Bryant Foulger - Principled Family Business Leader (#38)

Bio

Bryant Foulger serves as Chairman of the Board of Directors for Foulger-Pratt and is a member of the Investment Committee. In his current role, Bryant draws on more than 30 years of real estate and management experience to provide approval and oversight of the CEO’s vision and strategy.

He was appointed to Maryland Governor Larry Hogan’s transition team and is also involved with the Montgomery Business Development Corporation, the Greater District of Columbia Chapter of the Leadership Council for the Mayo Clinic, the Montgomery County Business Advisory Panel, and is a Trustee Emeritus of the Bullis School in Potomac, Maryland. Bryant attended Brigham Young University and serves on numerous professional and charitable boards.

Show Notes

Current Role

• Chairman role still involved day to day. Handed reins of business to four Managing Partners (6:00)
  • Cameron Pratt, CEO
  • Brian Foulger
  • Brigg Bunker
  • Pete Ognibene
• Spends time on asset management and design for new projects (6:30)
• Does what he wants to do and not what he doesn’t want to do (7:10)
• What is over the horizon? (8:00)

Origin Story

• Born in Utah (9:00)
• Sid Foulger (his Dad) was a friend of the Marriott family (9:15)
• Member of the Church of Jesus Christ of the Latter Day Saints (9:30)
• His Dad was recruited to Marriott Corporation to help with construction of hotels (10:00)
• His Dad went out on his own with six children to start Foulger & Company, a development/construction company (10:50)
• Sid Foulger was an entrepreneur who found opportunities and was tenacious to get things done (11:15)
• Family relationships in the Mormon faith are “eternal.” (13:45)
• Lived next door to brothers and sisters (14:15)
• He had close family bonds with 48 grandchildren (his children and nephews and nieces) (14:30)
• Many shared experiences- Homes in Utah and New Hampshire (15:45)
• Bought lots on one block in Potomac about 40 yrs. ago (16:15)
• Mormon Temple, Kensington, MD story (19:00)
  • Bob Barker helped find the site (19:20)
  • Sid Foulger helped in pricing the project (20:00)
  • Keith Wilcox was the architect (childhood friend of Sid Foulger in Utah)
  • Identified with the Salt Lake Temple in appearance
  • Partnered with Okland Construction of Utah to build the Temple
  • White Alabama marble is the exterior curtain wall. (22:00)
  • In 1974 about 750,000 people toured the Temple after it was built (22:50)

Education

• Went to Bullis High School– Learned how to write there (24:00)
• Went to Brigham Young University (24:30)
  • Spent two years on a mission in Colombia (25:00)
  • Mormon mission is an assigned two year commitment (25:40)
  • Mission training center- indoctrinates toward learning language and culture (26:30)
  • He has been a bishop of a Spanish speaking ward of the church (27:40)
  • Did not graduate after returning from his mission. Took classes in construction and was pulled into a project (Crossroads Plaza) in Salt Lake City for a city block that became a four level regional mall anchored by Nordstrom working for his Dad and Okland Construction as partners. (29:30)
  • Working on this new huge project with no experience and had to work “out of his element” and his Dad gave him responsibilities he had to learn the hard way (31:30)
  • Early urban mall in the country- partnered with Equitable Life (33:20)
  • Was still in undergraduate when he worked on the project and decided to leave school and finish the project (33:00)
  • Returned back to DC area in the midst of the project’s construction and began commuting back and forth to Salt Lake City (34:00)
  • Lehndorff acquired the Crossroads property (35:20)

Career Arc

NOAA Project

• Took an option on a site in Silver Spring, MD that became a 1.3MM s.f. project that became NOAA’s Headquarters- Developed with Manor Investment Company (affiliate of B.F. Saul Co.) as a partner (36:40)
  • Steve Kaufman, Linowes & Blocher
  • Used GSA Opportunity Purchase program to lease the building (38:15)
  • He was involved with all the different aspects of the development including land use, architecture, planning, construction and asset management
  • Dennis Spencer (car dealer) (39:00)
  • Manor Investment (Jim Quinn) (B.F. Saul Co.)
• Did two projects a year during the early years (1980s and 1990s) (41:00)
• Growth is organic at the company (41:50)
• Pioneer Cleaning (43:00)
• Long term owners- Own 65% of everything developed (43:30)
• Looked at raising a fund, but created “inflexibilities.” (44:20)
• Raise capital on each transaction individually (44:50)
• Cash flow stability allows for long term perspective (46:00)

