In this episode of She's Wild, Nancy Surak interviews Anne Pollack on her 23+ year career in land use and real estate law that has spanned California and Florida. Anne takes us on her journey from environmental law to becoming a leading commercial real estate attorney in Tampa Bay. Tune in to hear captivating stories from her notable projects, including challenging variance approvals and navigating opposition during large multifamily rezonings. Discover the keys to her success, from networking and embracing diverse roles to her passion for serving clients of all sizes. Anne also shares valuable insights on collaboration in the industry and offers advice for aspiring professionals looking to make their mark in commercial real estate. Don't miss this engaging conversation that sheds light on Anne Pollack's accomplished career and her perspectives on real estate practice, client service, and industry relationships.
In this episode of She's Wild, Nancy Surak interviews Anne Pollack on her 23+ year career in land use and real estate law that has spanned California and Florida. Anne takes us on her journey from environmental law to becoming a leading commercial real estate attorney in Tampa Bay. Tune in to hear captivating stories from her notable projects, including challenging variance approvals and navigating opposition during large multifamily rezonings. Discover the keys to her success, from networking and embracing diverse roles to her passion for serving clients of all sizes. Anne also shares valuable insights on collaboration in the industry and offers advice for aspiring professionals looking to make their mark in commercial real estate. Don't miss this engaging conversation that sheds light on Anne Pollack's accomplished career and her perspectives on real estate practice, client service, and industry relationships.
About Anne: Anne Pollack is a partner with Fletcher Fischer Pollack, P.L., a boutique, women-owned law firm in St. Petersburg, Florida. Over the past 20 years she has leveraged her knowledge to become an authority on acquiring development approvals and land use entitlements for real estate projects of all types and sizes across Florida, and in representing both private and governmental clients in connection with the sale, acquisition and development of real estate. Her practice also includes consultation on sustainability, green building and resiliency, reflecting the firm’s commitment to serving developers and businesses with holistic legal advice in this changing world. Anne’s sense of community and service has defined her throughout her career as much as her accomplishments in the legal world. She is a vital contributor to the Tampa Bay community and is a fixture in multiple industry, bar, and community-based organizations. She is currently on the board of ULI-Tampa Bay and co-chairs its Women’s Leadership Initiative and is Treasurer of Real Estate Investment Council – Tampa. She is on the Boards of the St. Petersburg Chamber of Commerce and Creative Clay, and she is Vice Chair of the Insurance and Surety Committee of the Florida Bar Real Property Probate and Trust Law Section. Anne was President of CREW Tampa Bay in 2017.
Connect with Anne:
LinkedIn: https://www.linkedin.com/in/annepollack/
Website: https://www.fletcherfischer.com/
Connect with Nancy:
Instagram: https://instagram.com/nancysurak
LinkedIn: https://www.linkedin.com/in/nancysurak
Website: http://www.nancysurak.com
She’s Wild Sound Production by: Luke Surak, Surak Productions: surakproductions@gmail.com
Nancy Surak 00:01
Hello, welcome to She's Wild, the podcast for women in land and development. I'm your host, Nancy Surak. For almost two decades, I have been a land broker on the west coast of Florida, immersed in some remarkable commercial real estate deals. She's wild is all about professional women in the land development, and commercial real estate industries. We are dedicated to advancing their success. Please join me weekly as we explore some inspiring stories of women who are reshaping the communities that they live work in plan all across North America. Hi, welcome back to She's Wild, the podcast for women in land and development. Today's guest is Anne Pollack, the managing member at Fletcher Fisher Pollack and the founding member of Smart City Title Services here in the Tampa Bay region, and is a very longtime friend of mine in the business and I always love it. And when you and I are on a deal together, I love it, especially if we're on the same side. But even if we're on opposing sides, I really enjoy getting to do business with you. And I'm really happy to have you here on the show today. So welcome to she's wild. As I was just stating, I always like to give my guests an opportunity, especially for those who I know better than others to introduce themselves. So why don't you tell us a little bit more about who you are and how you came to be in this great business that we love so much.
