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Tech expert sees the potential in real estate

Jim Vande Woude finds intersection of real estate and technology has never been more promising

September 16, 2022

Jim Vande Woude’s passion for technology still surprises him, even after three decades of designing and building complex systems for cities and companies. Today a Charlotte-based Senior Technology Project Manager, his career started in the 1980s, long before Apple, Microsoft, Amazon or even AOL were household names.

A quintessential California kid, Jim dropped out of college to spend his days surfing. Unsurprisingly, Jim’s dad wasn’t on board and gave his son two weeks to find a job – or he’d find one for him. Luckily, Jim found the tech world before his dad had a chance. The next thing he knew, he was working on mainframe computers for IBM. “I immediately fell in love with how technology is always unfinished and always changing,” Jim recalls.

Today, few are as well-positioned as Jim to understand the accelerated pace of innovation and applications for CRE technology. Over the course of his career, he’s traveled from coast-to-coast, touching on multiple industries, including hospitality. From city-to-city networks to largescale tower infrastructure – he's done it all.

Immediately before he joined JLL, Jim oversaw infrastructure design and installation at the Charlotte-Douglass International Airport – a project with significant hurdles. The government’s processes couldn’t keep pace with the ever-changing world of technology. By the time the city would approve the project, the technology was already old news.

Ready for a change, a posting for a technology infrastructure job in property management at JLL sparked his attention. And within two minutes of meeting Jason Lund, Managing Director of Property Management Technology, they both understood the opportunity at hand.

“Jason – like me wondered why tech wasn’t a mainstay in real estate management yet,” said Jim. “We were two guys with 30 years of experience – one in real estate, one in technology – and we had the same vision.”

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While his role at JLL is still evolving, Jim currently evaluates buildings to ensure they have the best technology for current needs and is easily upgradable for future demands. 

“Technology is the backbone that supports all the devices people use every day,” said Jim. “The more involved the tech matrix is inside your building, the more you can do with it, whether that’s managing power consumption, streamlining access control systems or using video analytics.”

Jim looks forward to leveraging his expertise and JLL’s resources to demonstrate what is possible in the future of technology and CRE. But more importantly, he appreciates that he’s surrounded by people who understand how fast technology is evolving and how they embrace conversations around it – fueling the ever-changing landscape that made Jim fall in love with tech in the first place.

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