The Insider's Edge to Real Estate Investing with Joe Vargas

Okay. All right. Welcome, everyone. We are thrilled to have with us today Joe Vargas, who is president of Wonderful Real Estate. Joe, thank you so much for joining us.

Thank you, James. Glad to be here.

So, Joe, we're really grateful not only to have you on the show here today, but you've been a speaker at our industrial conference down in Nashville. So it's really wonderful to see you out there and letting the world know about what you all are doing. And excited to get into the conversation. So, but I think this is a first. We've had some Olympians on the show before, but I don't know if medalists. So, I think you, you know, being a silver medalist in 1984 at the LA Olympics, amazing. I'm very excited. I know my sons are too because they all play water polo. But maybe talk a little bit about that experience and how that prepared you for a career in real estate.

I get that question a lot. Um, you know, I, I started swimming competitively when I was 6 years old, and I, I continued to compete in swimming in open water swims well into my 50s. Uh, I started playing water polo when I was 10 years old, and I, I had a goal to be an Olympian. I told my father I was going to be Olympian in, in 1964 after watching Don Schollander win 4 gold medals in the '64 Olympic Games in swimming. And, uh, uh, did a major disappointment, uh, with the boycott in 1980. I made the 1980 Olympic team as well, and the U.S. water polo team, we were, uh, favored to, uh, win the gold medal in Moscow. I was young enough so I was able to, uh, compete for another 4 years in the, uh, The Olympic experience was, uh, was an incredible experience. It's, it's unlike any other experience. It's, it's, it's surreal. But, you know, water polo is different because you're playing over 10 days, so it's, it's not like you're just one event and, and you're done. It's, you know, 8 games in 10 days, and, you know, one has to you know, keep the momentum and keep going forward and, and, uh, without losing momentum through the entire, through the entire tournament or your concentration or any, any, any level of, of, uh, of competitiveness. Uh, so this is, it's a different experience than, than most of the sports. I'd imagine basketball is the same and some other team sports are the same. Um, but it was a great, it was a great experience. I have great memories of it. Opening ceremonies and watching, you know, Rafer Johnson climb the stairs of the Coliseum and light the light. I remember seeing Joan Benoit come in on the back, the back of the Coliseum and into the Coliseum winning a gold medal in the marathon, the first women's marathon. Those are fantastic experiences other than my own. If you ever want to win a trivia question, if somebody asks you who's the only team that never lost a game in the Olympics but won a silver medal would be my team. Uh, we tied in the finals of the Olympics and, uh, and there wasn't a playoff. We tied Yugoslavia, or they tied us. We were leading most of the game and, uh, 5-5, and there wasn't a playoff. And, uh, there's shootout? No, no shootout. It was, uh, the first litmus test was, uh, goals scored in the tournament. They scored 44, we scored 41, and they have a gold medal on their wall, and I have a silver medal in a safety deposit box.

Wow!

That is incredible.

Still an amazing accomplishment, and water polo is such a physically grueling sport. And so, you know, to be able to get through that and compete at the highest levels is amazing. So, uh, no, that's wonderful to hear. I, you know, the Wall Street Journal also wrote an article on why water polo players are great in business because they said they know how to make quick— they know how to work hard and they know how to make quick decisions. So that was, uh, that was great to hear.

Yeah, I mean, not, not many people can say they've competed on a world stage. I mean, I have experience being a D1 athlete in college. James is an athlete, as you know, his sons play water polo internationally. Um, but what are, what are some of the specific skills that your athletic and Olympic career have taught you about real estate specifically?

And have helped me advance in my career. You know, I mean, work ethic is one. Right. Dedication, you know, to a goal is another. Persistence. Being tough. There's a lot.

Yeah.

You know, when you get to that level of competition to Olympic level or professional level, I mean, there are so many athletes that are as good or better, but you know, it's really, you know, it's, you know, embracing the vision of your coach. It's being a teammate. It's being smart.

Yeah.

It's being smart. I mean, there's a lot, everybody's physically talented. Don't get me wrong. Everybody's fast. Everybody's strong. Everybody can throw the ball hard. Who's smarter than the other person? Who embraces the vision of the coach?

You know, I love that. Embracing the vision of the coach. I haven't really heard it.

You do the same thing in business.

Yeah.