Anne Pollack 01:29
Well, thank you again, so much for having me. I'm very excited. I love your podcasts, and I feel honored that you're trusting me to be one of your guests. I am a land use and real estate attorney. I've been practicing for 23 years. And I love it. I love planning. And I love maps. And I love serving and I love all the deals in the paperwork. And I love what I do. And I get to work with a really great group of people on a wide range of projects. Because what I do doesn't really necessarily relate to a specific type of development. I can do a little bit of whatever I am originally from New Jersey, and I went to college in Maine, met my future husband, and we got married and moved to California for grad school. And I was planning to be a environmental attorney. That was really my underlying goal. And I got my first job with an amazing company, amazing law firm out of Sacramento and Oakland that did municipal law, they represented the small cities and towns in the San Francisco Bay Area that either didn't have a city attorney or it was too small to have more than one and they needed the help. So I went in this totally different direction. I worked with amazing women at that law firm, and really learned how to multitask, be a great lawyer and be a great mom kind of all that was starting at that time. My husband was a software engineer decided he wanted to go to law school. And we knew we couldn't really raise one kid in San Francisco on my income while he was going to school. So we came to Florida where he's originally from. And I've been here ever since. And when I was looking to see what to do municipal law was really my priority at that time. That's where my experience was, but the jobs just really weren't there. So I transitioned and stuck, got my first job doing land use law, because that's really what a lot of municipal attorneys do anyway. And I've been doing that ever since really expanded. And as as I moved forward, I joined two other women, Fletcher and Fisher and we started this small law firm, where we've been practicing commercial real estate law for now the past 10 years.
Nancy Surak 04:06
Well, I think I've known you for at least the last 10 years. I want to say it's maybe 15. It's got to date back to 15.
Anne Pollack 04:14
Probably yeah.
Nancy Surak 04:16
And it's been really fun to watch you grow through the transition of your career. You know, to watch you especially join the firm that you're with now, right and just say I'm we're going to take over this part of the market and then watch you guys grow the practice. It's been a huge cheerleader of yours. I think I've pulled you into at least one board room and I'm like, you're great at what you do. I'm always going to be there saying how awesome you are. But I would love to chat with you about me. You've covered a lot in your intro. Going back to what originally took you here and getting you into your first job here when you said you fell into or sort of got into land use law. Tell us a little bit more about are the sorts of projects that you were working on back then, and then how you transition that into what you're doing today.
Anne Pollack 05:08
So when I first started, I was working for a firm that did a wide range of projects. And it was a relatively small firm, not as small as we are today. But we did a number of really large, mixed use master planned developments, we represented office developers and hospitals. And it was really great work. I really enjoyed it, I learned a lot from the partners I was working with. And then the great recession happened. And that really happened right around the time when I felt like a client could call me and hire me, not my partner's not my, the other attorneys, you could call me and I could do the work for you. But there was no work. It was really it was really a terrible time to, to kind of commit to that. So somehow, we made it through. And I got to a point where it felt like it was time to think about my future, and what I wanted to do going forward. And whether I felt I had a strong place where I currently was. And it was at that point that I was talking to my future partner, Lee Fletcher, who's also a longtime friend. And she and Tina Fisher, my partner had just left their very large law firm to start their own practice. And we're looking to expand and it just seemed to be the right thing to do to be able to work with women instead of primarily men like I had been working with. To work with women who were interested in working collaboratively. That's always been how we've tried to practice. Everything is for the best for the client. Not necessarily it's my client, it's your client. And that has truly been a wonderful part of this practice.
Nancy Surak 07:20
Yeah, I would, I would agree that I've seen you guys sort of do that. Right. And it's unique. So what I would say, you know, and I say, even from a brokerage perspective, like, it's sometimes hard for me to really promise not promise, but to have somebody convinced that I'm like, Listen, I'm always gonna put your needs first. Because it's hard to kill a deal or to say, you know, like, that's not the right deal for you. But if you really are putting someone first sometimes that's the right decision. So stepping back through your career and knowing kind of where you came from, what's been your favorite deal that you've ever worked on?
