What's Your Specialty

CHARTING A CAREER PATH IN COMMUNITY MANAGEMENT

By Dean Jackson, CCAM-HR

CACM HAS TAKEN A LEADING ROLE in providing education and promoting specialties, which can result in different career path choices for managers. Community management is not a one-size-fits-all career – while there are many similarities between each specialty, there are areas where the specialties, the required skills and education may differ. For many managers, it all starts with Portfolio Management, a specialty which many choose to embrace and turn into their career. If you are successful at Portfolio management with its sometimes frenetic pace and myriad of challenges, chances are you can do anything. Management specialties such as High Rise, Large Scale, New Development, Commercial and Industrial CID, and Age-Restricted Active Adult offer a variety of opportunities to succeed in the industry and require a variety of skills. Here’s what some managers say about their chosen specialties and why they chose them.

Portfolio Management

AL DE CAMARA, CCAM-PM, CAMEx | DE CAMARA MANAGEMENT, INC.

Portfolio managers are exposed to a wide variety of challenges that make this area continually interesting and oftentimes exciting. Much of the enjoyment we derive comes from being observant and realizing the vast humor that can be found in our industry. One board president asked, “Do we have to have an annual meeting every year?” In an attempt to control owners at a meeting, the president passed around a hair brush and said, “This is a microphone and no one may speak without the brush.” Talk about hair on your tongue.

An owner reported, “There is someone after me. I can’t tell the police because they are in on it. The FBI is in on it too.” An owner wanted to change their windows and asked for an Agricultural Application. An emergency call came in at 3:00 a.m. The owner reported they couldn’t sleep

Continued on page 10

CHALLENGING & REWARDING CAREER AHEAD

What's Your Specialty?

Continued from page 8 because the snails were eating and they could hear them chewing. My favorite instance occurred during a homeowner forum, when someone said, “I want to know what your management company is doing about global warming.” I responded, “My name is Al De Camara, not Al Gore.”

Portfolio management is my favorite area because of the diversity and obviously, because of the people you meet.

Large Scale Management

JULIA SOUZA, CCAM-LS, AMS SERRANO OWNERS’ ASSOCIATION

As with many community association managers, I started my career in community management as a portfolio manager. The diversity of the clients I served, along with disseminating governing documents, community objectives and board goals for all of my accounts was energizing and, at times, challenging. Eventually, I was drawn to the “one account, one set of docs, one board, one area of concentration” idea of large scale management, and when the opportunity presented itself, I accepted.

There are many benefits to being a dedicated manager of a large scale community association, but the role takes on complexities that many do not consider. For example, large scale management means that you are essentially a city manager, and in my case we have approximately 12,000 citizens that my amazing team and I serve. It also means that one is more vulnerable to “being made available for other job opportunities” after every election, depending on who gets on the board and what agenda they may have. Sounds daunting, right? But the fact is that it’s an absolute privilege.

Being a large scale manager presents opportunities for experiences and education that one may not have considered. For example, the management of thousands of acres of open space on wildfire prevention practices, working closely with government agencies to manage multiple wetlands through maintenance and restoration projects (put on your hip-waders!) and working with local school districts on the use of Mello-Roos taxes. And did you ever think you’d be managing (and by managing I mean walking) thousands of acres of parks and trails or discussing planting a vineyard in the community? It’s fun! It’s a lot of hard work, but the diversity of the experience is engaging and even adventurous at times!

As community management professionals, we all play a very important role in the communities we serve, no matter our client(s). Embracing the opportunity and privilege of making a difference and helping to improve community spirit through exceptional customer service are something we should all take great pride in, no matter the size of the communities we serve.

High Rise Management

DEAN JACKSON, CCAM-HR PACIFIC PARK PLAZA HOMEOWNERS ASSOCIATION

It may be a cliché, but I fell into community management. It began with a move from the East Coast, a newspaper (remember those?) ad, and a portfolio management company that took a chance on a young man who had no idea what an HOA or a set of CC&Rs was. While I fell headlong into portfolio management with a daunting meeting schedule and never a dull moment, it seems like on-site management, and eventually a high rise specialty, fell on my head. When the opportunity to take an on-site general manager position at a mid-rise condominium association presented itself, I nervously took up the challenge, having become adept at juggling several accounts, and began charting a career trajectory in which I could focus on a single account. When that first on-site position and all of the things that I learned there lead to a high rise general manager position, I didn’t know what I was getting myself into, but I dove in.

What I love about the high rise specialty is the daily face-toface interaction with so many different people, from residents to staff, to service providers, to the board of directors, as well as being able to focus exclusively on the complicated mechanics (both literal and figurative) and infrastructure that make one place tick (I think of it as a combination of a machine and a small city – complete with politics). That’s where CACM’s courses in human resource management, conflict resolution, budgeting and financials, and ultimately the courses required for the high rise specialty certificate helped me along the way. I believe the foundation that portfolio management provided has proven to be the bedrock of a challenging and rewarding career as a high rise general manager.

New Development

ANDREW HAY, CCAM-ND.PM THE HELSING GROUP

I joined this industry in 2010 as the country, and specifically