You know, you, you embrace the vision of the company. What is a company's vision of what they're going to be, what they're going to do? You have to embrace that vision to be a good broker.

Right. So, Joe, we definitely want to talk on the show about how you went from being Olympian to president of wonderful real estate, uh, that controls more than 25 million square feet of industrial space. But for our audience who maybe they've had your pistachios, maybe that's when they think of Wonderful, but they probably don't realize that there's this massive real estate enterprise behind it. So maybe just, you know, tell our audience what the Wonderful platform looks like, how did it come about, and maybe elaborate a little bit more on your holdings today.

So to know, you know, Wonderful Logistics Center and the real estate group, you have to know the Wonderful company. The wonderful company is a privately held $6 billion consumer goods company held by two people, Stewart and Linda Resnick. Um, you know, product Fiji Water, Landmark Wine, Just in Mind, Lewis Cellars, wonderful pistachios and almonds, wonderful citrus. Uh, the Resnicks are also the largest owners of agricultural land in California, and they are the most productive farmers in the country. So that's the background of what, you know, is behind Wonderful Logistics Center. There's two arms of real estate at the Wonderful. There's the investment management group that's run by our general counsel, Craig Cooper, and senior vice president, Todd Bomberg. And then there's a real estate development side. Uh, which we have a very small but nimble team. Our company is vertically integrated company. We have our own law firm in our company, our own accounting, our own strategy group, our own marketing. We're really getting ready. So our, our real estate development group is small and very, very nimble. Uh, uh, two just tremendous partners in John Gwynn, our, uh, chief executive vice president, and, uh, COO, and Jason Gremion, our Senior Vice President of Development and Operations. So that's the team, the development team. We have 3 major projects in the Central Valley. We're isolated in the Central Valley in terms of our product, but the major project is Wonderful Logistics Center. So Wonderful Logistics Center is 2,000 acres. It's entitled for 30 million square feet. We have 17 million square feet up. It's 97% occupied. We're under construction on a million-square-foot speculative building. Within the project, the— there's nothing like the project. It may be, maybe Alliance in Texas and maybe CenterPoint. In Chicago, but you know, they're, they're not held by one person or one group. We are. We're highly amenitized in the project as well. We have our own container depot, that container depot, you know, that it connects us to the ports of LA and Long Beach and, and throughout, throughout California and the West region and because, you know, someone picks up a can, a container at the port, takes it up to Central Valley, takes it to Wonderful Logistics Center and drops it off. It goes back in a fully loaded container because we're the biggest exporter out of the valley. So it cuts the drayage costs by 30%. And you guys all know that, you know, the 3 buckets of expense for a user, the big buckets are real estate, labor, and transportation. Transportation is the biggest. So we're highly militarized. We'll have an intermodal up and running, a rail intermodal service by BNSF at the end of the year. In addition, we have the ability to provide our own power through Wonderful Power, which is an alternative power source. Power is a critical element in today's environment, right? We also have a— the Resnick's developed what they call a career center, which is a training center. It's comprised of a 60,000 square foot office building, 40,000-square-foot training center. There's a restaurant. We're in negotiations for an urgent care center. This is all subsidized by the wonderful company, and we provide training for— in partnership with Bakersfield Community College. And our clients use it. I don't call our occupants occupants or tenants. They're clients, right? They're customers. We that use the training center, significantly use our training center. Amazon's putting on a 12-week course right now for some of their employees in the West region.

Amazing. Very, very helpful. Thank you for the background. So, I mean, walk us through how you got from Olympian to where you are today. There's a lot of amazing experience in between. How did you get started in real estate to begin with?

So I was on the services side 35 years and services side in brokerage for 35 years. I started my career at a small regional company for actually about a year and a half before the '84 Olympic Games, Ashwell Burke. And then after the Olympics, I went to work for Grubin Ellis, which was a predecessor of Newmark, and spent a few years there and went to Cushman Wakefield. Spent most of my career at Cushman Wakefield, 20 years. I was a broker at Cushman Wakefield. I ran their agency leasing group in Southern California and then moved into a management position. As an agency leasing broker, I was brokering and running a business as well. But I finished my career at Cushman Wakefield. I was the president of the West of Cushman Wakefield. I've done some M&A work for Lehman Associates as well, another great firm. But that's my background, uh, in the business. And, uh, I was introduced to, uh, the Resniks through, uh, a friend of mine at CBRE, uh, Andy Radner and, and Jeff Pion. Spoke to Mr. Resnik and ended up as a, as a developer in the Central Valley, California. I largely went up there because you know, of what wonderful logistics center was and what could be. There's nothing like it in the country, and I like to be attached to things that are really big, like the Olympic Games and like wonderful logistics center, right?