Anne Pollack 08:04
Oh, my gosh, I will say, this was a very small project, but it was when I was starting to really come out on my own, essentially, I had a very difficult variance request. Variances are kind of unique in that you're requesting them from a group of people who are appointed. So they have a different sort of sense of themselves, I think, then elected officials, you are trying to prove that there's a hardship. And often the local government or the board will say that just by you asking for this, that is not a hardship, your viewers, you are creating this problem. So variances are very hard. And I had a project where just a an owner in Hyde Park area, which is an historic area of Tampa, was looking to build a brand new, big accessory garage on their, the back of their beautiful home. And there were two variances we were requesting. And one was easy peasy. And the other one was complicated and hard and there was no way we're gonna get it. And I ended up getting them. And I was so proud of myself. And I was so proud of all the work that we had put into it. But that was one of the that that experience stands out to me because it just showed that if you truly put in the hard work and you really thought about the best way to proceed, you could come out even when you had a really hard opportunity in front of you. Certainly I've done a lot of big projects, and those have always been fun too. The more the more the intellectual stimulation, I think the better.
Nancy Surak 09:58
Yeah, I love that you picked a project for Hyde Park for everybody here today. That's where my office is, but I know a little bit about the neighborhood that surrounds the village where my office is located. And it's those historical requirements and guidelines that are in that area are very restrictive. So kudos to you. And I can really honor the fact that you picked a project because I'm sure you had a lot of personal, just pride, which you talked about, you're really proud of yourself, but you could really identify with what you were doing for that, you know, kind of little person, the homeowner, instead of the big, big, huge mess of project sites that we work with are on on a regular basis. So thank you for sharing that.
Anne Pollack 10:41
I do represent a wide range of clients, from institutional developers and investors down to just homeowners and small business owners that are looking to get changes, to allow them to do what they need to do. And sometimes the problems that the small mom and pop or small property owner has are just as sophisticated and complicated as what the big institutional sophisticated client might have. And not often makes it kind of tough, because it's going to still cost a lot and still going to be difficult, but they don't have the money. They don't have the time, you know, they don't have the expectations that this is something that's so difficult to get through. So that's definitely something that I've had to try to figure out over the years. Right.
Nancy Surak 11:37
So when so just to help you balance it out. You know, that's a great example that you provided. But is there a large project that you could say, you know, on the other end of the seesaw, this is one that really stands out that I really enjoyed working on for any particular reason.
Anne Pollack 11:57
I represented a client on a major multifamily project rezoning. That lasted years, it was very complicated, it had a lot of opposition. We went through probably four hearings, which kept having to look at different issues that were raised by the opposition in order to kill the project. And that one was, it was intense, it was very interesting. It required us to stay on our toes. And ultimately, we were successful, which also, again, is very rewarding. But it took a long time. I went through the litigation mediation process as part of that, and just opened up a whole new world of experience on getting through these projects.
Nancy Surak 13:06
Yeah, so I hope a year from now, if I asked you this question, again, as to what your favorite deal is, that you would say it's the one that you and I are working on right now, which actually, I just adore the client that we share. So thank you for pulling me into that room. Absolutely.
Anne Pollack 13:22
And one of the great things about this project is that it is primarily transactional. It's not really a land use project, at least from what I'm doing. And one of the things that I've gotten to do over the past five years, I feel is really become a real estate attorney, I I have clients that need my help on transactional deals that in the past, I would have passed on because I didn't have the experience for these complicated. But I've really had to just jump in the deep end and learn it. And I had a $40 million loan closing that a friend asked me to do and all of a sudden my first loan closing was just this nightmare. But once I got through it, I felt comfortable that I can now do loan closings so And similarly with this client that we have together, which is so great. She's so wonderful. We've gone through so much as we move through this process, that it really has taught me a lot and I feel maybe an even better transactional real estate attorney than I was before.
Nancy Surak 14:34
Isn't that remarkable? Because when you look back and you say, You know what, I could have said no to this and I didn't.
Anne Pollack 14:41
Absolutely, absolutely. Sometimes you just have to take those risks and you learn more, you become better because you had to learn something new. I think for so many years. I just was doing the same thing over and over. And I felt like where am I going, what what's happening here, all I do is the same kind of projects don't feel like I have anything interesting to offer. Because nobody came to me. And I didn't have time to sort of just research things myself. So certainly post COVID, there's just so much activity down here that I get requests for all all wide range of things, as I'm sure you do, things that you never saw before, and you just have to jump in and try do your best and know that you have good people around you that can guide you and help you support you. And that's why you know, by my partner suddenly great to give me that confidence that I can do this.
