Craig Patterson

Regional manager of Marcus & Millichap's Minneapolis office

Craig Patterson, 52, took over in August as Minneapolis regional manager of national brokerage firm Marcus & Millichap. Calabasas, Calif.-based Marcus & Millichap works with investment clients to buy and sell multifamily and commercial real estate. Patterson, a native of Omaha, Neb., is working to increase the firm's Twin Cities market penetration and visibility. The local office opened in 2006 and employs 17 brokers.

While Patterson is the third person to hold this position in Minneapolis, he's the first with hands-on expertise and knowledge of the Twin Cities market. A 25-year veteran, Patterson most recently was vice president at NAI Everest, a commercial real estate brokerage firm in Golden Valley. His career also includes stints at Welsh Development, CSM Corp., Opus Northwest, First Industrial Realty Trust and Koll/The Shelard Group. Patterson has leased and sold more than $350 million worth of commercial properties throughout the Midwest.

Q: What do you find most interesting about the commercial real estate business?

A: I just love the fluidity of the business, the intrigue and excitement of the deal flow and putting deals together.

Q: You're charged with increasing Marcus & Millichap's local presence. How important is it to have local expertise and connections?

A: Marcus & Millichap typically has hired and promoted from within. They started realizing that to have good leadership in a market, we need to have somebody that knows that market and is from that market. They made a conscious decision nationally to start finding the right people that have some market presence, market knowledge and relationships to lead their offices. I'm one of the first handful of people who has come from outside of Marcus & Millichap.

Q: What attracted you to the position?

A: Being able to take my 20 years of history here in this market and my relationships and help the company grow and grow our market presence and market penetration, and certainly our brand.

Q: What are the biggest challenges in this role?

A: Finding the right people. This business is not for the faint of heart. It takes a certain individual to have some core competencies and some drive and the desire to pay the price to succeed, and those people are hard to find.

Q: What do you hope to accomplish in your first year?

A: I'm a believer in teams, and it's still a relationship business. People work with people they know, people they trust and people they believe will get the job done. So it's not just a pure numbers game. I've got a really good group of people here, and I want to continue to build around them and support them and continue to foster a good culture. It takes time to find the right people to do that.

Liz Wolf is an Eagan-based freelance writer. She can be reached at wolfliz99@aol.com.