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GREENSBORO - If your commute is sometimes a pain, consider this: Larry Gildea travels between Maryland and South Carolina every week as a regional director for Liberty Property Trust. But the Greensboro resident doesn't mind his frequent flyer status.
"I've learned to use travel to my advantage," he said. "I find it's the best time to get work done."
It would be an understatement to say that Gildea is active. It is not uncommon for him to log 12-hour days, and he uses lunch breaks to work out at a local gym.
That drive also is apparent at Liberty Property Trust, the Pennsylvania-based real estate investment trust (REIT) formerly known as Rouse & Associates where Gildea has worked for the past 17 years.
Gildea oversees Liberty's operations in the Carolinas and Maryland, where the REIT manages around 5 million square feet of office and warehouse space. In the Triad alone, Gildea is responsible for Liberty's 2.4 million square feet of office and warehouse space, in addition to space that Liberty continues to develop.
"It's a very large responsibility to take a piece of land and change it, and theoretically to improve it," he said.
Those close to Gildea describe him as a man of enthusiasm and vision, a detailoriented coach who succeeds at team building and raising the bar for others.
"Larry is good an consensus building," said Tom Calloway, president of Calloway, Johnson, Moore & West, a Winston-Salem architecture firm. "We know Larry Gildea cares about (his projects) and he encourages us to do better. Not only are we not going to let ourselves down, but we're not going to let him down."
Milton Kirkland, president of High Point-based Kirkland Inc., said Liberty's aggressive timetables and budgets have helped his company improve it's own operations.
"We like the challenge of the schedule," Kirkland said. "Larry has helped us raise the bar internally, particularly as it relates to how we manage our job sites. He's demanding, which I think is good because it makes you perform at your highest level."
Larry Gildea, attorney at law?
After graduating from Penn State University in 1972, Gildea first considered a career as an environmental attorney.
However, while scouting around for law schools, he slowly found himself drawn...