Yeah.

And I'm sure, uh, for Wonderful, I mean, what a great thing to have you come over and have that experience as a broker from the agency side, because you see every tenant in the market and you also see how other landlords are running their buildings. So I mean, that I'm sure was quite a coup to have you come on board.

You know, it's really important to understand who you are and who your competition is, you know, all the time. I mean, institutions act different than REITs, REITs act different than high net worth individuals. And you have to know, You know, you have to know that, and that agency background, you know, gives me that experience. And doing that, I mean, you know, my competition for Wonderful Logistics Center really is our wheelhouse is 500 to a million square feet is our wheelhouse. And geographically, where does that, that leads us to the Inland Empire. We're in the Central Valley of California. Our competition is in the Inland Empire. Our competition is in Phoenix. In Las Vegas, to a lesser extent, Reno. So not only do I have to know, you know, those buildings that are half a million to a million square feet there, but I have to know who they are, you know, what their ownership is, you know, you know, is it an institution? Is it a REIT? Is it a high net worth individual? You know, the capital acts different, as you know, James, in all of those, right?

You know, and what is your competitive advantage, if you'd say, to attract these, these companies, right? And you say how you operate differently from, say, the REITs. I mean, there's got to be pros and cons, but what's, what's the advantage working with you all?

There's many advantages from the, from wonderful logistics center in, in general. There's not a project that's amenitized like a wonderful logistics center. Um, and, um, you know, we are, um, fully entitled, so we don't have to go through the entitled problem. Um, we build from our balance sheet, so I don't require, you know, you know, construction debt to build, to build a building. You know, we, we build from our, our balance sheet. Um, I, I, from a location standpoint, we are, you know, at main and main in terms of a transportation. We can get, you know, a client can get to all of California. That's 40 million residents in a 1-day turn. They can get to 70 million people in the western U.S. on a 2-day turn, uh, and that's going to get even enhanced even more when our intermodal is up and running. But there's— so we don't— in our project, you know, we don't sell to developers. We control development. We will sell to users. Our preference is to lease, but we will sell to users, and we do it in a nature that's accretive to Wonderful Logistics Center, that will create, continue to create an environment that attracts, you know, the clients, the corporate users. They don't want to be pioneers. They want to be where, you know, where the action is, where people are. So Amazon occupies 5 million square feet in our project, Ross Stores 4.5 million. Square feet. Target, 2.2 million. Walmart, FedEx, right? Smucker's. These are all clients within a wonderful logistics center.

Yeah, I mean, it's incredible. Walmart, Amazon, Target, Ross, FedEx.

And there's more to come, by the way.

Like, how— what was the, the toughest deal in, in that group? And maybe walk us through how that came together.

Well, I, you know, I, you know, I don't, I don't— each deal is different, right? They're, they're not the same. There's not a cookie-cutter, you know, transaction that's there. They all have their challenges. I really can't speak to something that, you know, it's, you know, the object of a, of a developer is to find solutions for the client. Mm-hmm. Okay. It's not to, you know, this is our way, this is the way we do it. It's, you know, what are the needs? What's the solution? How can I solve to that solution? Within our underwriting and the parameters that we need to reach to get a return that we want. But nonetheless, we're trying to find solutions here for the client.

Right. And Joe, the decision to build spec as opposed to built-to-suit. So talk about that. I mean, are they—

we do, we do both. We do both. But, you know, when I first went up there, we were 6 million square feet in the project and sort of like Field of Dreams, you know, build it and they will come. Right, right. Yeah. So we, you know, like I said, you know, we build from our balance sheet. We're very well-heeled company financially. We build a spec building, lease that spec building. Soon as we get letter of intent, we're off planning another building, another spec building. At the same time, we're, you know, engaged on build-to-suits and projects. So that happens all the time. We have other things that we're going to announce here real soon that are big, that are going to be really big in the project. I'll be at 25 million square feet in the project within the next 2 years.

