ATLANTA—Jack Portman, vice president of Portman Holdings, has seen plenty of challenges in his 40-plus-year commercial real estate career. In part two of this exclusive interview, he shares the biggest challenge of them all and how he navigated back to center.

A quick review: Portman launched his career in 1973 as an architect for John Portman & Associates in Atlanta. He later expanded his responsibilities from the design field to a position of corporate leadership. He quickly moved to establish the first Portman international office in Hong Kong in 1979. In 1980, he helped pioneer Portman Holdings' entry into China and laid the groundwork for the design and development of Shanghai Centre. It was in the 80s that he saw his biggest challenge.

Did you miss part one of this series? You can still read it: Jack Portman Shares Turning Points of His Career.

GlobeSt.com: What was the biggest challenge you've had to navigate in the commercial real estate industry?

Portman: Real estate is highly cyclical in nature. Timing can be an ally, as well as an enemy. Prognostication is 60% judgment and 40% luck. Our biggest challenge came in the late 1980s when the real estate world imploded due to a change in the manner in which real estate was taxed. We had a difficult recovery, but we are still here!  

GlobeSt.com: How did you get through that challenge?

Portman: Our biggest asset was honesty. We were absolutely open and forthright regarding every aspect of our development activities.

The banks had the ability to take us down, but once we walked them through a careful, precise explanation of the step-by-step process of how our crisis evolved, they saw that there was no impropriety, but mainly bad macro circumstances. We were not trying to “spin” the facts, but merely accounting for them.

We were genuine in our desire to set everything right. Our openness generated trust so that they helped us not only survive, but also allowed us to set a strong foundation for future success and growth.