from CREW’s, recognition at each meeting and more.
Visit www.crewjax.org to explore the different levels of sponsorships and benefits.
“They might be able to leave information on a building they are selling or other hot product that they are trying to get the word out on,” said Durand. “They can really utilize sponsorship dollars to enhance their networking and business development.”
The group has evolved over the years from a group of business women wanting to get together to have a resource and network pool into a serious provider of resources to women in commercial real estate.
“The thing I love about CREW is that in our membership we have representatives from every process of a commercial deal whether it’s starting with dirt or it’s an existing building,” she said.
Durand wants to help CREW polish itself over the next year. Members have seen a significant enhancement in the programs over last year, but Durand wants to take it up a notch.
“I think that will present a very natural change and we will see increased membership,” said Durand. “We did a survey of what our members want to see and they say they want industry specific topics, so we are going to try to zero in on different topics including industrial, construction, zoning and more. They also asked for more networking opportunities so we are going to try to incorporate more informal events for the members.”
At many meetings, she pointed out, half of the attendees are guests.
“The members are spreading the word about CREW but we just need to be able to capture more of those guests and get them to join,” said Durand.
CREW Jacksonville has a rule that a person cannot be a member unless they have been active in commercial real estate for two years, but Durand said she may be able to make exceptions depending on a person’s history. For example, if a woman was a CEO of a large company but recently decided to enter into the commercial real estate field, she still has experience and knowledge that could really benefit CREW.
“Sometimes we need to be able to look at those on an individual basis and we will,” said Durand. “The reason CREW wants a minimum of two years’ experience is because we really want decision makers in the group. The connections that are happening are happening among people who can actually make decisions within their company.”
Also, they are looking at reaching out to local universities and offering student/intern memberships to those without the required experience. That type of membership could even be offered to guests who don’t have the experience, yet, but want to be a member.
Durand feels that there should be a smooth transition from the outgoing board to the new board. She is facilitating that this year by holding a Board Transition Retreat.
The women will get together on a Friday afternoon, have some fun and get to know one another.
Later that evening, the outgoing board members, new board members and past presidents will have dinner together in order to hear the outgoing board members vision and lessons learned.
“We will overnight at the Southpoint Marriott and then Saturday morning really hit it hard,” she said. In addition to strategic planning, they will work on how to implement the plans.
Another goal of Durand is to create a strategic board.
“Instead of just being a monthly operational board and talking about the business of the current month, the board is actually focusing on the next year, three years or even five years,” she said.
Durand has a long history of volunteering with CREW.
About five or six years ago, she got together with Lori Avampato, with whom she worked with at KBJ Architects, to help organize thoughts about CREW.
“I was on the board of the National Association of Industrial and Office Properties chapter at the time,” she said. “She knew that I had participated and been a board member of other organizations, so she asked if I would come and share some words of wisdom.”
In 2003, she was program chair for a year and a half. She has been a delegate for CREW National for two years, including the last year while she was president-elect.
Durand said there was constant partnership with past-president Denise Henderson of ServPro throughout her year as president.
“She was a great president to work under and I learned a lot about leadership diplomacy from her,” she said. “Henderson taught me to look at situations with the idea that the cause is always greater than the individual.”
Durand started with Stuebben Architecture, a commercial architecture firm, in 2003.
“Since establishing the firm, we have become quite diverse in the commercial market between office buildings, warehouses, retail centers, medical facilities, luxury condominiums and amenity centers,” she said.
Durand handles business development, creating visibility for the firm, human resource duties and managing the office.
Before Stuebben Architects, Inc., she worked at KBJ Architects, Inc. and PQH Architects, Inc.
Durand has been in the architectural, engineering and construction industry for 15 years.
She has been married to Michael “Mick” Stuebben, owner of Stuebben Architecture, since 2002. Together they have five children.