How specialized are the build-outs today? I mean, are most of these tenants— Looking for the same thing, or do they have—

yeah, they're, they're getting more and more and more specialized. So, you know, we're building a million square foot, uh, building at 40 feet clear. We typically build on 75 acres of land, so there's 35% coverage ratio. If you go to the IE, it's a 50%, 45 to 50% coverage ratio. What does that 35% do? It allows for container stores. It's critical. On the site. It's 40 feet clear. Power is becoming a big, big deal today. You know, 4,000 amps of power was a typical spec build. We're going to spec build 8,000 amps of power now. We have requirements that we're looking to need up to 24,000 amps of power. That can't be had just anywhere, okay? So you have to have alternative sources of power. You have to have the transportation capabilities because again, transportation is a critical element.

Yeah, it's amazing hearing about the amenitization of all of this. And I don't know, over the past couple of years, just seeing how much oversupply there's been on the industrial and the multi side, especially, it's all the more important to differentiate yourself with these portfolios. I'd love to hear more about specific ways that you all are differentiating yourselves from a leasing standpoint compared to some of your competitors?

Well, it's all about the amenities. That's how we differentiate ourselves.

Right.

You know, you build a building, it's a building. Okay, so, you know, having just 35% coverage, there's a differentiator. You know, true 40 feet clear, that's a— well, it's not as much a differentiator as it was, you know, but the amenities, the Container Depot, the intermodal, the career center. Yeah. Um, the entitlement process, the ability to not have to go to get construction financing to build, to be able to build off our balance sheet. Those are hurdles that we don't have, and we're entitled, right? Which others— those are hurdles that we don't have to overcome to get there. Okay, so that's, that's our, our most of our differentiators. But let me say this, you know, you can't develop looking through the rearview mirror. You can't, especially today. Look at our careers, Jim. Well, look at mine.

Okay.

I'm old. Okay. So, you know, I remember when, you know, fax machines first came in, when voicemail first came in, when computers came first came in, everybody's going, oh, these computers are going to disintermediate the brokers. Well, no, it became the greatest tool in the world to help us out, okay? And now we've got AI, and people go, oh no, you know, jobs— there are going to be more jobs created, okay? AI is a fabulous tool, okay? But it's not— it will not disintermediate the broker, the creator, the innovator, the leader It's just not okay. They need you guys. Okay. Yeah, he does.

So yeah, we were having this exact conversation this morning. It does sound self-serving, but, but the point of AI is how do you leverage it to make brokers more productive? But at the end of the day, someone has to pick up the phone and make the call or show the space. So, um, I, I don't think we're going anywhere anytime soon.

So what's the new, new building gonna look like? Yeah, I don't know. Okay, I don't know, is it going to be more clear height? It certainly is going to have to provide more, more power because of, you know, AI technology, robotics. Okay, it's going to have to have all those things. Are we going to have to have— are we going to have to have roofs that can, uh, uh, uh, provide for parking drones on We're going to have to have bigger doors so drones can fly into a building. I don't know, but we have to be thinking about what's next, what's the new, new things, because things are happening faster.

Right. I mean, in the industrial world, how are you all leveraging AI just at this present moment across the portfolio? Like, what are some of the ways that you all are utilizing it?

I mean, It's— we have people that do that.

Yeah, yeah, yeah.

All right, we have people to do it, but I mean, it's, you know, it's leveraged in so many ways, you know. I mean, we use it to do our— to do marketing, to do marketing updates, to do financial analysis, you know, all those things. I mean, You used to have to have an HP-12C to do an amortization schedule and find out what a monthly payment is, okay? Reach into your phone and say, you know, I have a loan for $30 million, it's amortized over 30 years at 6.5%, what's my monthly payment? It will tell you what your monthly payment is, okay? It's speed to market. That's what AI is going to do. Speed to market. Yeah.

So, Joe, you talked about creating your own or the need for power and creating your own sustainable power. Can you just talk about what Wonderful is doing in that space?

