By Cristy Boucher

We’ve all been impacted both personally and professionally by the pandemic, and, like us, you may have been affected by other disasters; wildfires, extended electricity shut-offs, flooding or even hurricanes.  While the circumstances this year have certainly challenged us, we found it also gave us a unique opportunity to formulate new communication plans and operating procedures to weather any storm (quite literally!).

No doubt, you and your teams have adjusted to new norms that allow you to operate effectively even remotely, changed your hiring procedures and updated your response plan. RealtyCom focused first on what was most important to keep us united as a team, and to continue providing the same level of service our clients have come to expect.

Communication | Check in, check up

When our routines are upset, talking not only with your immediate teams, but checking in with colleagues we don’t normally interact with was important to make sure no one felt “left behind.”  Having a committee set up to quickly disseminate updates and working schedules helped us get buy-in from several groups quickly. Many jumped in to help make online Staff meetings work, created new Teams channels to share information, scheduled Zoom happy hours and new […]

By Brian Seiffert and Joseph Rodriguez

Prospective owners may not have a crystal ball to avoid bad investments, but they can surround themselves with industry leaders and professional consultants to give them a good idea of what to expect. Today, it’s more important than ever to conduct a pre-acquisition technology infrastructure survey that runs a figurative fine-tooth comb over a community’s telecom components. It’s simply not enough to identify current providers and their service offering, as those services may not be competitive with advanced services being deployed at competing communities nearby.

A RealtyCom pre-acquisition site survey is conducted prior to a client’s purchase of an existing multi-family property. The survey includes inspection of existing structured cabling (i.e. homeruns to units, wiring between buildings, wiring within common areas, etc.), photo/video documentation of existing space and equipment within telecom closets ( MDF, IDF, AV, back of house, etc), and all conduit/sleeves/pathways. During the structured cabling portion of the survey, our field engineer identifies cable types in use and provides insight on feasibility of potential post wiring solutions. This information is gathered by:

• Identifying how difficult upgrading/placing new cables will be (use of attic space to retrofit IDF to unit homerun wiring)
• Noting whether the […]
  

Rush Blakely is at the heart of RealtyCom Partners, managing the entire team, our strategic and financial vision for the company, as well as lending his negotiation skills for our client’s new development projects.

Rush quickly became an integral part of the team after joining RealtyCom in 2015, showing dogged determination with the various service providers to solicit the best level of service and compensation for our clients, while overseeing complex technical projects. He grew our business operations team and in 2016, relocated to our corporate office from Southern California.  In 2018, Rush was promoted to President. He brings diverse experience from senior leadership positions with Time Warner Cable (now Charter Spectrum) and Comcast where he led successful multifamily sales teams in Texas, California and North Carolina. He ran all sales channels for Logic/WestStar, a fiber to the home provider in the Cayman Islands. Prior to his career in telecommunications, Rush managed a construction lending portfolio with Wells Fargo Bank. He holds a BA in Finance from Texas A&M University, his birth state.

If you’ve had the pleasure of chatting with Rush directly, his love of motorcycles, poker-playing and fine Cuban cigars has […]