Close Up: Phil Puckett
CBRE EVP Phil Puckett (and his partner, vice chairman Jeff Ellerman) have repped some big-name tenants and law firms in Downtown/Uptown to the tune of 6.2M SF. And across CBRE’s global platform, he’s also known as the creator of a software tool known as the Downtown-Uptown Dashboard.
Phil (left with Jeff on a quail hunt in South Texas a few weeks ago) didn’t know the ripple effect his Dashboard presentation tool would have. Simply put: it is a graphic-based visual software tool that shows the state of the current Downtown-Uptown office market and also digs down with additional metrics and details. Phil says the idea came to him when he worked on the Comerica world HQ move to Dallas for 197k SF in 2007. When the bust came in 2008, he had time on his hands and began to work on his evolving Dashboard even further. It's been working, too, as he and Jeff have repped firms like Norton Rose Fulbright, Gardere, Vinson & Elkins, Jackson Walker and more. Last year, Phil repped the largest lease renewal in Downtown for Tenet Healthcare’s world HQ for 213k SF at Fountain Place.
The Dashboard was created as a tenant rep tool for his clients, but Phil now spends a portion of his time doing presentations for CBRE's debt and equity group, multifamily group, investment sales and project leasing group, as well as presenting the Downtown-Uptown Dashboard to their clients and prospects. He's had Downtown-Uptown property owners and landlords (and lenders) seek him out for updates on the market, too. Phil and colleague Harlan Davis (left) keep the Dashboard updated on a daily basis. Phil says Harlan has been working with him since the Dashboard was created. Just a few weeks ago, Harlan was doing Dashboard training via WebEx to the CBRE-Hong Kong office about 9 pm our time.
Phil has also trained his two oldest sons—Neal and Campbell—how to develop a Dashboard. Neal (pictured), who works at CBRE-Dallas for Josh White, developed the Las Colinas Dashboard. While he was a summer intern for CBRE in Austin, Neal developed CBRE's Austin Dashboard. Phil's two other sons (Campbell and Bo) are both at TCU. Campbell, former captain of the TCU lacrosse team, will be graduating this May and go into commercial brokerage, following in the footsteps of his dad and older brother, Phil tells us. Bo is a freshman.
Looking back, Phil (speaking at an event earlier this week) didn’t intend to go into real estate. The Florida native came to college at SMU and started off selling main-frame computers at Pearl and Harwood for Burroughs Corp. But, after watching his Phi Delta Theta frat brothers in the real estate business making good money and having fun, he got some names from them and started cold-calling for a job. Once he made the jump, he never looked back and wound up working for some of the biggies: Transwestern Property, Lincoln Property and Trammell Crow. The best part of the job: if you like to hunt or play golf, you can do it on the job while you’re working on deals because the clients love to do these things too, he says. He was awarded the 2010 and 2013 Office Broker of the Year by NAIOP.