We utilize different sources, different sources of power, sometimes on their own, sometimes in combination. Bloom Energy, which is gas-driven, Capstone Solar Energy,, you know, et cetera. You know, that's way above my pay grade. You know, we have engineers that do that all the time. But we power our corporate headquarters, is powered by Bloom Energy. It's an 11-story, 220,000-square-foot mid-rise building on Olympic Boulevard in West Los Angeles. Two of our major plants are run by alternative power sources, our Halos plant and our wonderful pistachios and almonds plant. And we power 2 of our buildings in Wonderful Logistics Center. The biggest thing is getting the customer, the occupier, to accept alternative power. You know, it's the devil they don't know. You know, they know PG&E, they know Philco Edison, and they're willing to you know, live with those. And so it's getting the user to embrace that new source of power. And they're going to have to because power is running out. Yeah.

Right. Joe, I know you call— you refer to your tenants as clients, right? And so I'm sure as you continue to grow that relationship, I mean, yes, there's a tenant rep broker. So I'm curious, how much time are you spending with the tenant rep broker? Are you, you know, speaking to the company and you're helping them strategize? I mean, you said earlier you're in the solutions business. So how do you really strengthen these relationships where these companies can continue to grow with you?

Well, James, you know, my brokerage background is 35 years, and our clients are corporate Fortune 500 clients. They're all represented by brokers. They're all represented by brokers. And so, you know, we market to the brokerage community. We are a corporate global sponsor of SIOR. We're at pretty much every major brokerage company's, you know, industrial logistics conference, you know, Avis and Young being one. By the way, I, you know, give a commercial to Patty, you know, Your leader in industrial is fabulous. She does a great job for you guys. She's very, you know, well-liked in the real estate community. She does a fabulous job. So, you know, we engage with the brokers. We need to engage with the brokers. And by that, and then if you're engaged with the brokers, you're able to engage with their client. You know, right? And we like to have that engagement with the client because it's very difficult if you're the client and I'm talking to James. I really need to know what you need. So James, let me speak to your client, you know, and, you know, it's important. It's important. And That's what I'm here to break down now.

Right. Shifting gears a little bit to speak more about internally, like within your company, across your experience on the brokerage side and the development side, when you're hiring young people, what are the most important traits that you look for for a really great broker or developer? Like what skills do you—

We don't really hire anybody yet. At wonderful real estate development. We're very nimble. And like I said, we have a vertically integrated company. So we have our own law firm at our company. So, you know, it's our development team consists of me, John Gwynn, Jason Gremion, Jed Wang, who's a strategy, one of our vice presidents of strategy, Aaron Paulson Morris, who's our senior director. Of, um, of business development, uh, and marketing. That's, that's our team. And then we utilize, you know, um, the shared services of the companies. We don't do a lot of hiring. How did I hire when I was a— when I was President of Coachman Wakefield or a manager of a company? How did I hire young people? You know, everybody goes to college and graduates from college. I'm looking for folks that differentiate themselves from everybody else. You know, what are your life experiences? You know, um, you know, my daughter is in the business. My daughter is a broker for JLL. She's an agency broker. Uh, both my daughters were Division I athletes. She was an All-American volleyball player at UC Santa Barbara. Santa Barbara. After she graduated from Santa Barbara, um, and she's an honor student, uh, she played professional volleyball in Europe. She came home and she said, Dad, I want to get into your business now. And I told her, not so fast. I said, I want to— I want you to get a sales job. I want to see if you can sell. I want you to see if you can sell. It's more for you than it is for me. And, uh, and, and I said, I want you to get your license too. I said, because if you don't have your license and you're— you want to be— you're, you're of no use to a broker if you don't have your license, you know, if you want to be, you know, a junior broker, you know, an associate, whatever, whatever one calls these days, you know. When I got in, it was a runner, okay? Uh, and, uh, and so she She differentiated herself that way. I think she just differentiated herself as an athlete. She different— she got into sales. She was selling logistics. She was selling shipping services. She got her license. So that's, you know, when I was hiring young folks, that's what I was looking for. But, you know, more and more today, you know, in the brokerage business, the companies are looking for seasoned veterans, people with experience, and they're recruiting, you know, from each other. And it's gonna make it more difficult for young folks to get in the business.

Maybe talk a little bit about SIOR and some of these professional organizations, because that could be a great place for someone to, you know, build connections. So again, you go to a lot of these. So, what are the ones where you find your time is best spent? And then what's the best way to follow up from that? 'Cause I feel like I'm out on the road, be hitting 4 or 5 conferences in a month, and then you get back, you still have to keep up with work. And then how do you actually follow up with the people you met?

