Title:
General manager, La Jolla Executive Tower
Education:
Bachelor of Science, Cornell University School of Hotel Administration, Ithaca, N.Y.
Age:
34.
Hobbies:
Surfing, scuba diving, snorkeling
Community Service:
Building Owners and Managers Association, Commercial Real Estate Women, Big Sister League
BOMA President Cybele Thompson Is Helping Her Members Overcome One Monumental Crisis After Another
Cybele Thompson’s job has kept her on top of several crises affecting San Diego business owners.
As president of the San Diego chapter of the Building Owners and Managers Association, she has responded to the challenges building owners face after the Sept. 11 attacks on America.
She also has assisted property owners hit by a recession, California’s energy crisis, janitor strikes and other challenges.
Thompson, 34, said the terrorist attacks have changed everyone’s focus at BOMA.
“The attacks were (on) office buildings. So it affects all of us directly,” she said.
Thompson noted security has been tightened in many buildings in Downtown San Diego. Visitors to these buildings now need an escort to gain access, she said.
In government buildings, or buildings with government tenants, security is even tighter, since these are at more of a risk. Visitors are no longer allowed to park in parking garages on site, Thompson said.
Tenants themselves are more alert, she added.
“What we’ve seen is a lot more vigilance as far as reporting strangers, or packages, or cars left out front for an unusual amount of time , cars left in the garage overnight,” she said.
Thompson herself has seen it happen, as the general manager of La Jolla Executive Tower. When a person was wandering near her building, the property manager from next door called her to let her know what was going on, she said.
The person turned out to be a tenant in the building, but that illustrates the degree to which property managers are looking out for each other, Thompson said.
Evacuation Drills Taken Seriously
Tenants are also more likely to take building evacuation drills seriously. Although it takes time out of the workday, everyone understands the need, she said.
Still, compared to other regions of the country, building owners and tenants aren’t too frightened about the possibility of terrorist attacks on office buildings. For one thing, San Diego isn’t as high-profile a city as New York, Thompson said.
Also, using the prominent edifice of 1 America Plaza as an example, that building is 10 stories shorter than the shortest building that fell during the terrorist attacks in New York City, she said.
“As far as tenants on the upper floors, we haven’t seen anything like that,” she said. “We haven’t seen any kind of reluctance for tenants to be in high-rises in San Diego,” Thompson said.
Thompson added that BOMA has a booklet for members and non-members alike, available at the BOMA Web site (www. boma.org) called “Are Your Tenants Safe?” Printed before the Sept. 11 attacks, the booklet covers evacuation procedures in the event of any emergency, including fire, bomb threats and structural collapse.
Also available is a tape of an Oct. 12 conference on terrorism in the workplace, she said.
Energy is another major concern. BOMA’s San Diego chapter has been on top of the issue for almost a year and a half, since the price spikes hit San Diego long before they touched the rest of the country, Thompson said.
San Diego building owners were being dunned by high rates, even after a rate cap of 6.5 cents a kilowatt hour had been imposed on residential and small business users.
“Starting September of last year, residential and small users were covered by a capped rate, but large users never were, which affected mostly office buildings,” she said. “But building owners are representatives of small businesses. Most of our tenants are 5,000 square feet and smaller.”
Although office buildings are large users, their utility bills are passed on to the tenants on a pro-rated basis. So dozens of small businesses were paying higher bills without access to the lower rates their stand-alone cousins had, Thompson said.
Using her own office tower as a basis for comparison, Thompson paid an average of $450,000 a year for electricity over the years, until 1999. The bill shot up to $750,000 in 2000, she said.
“So for an owner unexpectedly to be spending more, it’s a huge hit. And we’re not the largest building in San Diego,” Thompson said.
Conservation Booklet
In response, BOMA printed energy conservation kits listing several ways to help members reduce energy use and save. Other help includes informational programs to let business owners know what incentives are available to help them install energy efficiency measures, she said.
The group also lobbied for assistance in Sacramento and Washington. One of the results of this was SB-43X, the statewide bill which in February put the same cap on large businesses that small users already had. That saved many office buildings, she said.
Thompson credited the leadership of Gov. Gray Davis, who traveled down to San Diego to sign the bill, as well as state Sen. Dede Alpert, D-Coronado, who wrote the bill. BOMA named Alpert as “Legislator of the Year” in a ceremony Oct. 9.
Davis’ leadership was also essential in getting new energy generation on line. So far this year, the area has had only one rolling blackout, she noted.
“At the beginning, of this summer, we heard we were going to have two blackouts per week. So the state has been really effective in that,” she said.
Still another issue is janitor strikes. Thompson mentioned that there had been a few strikes Downtown about a year ago.
Thompson took a neutral stance on past controversies.
“Our position is that we’re not really the employers of the janitors, but we do contract with their employers, with the janitorial companies. So we certainly don’t want to negotiate either on behalf of either the employees or their contractors. We figure that’s their prerogative to work that out,” she said.
Thompson wants to make sure the janitors stay on the job , but there’s a downside, she said.
“Our main goal is to make sure the janitors in our buildings are happy, well-paid, and that our service continues uninterrupted. And cost is certainly an issue in the wake of higher energy rates,” Thompson said. “So their negotiations certainly do affect us, in that when the janitor’s rates go up, so do ours.”
Right now, janitor pay isn’t much of an issue since most locals are under contract until March 2003. Thompson expects the issue to start heating up just as her tenure as BOMA president ends in December 2002.
Diverted From Science Career
Thompson got into real estate management in a roundabout way. Her first career choice was science.
Thompson was born in Cleveland, then grew up in Florida. She spent her teen years in Maryland, going to a “magnet” high school that specialized in science.
Thompson didn’t really consider herself a scientist at the time, however. The reason she went there was she wanted the best public school education available to her at the time, and that school was the No. 3 public school in the entire country, she said.
Still, Thompson went on to Cornell University, originally to be a chemical engineer or an emergency room surgeon. That didn’t last long, she said.
“After the first year at Cornell, I transferred over to the hotel school. The hotel school was really a business school. Everything was team oriented, whereas pre-med , it’s more an individual effort. And I work better in a team atmosphere,” Thompson said.
In 1989, she graduated with a bachelor of science from the Cornell University School of Hotel Administration, with a major in real estate and finance.
“I wasn’t specifically interested in managing hotels or restaurants. I kind of wanted to take a different business angle on hospitality, and that’s how I ended up in real estate and finance,” she said.
After getting her degree, Thompson came to San Diego to work as a hospitality and real estate consultant for Laventhol & Horwath. She then went on to work for several real estate and development companies in La Jolla, including almost nine years at Mitsui Kensetsu Development.
Currently, Thompson directs all property management and leasing efforts associates with La Jolla Executive Tower on behalf of TMW Real Estate Group, the current owner of the building.
In addition to serving as the president of BOMA, she has also served as the president for the San Diego chapter of Commercial Real Estate Women and has been a member of the board of directors for the Golden Triangle Marketing Consortium, the University City Planning Group and the Big Sister League.
Her favorite hobbies include water sports, such as surfing, scuba diving and snorkeling. She originally got into snorkeling in Florida, but her love of surfing came only after she came to the San Diego area.
“It seemed like the thing to learn,” she said.
