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© St. Petersburg Times, published September 16, 2002
NEW POSITION: Director, office services, Advantis Real Estate Services, Tampa
PREVIOUS POSITION: Senior leasing representative, Duke Realty Corp., Tampa
After five years of concentrating on commercial real estate, Hal Piper said he is looking forward to doing more real estate brokerage work in his new position at Advantis Real Estate Services.
A native of St. Petersburg, Piper joined Advantis on Sept. 1 with responsibilities for landlord and tenant representation.
His landlord duties will include representing "two core clients" -- 200,000 square feet of office space in east Tampa owned by the St. Joe Co. as well as EastGroup Properties' portfolio of approximately 670,000 square feet of industrial real estate, also in east Tampa.
In his tenure at Duke Realty, Piper completed transactions and managed relationships with companies such as Coca-Cola Enterprises, Nationwide Insurance, Home Depot and Centex Homes. As a broker, Piper will represent tenants seeking an office or industrial building to lease.
While his energies still will be focused on representing property owners, Piper said he hopes to balance that with traditional real estate brokering by 2003.
"To be an effective broker, you have to get involved and understand your clients' business," he said. "You get to see all different kinds of industries, from warehousing and distribution to any number of functions on the office side, from technology companies to financial institutions.
"I love having exposure to that variety of people," Piper said. "(In) your role as a broker, you get to be part consultant, part attorney, part architect, part engineer. You need to be master of your trade by being competent in a variety of facets of business."
Advantis, a division of the St. Joe Co., leases, manages and sells commercial real estate projects and sites. It also provides construction, corporate real estate and strategic consulting services.
Piper was with Duke Realty for 21/2 years after working for other commercial real estate brokerages in the Tampa Bay area.
But just five years ago, Piper had a totally different career: He was a university administrator with the University of South Florida's marine science department, focused on fundraising and government relations, for two years. Prior to USF, Piper was development director for the Salvador Dali Museum in St. Petersburg.
Why the switch from administration duties to commercial real estate?
"The university administration career is one in which you have to follow the next better institution," Piper said. "It was time to stay put. I wanted an opportunity to take some of the community networking that I had developed in my university work and the same kind of sales-oriented skill set and apply (those) to a career that would allow us to stay in the Tampa Bay area."
Piper said he also was attracted to commercial real estate because "I like being an active participant in seeing the community grow and evolve -- working with bringing new businesses to the area and with expanding existing businesses and helping to be a catalyst to see the economy grow."
Piper, 35, graduated from Vanderbilt University, earning a bachelor's degree in political science and business administration in 1989 and a master's of education degree in university administration in 1993.
Piper lives in St. Petersburg with his wife and two sons. When he is not working, Piper said he can be found sailing on his 26-foot Ericson.