Absolutely. It's a 24/7 job, 365. So we're a global corporate sponsor of SIOR. I was in SIOR as a broker, and so we're a corporate sponsor. I'm not exaggerating, nearly 100% of our deals, certainly 90% of our transactions, there is an SIR, S-I-O-R broker.

That's a pretty good endorsement right there.

Yeah.

And I'm certainly not— yes, when I got on at the wonderful company, I just tore a page out of Panattoni's book and Rockefeller's group, and, you know, they're big sponsors of, of, of SIOR and grew their businesses on them, uh, and their companies on the back of SIOR. We're also a big sponsor of, uh, of NAIOp and involved in it. I was on the board of NAIOp of Southern California, uh, from, for many, many years. Um, so we sponsor all the ICON conferences. Because you're in front of the occupier community, the brokerage community, the banks, the attorneys, everyone at the ICON. And also all the, you know, we also sponsor the major, you know, the major, all the brokerage companies, all those. And you have to You have to be out there if you're, you know, if you're— and by the way, I'm not the only one that's doing that. You know, Prologis is there, Germany's there, Bucknell is there, Brennan's there.

They're all—

I run into the same folks at every event.

We're all there. We're all there.

Out of sight, out of mind.

Great. As a younger person in the industry, how do you Or how would you suggest we determine which organizations are worth really digging into and investing the time in without, you know, spreading ourselves too thin?

I think it's really a market-driven, you know, where are you geographically? Oh, I mean, if you're in Orange County, California, you know, you wanna be involved in any IOP. You know, you want to be involved in an AOPA. And if you're younger, I would not take on, you know, all of them at one time. You know, you take on, you know, one, one at a time. And I'd also say don't join just to join. Get involved. People want to see you involved in it, you know. Uh, I never asked for business in any of the organizations I'm involved in ever. I just got involved, I worked, so on committees you do the— and things happen. Yeah, you know, and things happen because people— I want to see somebody who's dedicated to the, to the industry, dedicated to the business, and I'll see it by what they do, and then I want to do business with them.

Right, that's great.

That's the way they look at me.

Joe, I'd love to get your thoughts on how you see the brokerage landscape. So obviously you spent time at some of the biggest shops, uh, you know, let last at Cushman, but you've done some work for Lee. So, you know, working with the global publicly traded shops versus, you know, the more independent boutique, everything in between. So is it about the firm? Is it about the broker? And then how do you see that landscape evolving?

It's all about the people when you get to it. But it's, you know, it's about the company too, and the right person at the company. I mean, your company is a great company of great people at your company. It's, it's, but it's ultimately, it's about the person that, that you hire. They need the resources behind them though. They definitely need the resources behind them, you know. Um, I don't want to really give a commercial for, for, for, for anyone. We do business with all the major brokerage companies, all of them, uh, and we do them with, with smaller companies as well. And there's great people at small companies too. It doesn't— they just, you know, There's excellent brokers in all companies. But, you know, how I work, how do I provide business opportunities for brokers? I'd like to reciprocate. So you bring something to me, I'm going to reciprocate with you. I want to make sure that, that particular broker has the resources of the company behind them. It's very, very important that they have the resources of the company behind them. And I don't need their financial resources, but I want their manpower resources, you know. I want their research, I want their marketing, okay. I want their financial analytics. I do my own, we do our own, we're very capable, but I want, I want all that. I want all of it. I want all the resources. Right.

That makes a ton of sense. And what is— as far as research and what you want to know to make informed decisions, I mean, what is the expectation that the broker is going to deliver as you're thinking of, you know, speccing a million square feet? What do you want the brokers telling you?

I want— I want, you know, again, you know, when you're a developer, you have to be looking you know, over the dashboard, not in the rearview mirror. Okay. I need to know where things are going. I need to know the competition, you know, mostly. You know, research is a commodity. We can all go online and I can pull up your information. I can pull up CB's information, Cushman Wakefield, Numarks. I can pull all of it up and I get it all. And by the way, I read it all. Okay, I read all of it, and I don't read it just quarterly, and I read it over and over again. Um, so how do you differentiate yourself as a broker? It's comparables, you know, knowing where the market— it's users in the research, it's users in the market, occupiers in the market, you know. Uh, when I hire a broker, I don't hire a broker to do general marketing. Okay. I hire a broker so I don't miss a deal. Mm.

Okay. Yeah.