Downtown Silver Spring

• Lloyd Moore was pioneer in Silver Spring who approached him with a land assembly for a regional mall where they were talking with Macy’s and Penney’s to proceed with development (47:30)
  • Woodies filed bankruptcy and Penneys decided to take their store in Wheaton instead (48:50)
    • This tanked the project (49:00)
  • Doug Duncan was elected County Executive and approach Moore and Foulger Pratt to drop their plans and bring in the Ghermazian family (Triple 5) to build an amusement mall (like Mall of America) (50:00)
  • Deal with Ghermazians dissolved and Duncan called him and asked him what to do and his response was to “ask the community what they wanted”. He presented a process, not a plan. (51:45)
  • Went to Milt Peterson to convince him about Silver Spring and its potential. He gave the project to Jim Todd, President of Peterson to captain the project (53:30)
  • Discussed vertical discount mall (City Place) that was built by Walt Petrie in anticipation of the Ghermazian project that never happened. (55:15)
  • Land assembly was primarily done by Lloyd Moore originally, but sold the land to Montgomery County when the Ghermazian deal was in the works (57:20)
  • Peterson and Foulger Pratt worked with Montgomery County to create a redevelopment plan with parking, building construction (59:00)
  • Peterson did the retail leasing- Tom Maskey (head of retail leasing) (1:00:00)
  • Jim Todd and Bryant worked with community group to decide “what to do with this project” and asked what you want that is not a Ghermazian type project, but the essential uses- Grocery, restaurants, hardware, conveniences (1:00:50)
  • Sales pitch about Silver Spring (1:05:00)
  • Discussion about Milt Peterson (1:06:30)
  • Bryant on Peterson‘s board now (1:08:20)

Park Potomac Project

• Truland family– Truland Electric owned site at Montrose and I-270 where they had a plan to develop, but they had a tax problem that obstructed their ability to develop the project and came to Bryant to help them and did a venture to develop what is now known as Park Potomac (1:10:00)
  • Park Potomac was envisioned as a mixed use community with residential, office, and retail (I-270 access and visibility gave the site a differentiation)
  • Bob Youngentoub (EYA)

Other Current Projects

• Delivered 325 units on Capitol Hill (former Safeway) (Becket Park) replicated a project in Wheaton, MD (Exchange at Wheaton Station) (486 units)
• Mixed Use project in Union Market (Press House) (rehab of old warehouse)- Hickok Cole taking space
• 300 units in Eckington in DC (One501- Eckington Park)
• 300+ units on Nicholson Lane in Rockville (Harwood Flats)
• 325 units in Salt Lake City
• Breaking ground on a site near Nats Park
• Montgomery Mall (Ourisman Ford site) apartments

Landmark Mall Project

• Landmark Mall– Seritage is the partner and brought them in based on relationship in Southern California where they have an office (1:20:00)
  • Brought local “sensitivity” to mall redevelopment and learned about Inova’s interest and worked with the City of Alexandria (1:21:10)
  • Inova building a $1B hospital on the site with mixed uses integrated in
  • TIF involved
  • West end of Alexandria compared with Silver Spring before their redevelopment (1:24:00)

Company Planning

• Family business study- Cameron Pratt asked him to come to a Harvard Business School program to learn about family business governance, succession and culture (1:25:30)
• Needed to understand transition qualifications for next generation (1:27:00)
• Took 15 years to figure out process
• Hired Pete Ognibene and brought on Cameron Pratt
• Transition to four Managing Partners who have brought on new capabilities and now has the Jim Collins’ Flywheel spinning, such that growth has been almost exponential (1:29:20)
• 1990s with capital markets disruptions affected their philosophy of growth (1:31:20)

Pandemic Impact

• Pandemic impact- three office projects have potential impact (1:32:30)
  • Future of office has changed indefinitely
  • Lack of connectivity- hard to build culture
  • Hybrid- remote working along with face to face contact (1:34:00)
  • Tech company- 25-30% working remotely, but more space per person (1:34:30)
  • New technology in systems
  • Pushback on “hoteling” office space (1:36:00)
  • Mixed use going forward will have less emphasis on office uses (1:36:50)

Social and Relationships

• ESG issues- Good place to work, he asked for feedback from employees (1:38:30)
  • Attitude to hire the best people and diversity has happened organically (1:39:50)
  • Diverse property management team
• Steve Kaufman and Barbara Sears, attorneys at Linowes and Blocher
• Bill Marriott (1:42:00)

Lessons Learned

• Industry driven by financing and can’t forget that the buildings need to be functional and he fears that the concerns about building integrity and design are lost sometimes (1:43:00)
• Core Values- Constantly try to learn and improve…how can we do better? (1:45:10)
• Create a place to attract and retain people (1:45:50)
• Giving back- Bishop of a group of Mormon young people that are figuring out their lives (1:46:40)
• DC is a phenomenal city (1:47:50)
• Many of his friends are his competitors- Tom Bozzuto, Milt Peterson, Doug Firstenberg, Charlie Nulsen (1:48:50)
• Understand the financial side of real estate early in a career- cause and effect of financial impacts (1:50:30)
• Developer the only person in the room who makes the final decisions (1:52:00)
• Treat others the way you want to be treated (1:54:00)

Postscript

• Recap of conversation (1:56:00)
• Tom Amos – Project list impressive (1:57:30)
• Comparison with other development companies
  • 3.5 times more space managing than JBG Smith
  • Distribution of work nationally now
• Family owned businesses (2:00:00)
  • Oriented toward family culture
  • Accelerated their family business through the generations

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