I joined Stream in the late summer of 2010. Prior to joining Stream, I worked in Washington, D.C. for Crow, and then CBRE after the merger. I joined Crow in DC in 2004 in their 15-month “training” program in which you get to spend time working with different groups. My goal was learn as much as I could while in DC and then move back to Texas (I’m originally from Texas). But, as with most plans we make, it didn’t turn out that way because I fell in love with DC. I didn’t expect to like the city and the people as much as I did. So, what I thought would be a year or two in DC became 6.5 years. But, since I am from Texas, I always remained committed to coming back home one day. There were quite a few ex-Crow principals at Stream back then, and actually some of my friends and friends-of-friends were already at Stream. David Blackbird, one of the Regional Managing Partners, actually married the sister of one of my best friends so I knew David for a while before coming on board. One day David and I went out for coffee, and it became clear that Stream was just a no-brainer and a perfect fit for me. So, I moved back to Texas with a new job at Stream and have been happily here ever since.
More about my history…
I have been married to my wonderful wife, Angie, since May 2013. We’ve known each other since elementary school, but we never dated until college. We did the long distance dating thing since Angie was at UT and I went to Tech. I studied economics in the business school and was a walk on football player at Tech. After college, I interned with Deloitte in commercial property tax which confirmed for me that I wanted to work in commercial real estate, but also confirmed that evaluating the same buildings over and over was not quite as exciting as it sounds. But, that internship did teach me the three real estate valuation models of income, comparable, and replacement value.
Angie and I were both in DC for a while. She worked for NASA and then Lockheed Martin. I think it’s safe to say that Angie is the brains of the operation. We don’t have any kiddos yet, but we are looking forward to having some soon. We do have a canine child – our Gracie is half Lab, half German shepherd shelter dog that I got Angie for her birthday.
We also have three chickens. No, we don’t live on a farm. We live in the middle of Austin. You may not know it, but it’s “in” now to own chickens in Austin. No joke. So…one day a few weeks ago Angie came home with a ridiculous chicken mansion (I thought she had lost her mind). Then, along came three egg-producing chickens. We get a couple eggs every few days. The chickens (named April, May and June) have a sand run so they can play outside every day. Does this make them “free range” chickens? I don’t know, maybe. They have free run of the chicken mansion. When the sun goes down, they go into the chicken mansion and come back out at sunrise.
I volunteer at a local high school working with the kids on the football team. It’s a mentoring relationship where we use football as a reason to hang out and help the young men in whatever ways they need help.
Why I love it here…
I love working at Stream because there are absolutely zero boundaries. I do have a specific role and job – which is running and leading our office team in Austin – but I’m not limited to that. If I see something else I want to do, I go do it. This means that I get a chance to work with all of our professionals.
I love my job because I like the people. Our culture here truly is “family first.” We don’t just say that, we really mean it. Because of the great culture, I think we all feel lucky to be here, which means that people work harder. It’s easy to feel loyal and want to succeed and do what’s right when you work with great people every day.