Does that make sense?

Yeah, that makes a ton of sense. Yeah. So, so, Joe, with a little bit of time left, I would love to hear— and I know maybe this isn't your chief responsibility for oversight, but the fact that Wonderful is the largest owner of agricultural land in California, we would be remiss if we did not ask about that business. I don't think we've ever talked about ag on this show. And is there an aspect of real estate investment happening there, or is that just because you're the user and that's, you're the actual, you know, growing the crops there? Or are you leasing this to farmers? I mean, just, you know, for our audience and myself included who don't understand this business, what is the real estate play there if there is one?

Well, you know, so I'm, I'm an LA boy, okay? I'm born and raised in, in Southern, in Southern California. You know, when you, you know, when you, you want water, you turn on the faucet and water, and water comes out, okay? If you want to buy carrots, you go into the store, okay, and buy carrots, okay? You go when I moved up to the Central Valley. Okay, well, water is important. Okay, water is very important. Okay, when you buy land, you have to make sure there's water there.

Okay.

All right. I can tell the difference between a pistachio tree and an almond tree now. I know what table grapes are, all those things. Okay. But to say I know the agricultural business, I don't. I do know values of agricultural land versus, you know, industrial entitled land, you know, um, I mean, you're, you're, you're looking at, you know, you know, you know, agricultural land that has water that, you know, can, you know, grow pistachios, almonds, table grapes with this water. It's going to be, you know, anywhere from 50 cents to a dollar a foot, you know. You know, we're trading land at $15 a foot that's entitled. Okay, so, um, so entitle that agricultural land to investment takes a long time, right? It takes a long time. So that's the value proposition between both title plan versus— and you know, we grow on, you know, we, we have active, uh, farms or ranches on entitled land that we will build at some, at some point.

A couple final questions for you, um, after such an amazing, um, career across so, so many different sides of the business. What still gets you up in the morning? What drives you?

Winning.

Winning.

It all goes back to the feeling.

It's all about winning. It's all about winning.

What's, uh, what's more difficult, closing a 25 million square foot industrial portfolio or winning an Olympic medal?

Oh, they both have their challenges. They, they both have their challenges. They both take a long time. They both take a long time. I'm, I'm closing the sale of a million square foot building. Hopefully there's no wood around here, uh, today. It's been in the process for 2 years.

Wow.

Okay. It's not under contract, you know, or negotiation for 18 months. Um, you know, I was on the national team for over 8 years. Okay. But I started training to be Olympian when I was 6 years old.

Okay. Right.

It's about time and it's about dedication and, you know, it's about winning. It's about winning.

I love that.

In looking back on your career and especially that transition from the brokerage side to the principal side, you know, plenty of brokers who listen to the show, plenty of principals kind of, you know, leaping across the fence. Maybe talk a little bit about that. And then also, you know, did you ever consider doing this on your own and developing for your own account?

No, I didn't. Um, so I'm all hat, no cattle. Okay. I'm an employee. I'm president of a major real estate development company. What does that entail? In my mind, it entails two things. I'm a promoter, okay? I'm promoting Wonderful Logistics Center, the wonderful company, and wonderful real estate development. And I'm a dealmaker, okay? And I'm there to make deals, okay? That's my job, okay? Am I involved in development? Yes, I'm involved in development. I love— am I involved in what we're doing with infrastructure? Yes. And the planning behind building? Yes. But we have subject matter experts that do that. My partners are fabulous. They are awesome. They are subject matter experts. I'm a promoter and a deal maker. That's what I do. And, uh, and, you know, and when I was president of Cushman Wakefield in the West, focused on 3 things as, as president, as a manager. In brokerage, recruiting, retention, and business development. Okay, so what are all those? You're a promoter and you're a deal maker.

Wow. Well, Joe, you are certainly all of that. And we really appreciate your coming on the show today and sharing your story. I mean, it's really, no pun intended, wonderful to hear. Of what you accomplished, and we just, we truly appreciate your sharing it with us today.

Well, thank you for the opportunity. I appreciate it as well.

And we want to thank everyone, as always, for joining us. And look, if you did not, I don't know how you could not take away a tremendous amount of insight from this. So go ahead and share this with someone who you think would benefit. We really appreciate it. Until next week, this is your host, James Nelson, and co-host, Kim Troller. Thank you for joining.