Inside View: Reed Holiman, CBRE

director of project management at CBRE

Commercial real estate veteran Reed Holiman, 51, is the new director of project management at CBRE's Twin Cities office. Holiman brings project management, development and consulting experience to the role.

Holiman will be involved in all phases of project management including design, team selection, budget and schedule development, construction oversight and relocation management for clients. CBRE's local accounts include Ameriprise Financial, Carlson Cos. and RBC Wealth Management.

Holiman most recently served as senior vice president and market lead for Jones Lang LaSalle's project and development services group in Minneapolis. He worked on several projects with UnitedHealth Group, including the new Eden Prairie campus for its Optum division. Holiman also worked for development companies in the Washington, D.C., area.

Q: How did you get into commercial real estate?

A: I was working as a civil engineer for a firm based in the Washington area. It was good work, but I was fortunate enough to work with some developers that were doing some very large, multiuse-type projects. I was much more interested in what they were doing than what I was doing. The idea of how you plan and get the approvals and all the stuff that went into bringing the team together, I thought that was interesting and would be a nice next step for my career.

Q: How did you move into project management?

Q: Why join CBRE?

A: CBRE is the biggest real estate provider in the Twin Cities. I was attracted to the size and scale of the platform here. We partner with CBRE's brokerage, facilities management and our investment folks. It's just a bigger platform and there are more opportunities for us as project management professionals to partner and add value for our clients through project-delivery or project-consulting services.

Q: What are your responsibilities?

A: My responsibility is to build our project management services brand within the organization. It's a big organization and I see part of my role is continuing to demonstrate to our respective teams how project management services can add value to their clients. So, a lot of my messaging is internal, but we also want to build our brand out in the market.