Nancy Surak 15:46
So you know, it's a little bit of a love fest of a podcast, but you just said something that I think is really important, I want to dive into a little bit support around you, right, like the people that are around, you are not always in your firm. And I know that you and I share this, like I I remember on the particular deal that we sort of mentioned, you calling me at a point and saying, I need to bounce some things off her view. And this is, you know, highly confidential, and all these things like what would you do? And you sort of like framed a situation and said, What would you do in this situation? And so there was this mutual respect and professional guidance that I said, Okay, well, I need a little bit more information and significant trust, right, you were trusting me to be able to say, here's what I would do, I did that. And ultimately, that came down months later, to be supportive, and to come circle around for me to help me get into the room, which was great. I didn't help you that day with that in mind. But it's important because I know I've been able to pick up the phone and say, hey, I've encountered this Anne, and I'm not quite sure how to proceed. It's so important for us to have that support inside and outside. So with that, I want to to ask you, because I know that we serve on a board together. I know they have a long history with CREW here in the Tampa Bay region. How important is it? Do you think for young professionals to come up to build those relationships through different associations?
Anne Pollack 17:22
I mean, I think it's extremely important. And you can tell because if you look on my resume, I'm on like four boards right now. And otherwise, in a member of many organizations, it's hard for me to say no, I will say that primarily. But all these organizations are doing such important things. So interesting. So, so much information that they provide you to make you a better practitioner, whatever you do, but also so many good connections. And truly, I mean, I jumped into CREW, in 2008, you can spend 15 years, and I was, you know, relatively relatively young attorney, I was looking to meet people to, of course, bring in business, but to really just learn and grow who I know. And it, it was really terrific. What I would highly recommend, though, is not just joining, I think joining can be okay, I think you can get some education. And that's been my philosophy and at this point partners has always been a join something you need to join the the intention that you're ultimately going to be a leader in that organization. And that doesn't mean you're going to be the chair, the president, but you're going to be on the board, you're going to try to get as high as you can, because that is really the way that people know you're sitting in a lunch and it's nice, but people forget you as soon as they leave. If you're the one standing up there, introducing people, meeting new members, meeting the guests, making policy with these other amazing people in the boardroom with you. That's the way that you truly get ahead. That's the way you get the experience. That's how you truly become a leader that you can then pass on and, you know, do great things in the other parts of your mind.
Nancy Surak 19:28
Yeah, definitely. And I did also just talk about, you know, sometimes you have trouble saying, No. You and I've talked about that offline. I did look at your LinkedIn today. And I didn't notice I was counting the boards and I was like, Oh man, she's still on a lot of boards. A few of those are not necessarily real estate related. So I want to talk about that piece because for me, I you know, I did some community stuff when my kids were younger, but it was really their activities. because that's where I felt like I wanted to make that contribution. As my kids grew up, then I got more involved in like career based or professional organizations. But you've done a little bit of everything. Tell me a little bit more about one of the boards or organizations that you're involved with. That's not necessarily real estate related, but that's really meaningful to you.
Anne Pollack 20:20
Right now, I'm on the board of Creative Clay, which is an organization in St. Petersburg, that supports people with disabilities through art. And it provides a place for them to paint and to, to sculpture and to do the performance art to do this together, but also the opportunity to sell their art to make some money and to have shows that are in other places around the city, to but there are office buildings and exhibits. And it is really a wonderful organization. And I invite anybody who's interested in local and walks, I'll come up give you a tour of the place, it's, it just opens your heart so much when you're there. I particularly love it because it's community based. And it's really unrelated to all the other things that I do. Going back to my initial like, career choice, doing environmental law, environmental protection has always been that issue that is I have the most passionate about. And I've been involved in various environmental things over the years. But this is completely different. This is just about people, and my local community. And so I love it. And but you know, through it, again, you're just meeting different people, you're meeting others who share a common interest, but they are also business people in our community. And you work with sponsors, and to meet people at events. And so it just, it's, it's feel good, and it is good. And it's also helps you as grow as a person.
