Commercial office leases in the USA: Financial risk transfer and the loss of innovation

Author's Biography

Terry Barger received his Bachelor’s degree from the University of Colorado and his MBA from Pepperdine University. He served nine years as a Marine Corps pilot, leaving with the rank of Major. His career in real estate began at LaSalle Partners, a national asset management firm, as a General Manager responsible for the asset management of several high-rise office buildings in Southern California. From this experience, he gained valuable insight into how landlords escalate building costs and observed the general lack of specialised lease auditing expertise available to tenants. He founded CyberLease in 1989 to meet this need. He instructs seminars for numerous real estate organisations including the Building Owners and Managers Association (BOMA), the Institute of Real Estate Management (IREM), the International Facility Management Association (IFMA), and CoreNet Global. He has been an instructor for courses accredited by various State Bar Associations for Continuing Legal Education (CLE) credit and State Departments of Real Estate (DRE) for continuing education of real estate professionals. He has been published on the subjects of commercial leasing and operating expense issues in the Journal of Property Management and in the trade journal Office and Industrial Properties. He also co-authored the operating costs section for the book Negotiating and Drafting Office Leases by John Wood and Alan Di Sciullo, published by Law Journal Seminars Press. He is frequently called to be an expert witness on the subject of lease operating expenses.

Glen Wong received his Bachelor’s and Master’s degrees in Industrial and Systems Engineering from the University of Southern California. He began his professional work in corporate real estate at Walt Disney Imagineering. He subsequently served as Vice President of Real Estate for Turner Broadcasting System and Senior Director and Head of Corporate Properties at Invesco, overseeing their respective global property portfolios. He was then recruited by the Foreign and Commonwealth Office of the United Kingdom to serve as Regional Asset Manager for the Americas. He now practises as Vice President of Transaction Sciences at Transwestern, a real estate services and investment firm. He is an editorial board member of Corporate Real Estate Journal and holds the Senior Leader of Corporate Real Estate (SLCR) designation from CoreNet Global. He has been an instructor for CoreNet Global, a lecturer at Georgia State University and for the Real Estate Associate Program.