Shout! Omaha

Ask An Average Joe Anything…

Who: Joe Schmidt, VP of Operations, East Campus Realty, LLC

Touring the Midtown Crossing development any given day this summer, if you let your mind wander, you might begin to understand the drastic amount of logistics involved in a project of its size. In addition to the 297 condos and 196 apartments and their tenants, there are the other 225,000 square feet of retail space, in addition to those business owners, their employees and their customers. All told, that’s hundreds of thousands of people that are needing to be kept happy, daily, for years to come.

As the Vice President of Operations for East Campus Realty, Joe Schmidt, 38, is far from average. A graduate of West Point, he is formerly a commissioned officer, a member of the Army’s 82nd Airborne division, and a pilot of an arms reconnaissance scout helicopter. After earning an MBA from Marquette, he has worked with major corporations including General Electric, Monster.com and, most recently, Mutual of Omaha. Currently, he is one of many who have taken the reigns at Midtown Crossing, thanks in no small part to his work ethic.

“That’s my job,” said Schmidt. “Basically, I’m the ‘go get it done’ guy.”

Taking his tour of Midtown, his genuine pride in the area comes through crystal clear. His day-to-day work is based on budget and tenancy projections for the Midtown development, but his real strengths are both in problem solving and networking. Mutual of Omaha’s aid in developing the area came with a price: reliable tenants and people who believe in a vision of a gentrified and prosperous public sector. Schmidt, equal parts affable and honest, was one of many charged with delivering on this task, and he has done so successfully.

What are your day-to-day activities as someone in charge of operations in a development the size of Midtown Crossing?

Schmidt: When you start taking a look behind the scenes, there’s a lot of different things going on: how and where we’ll run a particular promotional campaign, how we’re going to drive additional revenue to our businesses [at Midtown Crossing], how’s the theater doing, etc. I try to take more of a hands-on approach, as opposed to most landlords. This is a huge investment for our company, and we’re looking 10, 20, 30 years down the road. It’s not that we just want somebody there. We want the right people there, and we want to see them succeed. It’s not like a strip mall, where you’re one of 10 or one of a hundred. We’re all going to work together and see what we can’t do.

How has Midtown Crossing’s family of new retailers been building?

A lot of the credit goes to Red and Lund [Development Companies]. They’ve been exceptional to work with, when it comes to taking what we see as our vision and communicating it out to others. And as more come to take a place here, more people can see our vision come into fruition.

Has it been a “come one, come all” attitude?

You could go across the country and see multiple projects that are similar in size and shape to this, and they’re now at a point where they’ll take whatever they can to fill the spaces. But with Mutual, their stance has been that of getting the right tenants in at the right time in order to do this correctly, so we’re not going to waver.

What’s the highlight of your day?

My walk. I’ll end up going to the condos, walk around the project, just to be part of it. To look around and think, “Wow, this is pretty cool.” It hasn’t been since I was in the military that I can point to something and say, “That’s what I do.” Working at GE, Monster.com, and early on at Mutual, you do things you can’t see. You can’t hold it. Maybe you improve some process and you save $100,000 . . . and it’s there somewhere. Or when I was in charge of procurement, every day was about how we can take money out or do things more efficiently in order to save money for the company. And it’s there, but it’s not tangible. Here, you can walk around and see your efforts. When people tell me about their movie at Marcus or their haircut at Tru, I take a little pride in that.

You seem to be a jack-of-all-trades. What do you attribute that to?

Almost every job I’ve had, someone’s said, “Hey Joe, why don’t you try this.” My career path started off in the service, flying helicopters, becoming a commander a couple times and brought me here. Every job I’ve ever taken, someone thought I’d be perfect for it, and I’ve always said “okay” because it sounded like fun.

What are your goals, personally and professionally, for this year?

On the Midtown front, what I’m really looking forward to is getting more retailers open. We have over 75 percent already leased out, but it takes a while to build, to get spaces to fruition, to get those necessary pieces in there. That’s going to be exciting. Personally, I look forward to getting more and more involved in the community. There are very few places I’ve been that I’ve said, “You know, I want to live here.” And it’s one of those, “What can I do, or how can I help?” type things. I enjoy working with different companies and different entrepreneurs in the area.

Have you taken notice of any new entrepreneurial spirit in Omaha recently?

I think it’s awakening. For a long time, you’ve had the big, strong companies here. What you have now is a lot of entrepreneurial spirit here – look at Silicon Prairie, or Town Commons, that a friend of mine is putting together. A lot of it has to do with the fact that, as other parts of the country crash, Omaha has stayed pretty dry. If we had more companies like Mutual of Omaha, First National, Con Agra and Union Pacific, I’m not sure there would be a financial crisis right now, considering the way that they do things.

Working for public companies like GE and Monster, your time frames are a lot shorter. Here, there’s a different commitment. At GE, we’d take a look at something and say, “How can we get this into LCC – ‘low cost country’?” Working with Mutual, it’s more, “Who can we help? If no one in Omaha can do it, how about Iowa? How about someone in the Midwest?” It doesn’t necessarily go overseas. There are a number of companies in town that help others do that as well.

In the information age, I think our infrastructure is better than most because of what the government did here years and years ago. There’s a central hub of connectivity here. Yahoo figured that out. Google figured that out. Microsoft, as well. All of these companies are putting their data centers here, and there’s a reason for that. Every time a Yahoo[-type company] comes in, 10 or 15 new companies come with it. I’ve been working with quite a few entrepreneurs in the area as they’re looking at Midtown Crossing, and you can see the excitement in their eyes. It’s awesome to be a part of that.