Nancy Surak 22:16
Yeah, that's great. I think it's funny that you're saying about those things, because I went through Leadership, Tampa Bay, I think it was in 2004. So quite a long time ago, I literally called two people from my class today, this morning for like two unrelated issues that I was like, Oh, I was looking for somebody I had a client asked me for one referral. And I was like, I don't know. And then I have something, personally, that I was like, oh, I need this. And I was like racking my brain. And I said, you know, from Leadership, Tampa Bay and went through the membership, like log, and I was like, oh, yeah, so and so does that until I'm like, you know, it's worse. So it's still really important, you know, to do those things in an awesome for connectivity. So yeah, definitely is
Anne Pollack 23:05
CREW, Commercial Real Estate Women has always had the philosophy that if you call somebody else in CREW, you can kind of automatically trust that that person is going to be good at what they do and a valuable help. And so one of the benefits of that organization is not only meeting your local connections in the industry, but having the network of like 10,000 Plus, maybe more by now, people that you can call when your client needs somebody in Ohio, or, you know, you need to understand how something works in New York, like you, you have that connection, and they can be a complete stranger, but through this organization that you belong to, that they recognize this awesome even want to belong to. You really, you really have such a wide network to connect with.
Nancy Surak 24:01
So speaking of your network, I haven't asked this question before on any of my shows. So you are my guinea pig, are you ready? But I was thinking about it earlier today. And I was like, I'm gonna ask this question. If you could take on any other role in a deal. Beyond being the attorney involved? What role would you want to do in that project?
Anne Pollack 24:26
I think there are probably two places that I'd be interested in. One is to just be a developer to be in that role and seeing all the different pieces together. Man, I find that the land use work that I do, I'm often the manager have that part of the process. And I'm dealing with the planner and the developer and surveyor and the engineer and I'm sort of pulling it all together. I think it would be really great to be the developer. To work with the developer, one on one and connect all this, that all together and really do a lot more of the deal than just the beginning parts, which is typically where I am at with either the closing or with the land. So I think that would be one thing. The other part, I think, I would love, if I were just a plain old regular planner, a land planner, I think that is just so interesting. Like, my favorite part of my job is just studying maps and surveys and just learning what's going on in the property and figuring it out. To me, it's like a puzzle, often when a client brings me some due diligence request, and to be able to take a a giant piece of property and design something amazing. Like to have that skill. I don't know, I'm really as qualified as I would want to be. But to do that, I think that would be really fun, and really amazing.
Nancy Surak 26:04
So I'm gonna make you laugh. I share that I love to be in the developer role, too, mainly because I just love to have control. And I do really love to, I love to work with those individuals, because I can partake in their vision, right. And sometimes I can even impact their vision for a particular project, which is always really fun. But the other role, are you ready? I think I would really love to be the attorney.
Anne Pollack 26:32
Well, I will say that I think being an attorney is probably the best job there is I think going to law school and practicing as an attorney to me, I've always said that's to everyone, like all those law students and people looking that I think it lifts like this veil off your face that all non lawyers have, they just don't see the detail. They don't see the nuance that an attorney sees automatically. And it really annoys non lawyers when the lawyers are saying, but what about this, but this little comma right here makes a huge difference. And this one sentence, if we could just add it would be so important. And they think well, you know, it's no big deal. It's okay. But truly, we, I feel like I see this detail that really opens up the world. And so yeah, I would say do it, just do it.
Nancy Surak 27:36
I'm not going back to law school. But I always like to tell attorneys that I'm working with on different deals like I'm not, I'm not, I'm not an attorney, but I really enjoy being in the weeds on the contracts. And I will read things from my perspective that I could think, from my history, and my experience could potentially bubble up and be problematic. And I know that we've shared things over the years where you're like, I actually incorporate that into all my contracts now and, and being able to share that knowledge is just really cool. But I don't know if I get down to the level of detail of a comma. But I do say like, this is a prob, this could be a problem. This could be a problem. Like if you need to think you're not really when you. I mean, this is just my opinion, you can disagree with me. When you're negotiating a contract, it's really not about that particular moment in time. It's really about the moment in time in the future when it could be absolutely a problem.
