In his new role, Mobley will continue to manage the Chicagooffices in addition to overseeing Detroit and Cleveland offices,and the company's 16 affiliated Midwestern offices. "We'refortunate we have the number of offices in the Midwest where we'reat the top of the marketplace," he says. "It's a challenging timefor all of us in the market, but we're pretty well diversifiedacross the Midwest."

One of the company's goals in its realignment is to increase theconnection between its various service lines and markets. "I wantto make sure we are fully servicing our clients with all theservices Grubb & Ellis has available, and we want to do morecross-selling across departments and regional borders," Mobleysays. "If we have a client in Chicago who has an office inCleveland, we want to make sure that client knows about ourCleveland capabilities. If we're doing leasing for a client, wewant to make sure they know about our management services."

Mobley says the Midwest is a territory he believes is betterpositioned than some other markets given the struggling economy."We don't see some of the highs and lows that you might see on thecoasts," Mobley says. "But of course these are challenging timesfor the economy as a whole, and we're no different or special inthat regard. In Chicago, we've held up better than most because ofsome of the recruiting we've done." In his three years at thecompany, Mobley has recruited 40 brokers.