Her Story
About Stacey
I fell into the multifamily industry by accident in the early 90s when I was returning from college at Santa Barbara and looking for a career path in Los Angeles. I thought I'd give it a try while sourcing opportunities to pay my rent, and I found that it aligned with a lot of my passions - I studied communications, so marketing, promotions, and interpersonal communications were natural fits, along with budgeting and finance which I've always liked. I lovingly got stuck ever since. Over my 34 years in this field, I've worked with companies managing anywhere from 5,500 to 25,000 units, overseeing multiple properties including both affordable and conventional housing. My main expertise is collaborating with ownership and aligning with corporate departments to ensure goals are met for each property, synchronizing multiple departments and supervising teams to meet desired deliverables - whether that's financial goals, project implementation for asset preservation, capital needs, or income and expense goals. Day-to-day, I handle everything from planned projects and lender-required maintenance to unplanned emergencies, HR issues, and escalated resident concerns, because customer service is always very important to our industry. I was honored to be elected Regional Manager of the Year by the California Apartment Association, which was a huge accomplishment to be recognized by my peers. I've also overseen construction and lease-up for new construction buildings, achieving occupancy of 195 units within a 9-month period two years ago. I recently joined my current company, Arrowhead Housing, Incorporated, in October as Vice President of Director of Operations.
Her Interview
Ten minutes with Stacey
01What do you attribute your success to?
I've always been a hard worker. I've been working since I was 14 and a half and I haven't stopped. I think that work ethic came by example from my own family, and just setting the standard that that's an important value in life - integrity and work ethic. It's important to work hard, play hard. I've also put single parenting as a primary focus for the last 13 years, balancing my career with raising two kids, and my youngest is about to go to college.
02What’s the best career advice you’ve ever received?
The best career advice I received early on in my career was from one of my former mentors in probably 1995. His advice was about working in fee management, which is third-party management where we don't own our buildings. He told me that you will always gain more trust with taking ownership for any mistakes than celebrating your successes with your client relationships. That is very important, because whether it's a mistake we might make or not, there will always be some bad news that comes up - an unbudgeted expense situation, or if income goals don't meet due to issues beyond your control. Whatever it is, just being able to be transparent in the solution and being solution-oriented, and being able to have transparency, is very important in building trust in that relationship.
03What advice would you give to young women entering your industry?
Take every experience as an opportunity to learn, even the challenging ones, because it's within that experience that we become stronger in so many ways to build that experience for the next challenge. Persevere and continue to embrace new opportunities to grow in the industry.
04What are the biggest challenges or opportunities in your field right now?
For someone entering the industry, it's sourcing larger properties - you kind of work your way up to overseeing more staff and having greater opportunities that way. For somebody in my position, it's continuing to pursue higher level management opportunities.
05What values are most important to you in your work and personal life?
Integrity is extremely important to me - that would be number one. Work ethic, honesty, and being solution-oriented are also core values I hold.
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