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In December 2020, CREW Boston hosted a special holiday luncheon featuring Cara Brookins, author of Rise: How a House Built a Family. In 2007, Cara was at a personal crossroads. Having survived two, abusive relationships, Cara wanted to give meaning and purpose to her own life and the life of her four children. To do that, she landed on a big idea: she and her four children would build their own, forever home where they could put down new roots and start a new chapter for their family. Cara and her children had no construction experience. However, relying on YouTube tutorials and their own grit and scrappy determination, they successfully built the home of their collective dreams in a mere nine months. More importantly, Cara’s children had learned that they could figure out how to do incredible things.
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At November’s luncheon, Ben Breslau, Chief Research Officer, Americas of JLL shared his thoughts with CREW Boston on a spectrum of potential outcomes for 2021. Some of his observations included:
Covid-19/Pandemic has been the greatest accelerator of trends – e-commerce was growing, but the pandemic has made the switch to technology quicker. The Boston area is a knowledge/innovation economy, positioning our region well for recovery. Hospitality and retail have been impaired by the pandemic and will take longer to recover. Flex spaces (WeWork) may have been impacted during pandemic, but they will likely remain an important part of how we will continue to work in the future. Business travel has been drastically impacted and will take time to recover. Our work from home experience has underscored the value of face-to-face interactions and will no doubt remain a critical part of relationships in the future.
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Proving that Friday the 13th doesn’t have to be unlucky, CREW Boston’s CREW Network Committee hosted an engagingCoffee with CREW with special guests Holly Neber of AEI and Dianne Crocker of LightBox on November 13th. Leveraging CREW Network has been invaluable to both Holly and Dianne on their career paths, providing them with connections well outside of their chapters, opportunities to hone their leadership skills and the courage to embrace new challenges.
As an active member of East Bay CREW and Immediate Past President of CREW Network and CREW Network Board of Directors, Holly spoke to the value of joining CREW Network Committees (e.g., Audit and Finance, Communications/ Editorial, Industry Research, Nominating, Member Education, Recognition, Scholarship Selection, and Diversity Equity and Inclusion Task Force), assuming leadership positions within the Network, as well as registering to participate in the next Leadership Summit in February 2021 (virtual event). Dianne, an active CREW Boston member and a past member of the CREW Network Member Education Committee, stressed the value of having a strong CREWBiz Profile, leveraging the incredible power of CREW Network for reaching experts on a particular topic of interest, accessing the CREWBiz community to give and get business (https://crewbiz.crewnetwork.org/), and being proactive about engaging with members across the Network in virtually every niche of commercial real estate
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Members of the Entrepreneur Exchange Group aren’t strangers to chaos: many of us started our companies during layoffs or recessions. But what do we do in the face of global pandemic? Keeping teams engaged and accountable seems to be the biggest challenge of the COVID era. Several members are having all-staff meetings every day but Friday to keep everyone connected, adding weekly Project team meetings with their clients for a 15-minute check-in. Many have expanded their use of technology, starting, or joining podcasts, and upping their social media games. Make sure you’re following your fellow CREW members on LinkedIn, Twitter, Instagram, and your favorite podcast service! Let’s not forget the self-care aspect of the “new normal.” With increased screen time and the lack of social interaction, many have found that scheduling a mental health break in the middle of the day for a walk, yoga, pilates, or simply lunch away from their desks refreshes them for the rest of the day.
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Abby Roberts and Caroline Murry from Turner Construction shared both an overview and details of Turner Construction’s company-wide commitment to sustainability. Turner has committed to reduce CO2 emissions and water consumption on job sites by 50% by 2030. There is a Chief Sustainability Officer as a member of Tuner’s Executive team with sustainability representatives in all of Turner’s 50+ offices. There are numerous committees allowing opportunities for employees with varying backgrounds to get involved.
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The DPM Group and the Entrepreneurs Exchange hosted a presentation by Cathy Burgess a Vice President and Financial Advisor with Wells Fargo. Cathy presented information about what you can do now to prepare for your retirement. The presentation began with Cathy asking everyone to write down our three greatest hopes and our three greatest worries about retirement. She also asked us to focus on what we actually WANT and not what others want; the only person who cares about your retirement is you. On average, women live longer than men and are more likely to be the care givers – of children and of their parents. This requires a lot of preparation: educate yourself, develop a specific plan, have important conversations with your friends and family and use a check list to track your progress.
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Attendees enjoyed a night of networking, accompanied by a virtual cheese and chocolate tasting led by Lowell Culinary Collaboration, which is a partnership of Lowell's best-loved food businesses, Mill City Cheesemongers and Sweet Lydia's. The combination of cheese and chocolate was a great way to explore all the different flavors of each. Some attendees commented that they would never think to pair chocolate and cheese together but it was absolutely delicious!
CREW Boston Presidient, Laura Gregoriadis shared the importance of getting involved in CREW Boston - as the more you get involved, the more you will get out of your membership in CREW Boston. Then attendees were also able to join different breakout room as we provided a taste of all the different opportunities available to CREW Boston members through participation in our committees, groups and leadership
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At November’s luncheon, Peter Standish, SVP of Development at Northland Investment Corp, Michele Quinn, Senior Project Manager at Cube 3, and Michelle Lambert, President and Founder of Lambert Sustainability teamed up to provide a comprehensive overview of Northland’s Newton Development which has been over 40 years in the making. In the Spring of 2020 this project finally received approval to move forward by the Newton City Council after nearly 3 years of community outreach, hundreds of meetings, and a public hearing process that lasted nearly 18 months. This development will be setting the bar for community developments moving forward in sustainability, affordable housing, transit integration and demand, as well as historic perseveration and open space planning.
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At the September 2020 luncheon, Kerry Hawkins, Senior Director, Capital Markets at JLL Boston, and CREW Boston’s President Elect, hosted a panel discussion about the Massachusetts Life Sciences market. The panelists, Doug Cuff, Vice President, IQHQ, McKenna Teague, Vice President, CBRE, and Audrey Symes, Director of Research – Healthcare, Life Sciences, and Advisory, JLL, provided a bullish outlook for a segment of the commercial real estate market that has been relatively pandemic / recession-proof.
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In July 2020, the Sustainability Group welcomed Dr. Atyia Martin back for the third time. She was the first Chief Resilience Officer for the City of Boston as part of 100 Resilient Cities, and members of the Sustainability Group have been a sounding board and support system for her work. She led the development and implementation of Boston's initial resilience strategy which was the first one in the 100 Resilient Cities network to make racial equity, social justice, and social cohesion the foundation of building resilience across the city. She engaged over 12,000 people across government, community, businesses, and nonprofits to develop Resilient Boston: An Equitable, Connected City. SmartCities magazine selected Resilient Boston as the best resilience strategy of 2017 and the Center for American Progress featured it in its report A Framework for Local Action on Climate Change.
Dr. Martin presented practical strategies for making our own organizations more inclusive and more resilient.
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