Without a doubt, gender seemingly disappears when the dealmakers sit down to bargain. It's what you say and how you present yourself that matters during the serious talks in the wheeling-dealing world of commercial real estate.

Too few women dare to tread the path, but success is there for those who do. "As a woman, you have to be very cognizant of the way you conduct yourself and that's for anybody," Stephannie Mower, president and COO of Dallas-based The Woodmont Cos. newly formed asset group. But when she joins the good old boys at the table, she finds herself on an even keel with her male counterparts. "It's what you say," she emphasizes to GlobeSt.com.

Mower is a founder of the Dallas chapter of Women in Commercial Real Estate, which has about 400 members today. She has 18 years in the business and her gender has yet to hold her back in position or salary. "Perhaps 20 years ago, it was different," she says. But, the glass ceiling has since been shattered. "The landscape is really wide open. There's every opportunity to make it what you want to make it." And, the opportunities are genderless, more reliant upon an individual's entrepreneurial spirit and creativity for cutting the right deal at the right time with the right client. What the profession does hold is a flexibility of hours that is particularly appealing to women who must juggle that fragile balance between career and family.

Gail O'Connor, a Trammell Crow Co. senior vice president in Austin, handles her industrial division's hiring. "My frustration right now is I never see women knocking on my door. They never apply for jobs," she told GlobeSt.com. She has a female intern who graduates from college in May, but she's destined for the financial end of the deal making and not sales. O'Connor says a high-income world awaits those who enter, with an earning capability of $500,000 a year - the commission's the same no matter who you are.

"Maybe women just don't understand the potential income they can earn in this profession," O'Connor says. Her best guess is that maybe 25% of Austin's brokers are women. She had gotten her start in 1984 at Commercial Industrial Properties. Frank Niendorff, she recalls, had a penchant for hiring female brokers when he could find them because he found them to be "extremely loyal and they worked twice as hard as a man." But it's at the bargaining table where the boys are separated from the men, so to speak. "Once you sit down if you know what you're talking about it's apparent no matter what your gender is," O'Connor says.

Despite "high risk, high reward" opportunities, the industry is not seeing an influx of African-Americans and Hispanics to its fold. Cushman & Wakefield of Texas Inc. is one of the few in the region that has a minority broker on board. "I am confident that, my company in particular, and other firms within the industry have recognized the needfor a racially diverse workforce," says Lawrence Gardner. "I realize the best way for me to be an instrument for change is by being successful and letting my accomplishments speak for themselves."

There are standard entry and cultural barriers that help account for the poor representation in the field, Gardner explains to GlobeSt.com. "Many minorities are typically risk averse when it comes to the job market," he says. Those with the transferable skill set to succeed in this industry are highly sought after and have numerous career opportunities. Most have chosen other professions because of the success minorities have achieved within those fields rather than being "a trailblazing pioneer in the real estate industry,"adds Gardner. "In order to fully understand and best represent the clients we seek to serve, we need to ensure that we look like those we seek to represent."

The workforce is changing for clients and the brokerage industry, primarily for economic reasons, he assesses. It's a driving need to "to get the best talent available so they can remain competitive in their respective marketplaces. This talent comes in the form of faces that are black, white and brown and other industries have realized that diversity means expanding the size of the pie rather than cutting the same pie differently."

Instant Insights /

Commercial Real Estate: Diversified Workforce Slow in Coming, But It's Coming

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