By David Chapman, Staff Writer
William “Tripp” Gulliford likes to say he’s had a pretty nonlinear career path.
A quick look at his experience shows it’s true — the managing director of CBRE’s Jacksonville office has had quite the varied background.
Some of his experiences one might often dedicate an entire career toward.
Attorney. Executive at Regency Centers. Principal at Midland Development Group. Director at EverBank Commercial Advisors.
During times when he has been at a loss for what’s next, he’s gotten a call — even when it came to a role he might not have the most experience with.
“I have been lucky enough to work with some incredible organizations and some amazing people,” he said.
His career variety led to a need for something that wasn’t singularly focused — that wouldn’t have been appealing.
Luckily, the CBRE position wasn’t what he initially thought.
Becoming a ‘townie’
Gulliford, 48, was born and raised in Jacksonville and was always a Beaches guy until he got a little bit older.
His father, Bill, is a former Atlantic Beach mayor and City Commission member who now serves the area on the Jacksonville City Council.
So when Tripp Gulliford settled in Avondale, dad joked he “gave up his birthright.”
“I’m a ‘townie’ now,” said Tripp Gulliford.
Dad doesn’t disagree.
Early on, Bill Gulliford said he knew neither Tripp, nor his brother Thad, had an inkling of desire to go into the family business of selling construction equipment.
Gulliford at first thought Tripp would become a trial attorney like his uncle, Palm Beach lawyer Chris Searcy.
Tripp Gulliford did become an attorney and even clerked for Searcy. But the discovery period and overall litigation side of the industry didn’t appeal to him.
Instead, he always liked transactional and real estate law. It’s more finite — there’s a beginning, middle and end. Not to mention, at the end the parties often leave happy.
Gulliford wanted to be in his hometown and joined the firm of Ulmer, Murchison, Ashby & Taylor in the early 1990s.
One of the attorneys there was Bill Scheu, known for his civic engagement over the years. Scheu was “really like a second father” who taught him about discipline and the industry, said Gulliford.
One of the firm’s larger, active clients was Regency Centers, which in 1993 went public and made a lot of acquisitions.
When the firm dissolved in 1996, many of its attorneys along with Regency Centers went to Rogers Towers to continue the relationship.
Before long, however, Gulliford was approached about going to the other side of the table. Regency Centers officials wanted him to work for them in the due diligence department.
Gulliford calls the decision the one he “labored over more than any other in my career.”
Telling Scheu, he said, was the hardest part. He was terrified and didn’t want to disappoint him.
Scheu lets out a hearty, good-natured laugh when told now about the dilemma — it was worrying for nothing.
“Oh, I hope he wasn’t,” he said.
Even though he switched sides, Gulliford remains close to Scheu, who calls him a hardworking guy who takes his craft and friendships seriously.
Taking a chance
Going to Regency Centers was that first nonlinear step.
Gulliford was a political science major in college before heading into law. He’d never taken accounting and admits the Regency Center officials “probably thought I knew more than I did.”
He credits the people around him in the due diligence, acquisitions and developments departments for bringing him up to speed.
And as for leaving Rogers Towers, he still had the opportunity to work with those attorneys in deals. In fact, it helped as there was a built-in level of trust already in place.
Before long, Gulliford was an investment officer in the company as it pursued a market in the Washington, D.C., and Baltimore regions.
Shopping centers there were relatively new for the company and it was determined in 2002 there needed to be a full-time presence to make a mark.
But Gulliford didn’t move. He didn’t want to uproot his family from Jacksonville. He had a 3-year old daughter and a wife.
“I think he was heavily influenced to stay here,” said Bill Gulliford. “He just couldn’t do it.”
Tripp Gulliford said in hindsight, maybe he should have. Who knows where his career might have gone if he had chosen differently, he said.
Instead, he left Regency Centers when other opportunities weren’t available and briefly returned to Rogers Towers before getting a call to talk about what turned out to be his next venture.
Partnering with a good friend
Will Parham, a former Regency Centers executive, “wanted to do his own thing” and asked Gulliford to join him.
Parham founded Midland Development Group, with the company serving as a preferred developer for Eckerd drugstores and Kroger groceries.
Business was going well and it was manageable even when the economy started to bottom out at the start of the Great Depression in 2007. Sure, 2008-09 was a bit rocky with some tenants, but it was manageable.
The blow that happened in late 2009 wasn’t, though. It had nothing to do with the economy, bad deals or credit markets.
Parham, 49, was diagnosed with cancer. He was a big brother, partner, mentor and great friend to Gulliford, who was several years younger.
By March 2010, the prognosis wasn’t good. Parham didn’t have long to live and the decision was made to wind the company down. Parham died in August 2010.
“That was really, really rough times,” said Gulliford.
It was like two deaths, really. A best friend and the company and people he’d come to know for the past seven years were gone.
“I was at a complete loss for what I was going to do next,” he said.
Like it has in the past, though, it worked out. His phone rang.
EverBank executive John Surface, Jamie Buckland and others wanted him to join a team handling nonperforming assets of three banks the company had acquired that had operated under the Bank of Florida Corp.
“I’d never worked in the banking industry,” he said, with a laugh.
Just another step on that nonlinear path.
Path takes him to the right place
He joined EverBank for the project in 2010, but after about three years the troubled assets dried up.
As fate would have it, his next move was on the horizon, even if at first he wasn’t exactly keen on the idea.
Jim Citrano Jr. gave Gulliford a call about the time the EverBank work was ending.
Citrano’s father, Jim Sr., was winding down his career as a mainstay leading the local CBRE office. Gulliford, perhaps, might be a good fit.
Not really, he first thought.
“I just never had been in the brokerage business,” he said.
He changed his mind after lunch with Jim Citrano Sr. — “Mr. Citrano” to him — and saw how the company had shifted.
Instead of just being a transactional-based brokerage firm, the company had expanded its breadth of offerings, said Gulliford.
Project management, asset services, debt structure financing — all things and more he’d done before in his varied background.
“That was a lot more appealing than just managing transactions,” he said.
There was another perk, too. All those past work experiences led mostly to seeing deals and projects done outside of Jacksonville.
With CBRE, it was nice to be able to conduct business in the city he grew up again.
That nonlinear path, it seemed, had led him to the right place.