Anne Pollack 28:32
We are always thinking, yeah, we're always thinking about worst case scenarios. And I think a lot of people go into it with these hopes and dreams that are high expectations. And we're thinking about but what if, what if this happens? What if that happens, then we're looking at your insurance provisions, or we're looking at your liability provisions, or we're looking at timeframes and we're adjusting these things. We may get down to that level of that coma because we were thinking about the when stuff goes down in the future. How is our client going to get out of it with what they and I truly value? The expertise of the people I work with the brokers, the engineers, the developers who have gone through a wide range of other projects, and they've seen some of those what ifs happen, and once you've experienced one, you think about it forever, and it may never happen again but you are always considering that issue. When you are drafting that contract or negotiating that deal.
Nancy Surak 29:45
100% it only takes once to get close to that fire or burned for before you're like, I've seen this before. Don't do that. And it is absolutely it's it's always fun to me when I get a call whether or to you or other attorneys, or they'll, because people will call me all the time and they'll say, Have you ever encountered this? And I'm always really surprised when I'm like, Yes, I have. Would you like to know how we handled it? You know, it is always the like, the story, you know, like we're saying, it's always because you lived through something really painful that you can add that value. So you mentioned a word earlier, and I jotted it down really quickly. Things that become annoyances, what's your biggest pet peeve, in your daily practice your business, you're being on a board being just a professional in our industry?
Anne Pollack 30:43
Probably, when I'm dealing with clients who just don't get it. I mean, again, you know, you deal with a wide range of clients from those that are sophisticated and have done this a lot to those who are just starting, just have this random problem that they have to deal with, or who are jumping into a field. And I appreciate really those clients that are, you know, I like working with ones that understand the process that that makes it easier. But for those who don't, you know, I appreciate those who value my expertise, who listen to my expertise. And who communicate well, you know that communication is such a major part of this whole process when you have lousy communication, and you just can't get answers, or the answers are not answers. I mean, how many times have you sent an email and they respond with something that is completely unhelpful? So you have to send another email and they respond, and it's just like all this delay and all this time. And it's costing them because I'm having to deal with it. That when they're not really listening, I think that's probably that's probably my biggest annoyance.
Nancy Surak 32:18
Well, I'm really glad that you didn't say, when brokers think they want to be the attorney of the deal.
Anne Pollack 32:24
No, brokers always want to be the attorney on the deal. So I just I just accept that and move on. Right?
Nancy Surak 32:30
Well, what I have another attorney in our market, who actually says said to me numerous times, like he really actually like that, because it helps all of us do a better job. And then they usually follow up with is, you know, really, there's a lot of people who aren't even doing the brokerage role of brokerage. And that's even worse.
Anne Pollack 32:52
Well, we've had situations where the broker says, You don't need an attorney. And then often, that's the time when the client, the owner gets into trouble, because they haven't, they haven't asked an attorney just for their take on the deal. Sometimes just putting, paying a little upfront to get a little advice saves you so much down the road. So, you know, I always recommend that the attorneys and the brokers work together, we each have our own role, we each have our own experience. We have a client recently, who basically stopped using the broker to negotiate and was paying us to negotiate and we kept saying, No, this is the brokers role. First of all, you're paying them a very large commission, why would you also be paying our fees to do something that's in their wheelhouse, but again, sometimes clients don't listen.
Nancy Surak 33:51
I 1,000,000% agree with all of that. All every single thing that you said, it's really, really important for us to be all working together as a cohesive team. And to know when we each have to step forward and step back too. I that mean, that's like the best. And I have several folks who I work with that I've worked with more than, you know, one or two deals and so you really have those personalities, like kind of figured out and you know, like, I know when I can step forward with certain clients, and when I'm like, Okay, this is really the attorney needs to be like taking the lead. I have a deal right now that it's really interesting to me the dynamic of both sides in how we're doing this like broker, attorney, client, buyer seller like like all these roles are just we're getting to a point move and working on for a while. It's really been a good team on both sides. We're all like figuring out like how to communicate most effectively. Yeah, but literally today like you know, one one attorneys are talking to the other attorney and I'm like, I'm out. I'm out. I'm going to let them do this. And but but immediately the attorney, the attorney on my seller side is like texting me and calling me and like, hey, I'm bringing you up to speed. And I'm like, yeah, no, I'm good. I've saw all the emails, you don't need to call me too, but I'm good. But it's been really good for just the deal and relationships and just watching I think my client, who actually on that particular deal, I referred this particular attorney. And the client is like even getting it, which is great.
