Are we in a "recession?".(in TOUCH)

I RECENTLY HEARD AN INTERVIEW BY Fox News Business beat with Sam Zell, one of the most successful investors in our country. Zell is a U.S.-born billionaire and real estate entrepreneur and co-founder and Chairman of Equity Group Investments (Equity Group Investments, LLC, has spawned three real estate public companies, including: Equity Residential, the largest apartment owner in the United States; Equity Office Properties, the largest office owner in the country; and Manufactured Home Communities, a mobile home company). Zell is also Chairman of Capital Trust Inc., a finance and investment management company focused on the commercial real estate industry. In my opinion, Mr. Zell is an authority on the economy and has been one of the most successful investors during the past few years. The interviewer asked him, "Are we in a recession?" and what was his response? "No, we are not in a recession-however if the politicians and media continue to 'talk down' the economy we will get there." That is reassuring!

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If the commercial real estate market slows down, clearly our industry will feel the impact. What we need is a "recession proof" business! There is one on the horizon-but it's going to take an industry (no, not a village, but an industry) to make it successful. The inspection business is just such a business model.

While participating in an education session for fire marshals sponsored by the Foundation for the Advancement of Life Safety and Security, we discussed with over one hundred fire marshals the potential financial impact on building owners once we start conducting inspections. One fire marshal confidentially proclaimed that "the financial burden of an owner cannot come into play when requiring a building to be brought up to code-thus it is not the concern of fire marshal community." Now I am not suggesting that he spoke for all one hundred fire marshals-but no one disputed the comment.

The bottom line is that a major component of life safety and security is dependent upon fire door assemblies meeting code. We also know that there is a lot of work that has to be undertaken to bring our country's infrastructure up to code. However, code compliance is not dependent upon the economy! Bottom line-if it is not dependent on the economy then it doesn't matter if we are in a recession!

Powerful words, but as an industry we have our work cut out for us. We need to embrace this opportunity as we are the most qualified to play a role as inspectors. We have the knowledge, we can offer the solutions, and we can partner with the end user to manage their architectural openings better than any other industry. So what is holding us back? As in most industries, there are leaders and followers-the leaders are already moving forward and creating the business model that works best for their company. Early adopters have already identified the best companies to serve and created the brand name within the building inspection community, giving them a clear advantage. With the inspection model launched, these companies will be positioned to weather a poor economy (whether officially a recession or not) and they will be prepared to withstand future slowdowns as well!

By Jerry S. Heppes, Sr., CAE

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