Anne Pollack 35:34
It really is. When everybody's working together and, and taking their role seriously. And when the client is listening to the right person, that really makes the deal great, even a complicated deal, even a hard deal, when your engineer is really focused on what they're supposed to be doing. And the broker is truly working on their side of the deal. And, you know, the communication between parties, and the lawyers is, you know, getting at those details in the contract, and everybody's working together to solve it. It really makes it a fun process.
Nancy Surak 36:15
Yeah, no, it's great. And that that particular deal is another great example of you saying like, it's one of my biggest pet peeves are things that like, keep me up at night is when I see somebody not hire an attorney. Because I'll even though I love, like the contracts, and I'm like, Oh, watch out for this, I'm like, I'm not an attorney. I'm not licensed. I can't practice law. When I see clients, mentally making the decision, that they're not going to listen to me saying, like, you should really consult someone on this, like, I'm not an attorney, you need to understand what the law is. And they don't do it. And they make a mistake. It's awkward for me, like, I feel so bad.
Anne Pollack 36:53
Pennywise and pound foolish, right?
Nancy Surak 36:55
Because I'm like, oh, my God, like, if you just had one person put their eyes on that, like, I knew, like, I'm like, I knew that that was gonna be a problem for you. But you instead got as much free advice that you could get, and then you made a really, really fatal error.
Anne Pollack 37:12
You know, ultimately, the I tell a lot of my clients, you know, okay, we're at the point where this is a business risk decision for you. Do you think that this deal is so important that it's worth falling back on this issue that I in the ideal world, I think you should ever fall back on. But you know, at this point, I've laid it out. These are the risks of proceeding in this manner. These are the benefits of proceeding in this manner. It's now your turn to make the decision. I'm, I give you the advice, and you ultimately make the decision because you're the one thing and again, when you know, clients listen, and they take your advice, and then they make that decision, knowing that they've gotten all the information, that is a really good place to be in a deal.
Nancy Surak 38:03
Agree. So I am going to because I don't want to forget and I wrote it down on my notes. I'm going to go way back with you. You ready? I learned something about you today, when I was prepping for our conversation here that I didn't know. I knew that you had a love of environmental. I didn't know that. You know kind of how that started. I really didn't know that you spent some time in Kenya.
Anne Pollack 38:32
I did. I I love traveling. And I've loved it my whole life. And when I was a junior in college, I did a semester abroad program where I went and lived in Washington DC for the semester. And I did this program called the Washington Semester at American University, where you learn it was international environment and development. That was the course you've learned with a group of about 25 people. And you get an internship, I had an internship at a environmental organization in DC. And of course, you're living in DC, which is amazing. Especially after I was going to college in rural Maine. And then we went for four weeks to Kenya and it was this practicum where we truly gotten to see in person. All the stuff that we ended up learning we went and stayed in a village that we had to hike to because the roads were so bad and that they had to deal with, you know, elephants stealing their vegetables in their garden. We helped in several places, women's groups that were basically doing all the work and leading the economic you know advancement of their little community entities. I remember in one one situation where they were digging a new garden or I don't know exactly where it was, it's long time ago, but the women were doing it and all the all the college guys, you know, step up and roll manly and they grab the shovels, start digging in there helping limit to but the man just, you know, took over and the Kenyan men were looking at them like they were crazy, like this is women's work, like, why are you doing this, and it was just, it was just so interesting. I remember flying home, and thinking everyone should have an experience like this everyone in America who just takes for granted their nice life that they have, they need to go to a place like Kenya or some other similar place and see how the rest of the world lives. And that has stood with me for so long. And when I've traveled as an adult is my kids, I try to bring my kids as much as I can. Because I again, even if it's not a place like Kenya, I want them to see how the rest of the world is to really expand their horizons so that they come back and they think broader there, they have a much more tolerant view of the world. And, and hopefully, that that has happened. So
Nancy Surak 41:27
Thank you for giving me the background story on that, because I saw it and I was like I've never asked her about that is really cool. I have not lived or been at any period of time and a place like that, right. But I love to tell people that when we hosted an exchange student in our family, my husband and I, seven years ago for almost a year here in Tampa, and I had a young woman from Germany live with us, I came out of that experience, one a better parent, I watched my kids become better siblings. And I have said to other people, if you really want to bring communities together, you should force people to live with each other. Because you realize that you're not quite as different. You know, then what you might think you are, but then you also have different cultures and practices. And you know, like you said, it gives you a broader perspective. So I can relate on that side,
Anne Pollack 42:27
Through our bar organizations that my husband and I belong to, we've done some international traveling, and one of the great things that we've done as part of that is when we get to meet attorneys from the city that we're visiting, or the courts, the judges from the places where add, just to learn how the different systems work. You know, it really brings home sort of the pros and cons of what we have and how our system works here.
Nancy Surak 42:56
So yeah, no, that's cool. So I'm gonna dive into the last few questions of our conversation here, I could talk to you forever, especially when it's things about your background that I'm not as familiar with. So that's really cool to me to get to know you at that level. But I always love to wrap up every interview with a few questions. And sometimes I mix them up. But for this one, I'm going to just say, and when you think back over the course of your career, and you get a phone call, I think you mentioned earlier if if a young person were to call you, I'm just going to ask it in a little bit of a different way. If or when you hear from someone and they say like I think I want to pursue commercial real estate as a career, or I want to get into law, or I want to pursue development. What's the number one piece of advice you give out?
Anne Pollack 43:52
I think the best thing to do is to really try to meet as many people in different parts of the industry as possible. You know if you can get jobs or internships in a variety of positions, if you're working for like, if you want to go into the law, if you're working with a variety of people that do different things in the real estate industry, or if you you know, I know some people that you know, they've worked in a brokerage for a little bit or they've even just meeting a variety of people. But I think understanding how the whole process works is really key to being successful, may ultimately be join groups and become a leader and go that direction but really understanding the different parts of the deal that your little piece has so much more in portance than you might realize that, you know, without the entitlements or the land, the whole thing wouldn't happen without finding the right. buyer or right seller, you know, you'll never find that perfect piece of land without understanding all the infrastructure issues that kind of go into a project. You won't necessarily understand where all the county comments are coming from that seem to make the project so difficult. It really is about connecting and meeting with a variety of people, I think, I think that can help you truly be better at what you do no matter what it is in this industry.
Nancy Surak 45:48
I agree. And then finally, Anne where should people keep up with you? I believe you're pretty active on LinkedIn. But is that the best place? If folks want to connect with you or keep up with kind of like what you're paying attention to? And our business? Where should they fell?
Anne Pollack 46:04
Definitely LinkedIn. I am not very good with social media. To me, it's it's very, it requires a lot of effort. And so I've pretty much stuck with one area. But I do post a lot on LinkedIn, because not only, I think that gives you, you know, gets your name out there. But there's just so much going on. And I'm so interested in sharing the information that I learned, sharing about the events that I attend, and the organizations that I belong to. And, you know, really, really just connecting people to information. So I think LinkedIn is probably the place to find me.
Nancy Surak 46:50
Right, awesome. Well, I'll make sure to add all your other contact information for folks that connect with you too. I want to thank you for joining me here today, I want to thank you for giving me kind of like walking me through your career history, sharing with us some of the things that are most important to you, and giving such great wise advice. So thanks for joining us today.
Anne Pollack 47:08
Well, thank you, Nancy, and I so enjoy being your friend and your colleague and working with you and I look forward to continuing that and really, again, feel honored that you've asked me to be here. Awesome.
Nancy Surak 47:21
Well, you're awesome. So I'm really happy that we did this. So have a great one. Take care.
Anne Pollack 47:27
Thank you too. Bye bye. Bye.
Nancy Surak 47:30
Thank you for joining me today on another episode of She's Wild, the podcast for women in land and development. If you enjoyed today's episode, please go out and rate us right now so that other folks just like you can find us. And if you know a total Rockstar woman who's working in land and development or commercial real estate, who is either just getting started or is more seasoned. Please tell her about the show. And finally, if you know someone who you think would make an excellent guest, I am always looking for inspiring women to interview and I would love your recommendations. please connect with me on any of my social media accounts by searching Nancy Surak.