Today’s guest is Pam Giss, Principal of Launch Development Finance Advisors. Pam structures and negotiates complex land secured public finance projects for real estate developments in the Southwest and Midwest regions of the United States.
Welcome back to the She’s Wild the Podcast for Women In Land & Development. Today’s guest is Pam Giss. Pam structures and negotiates complex land secured public finance projects for real estate developments in the Southwest and Midwest regions of the United States. Pam is a licensed Missouri attorney who practiced almost two decades for a large regional St. Louis-based law firm in its real estate development and public finance departments. For a decade, she assisted land developers, big box chains, national retailers and sports teams with land acquisitions, leases and public finance. In 2005, Pam moved to Shanghai, China to manage the firm’s Asia operations and spent the decade following assisting US companies expand their Asian presence.
Upon returning to the States, she joined Launch Development Finance Advisors in its Scottsdale Office. Pam assists land developers and builders in Arizona, New Mexico, Utah, Idaho, Nevada, Missouri and Oklahoma in developing plans to finance real estate development projects, including master-planned communities, mixed-use developments and commercial and entertainment venues. Pam has an intimate knowledge of district finance, tax increment financing, tax abatement, state grants and government buy-lease back statutes throughout the Southwest/Midwest regions.
In today's episode, we discuss Pam’s journey throughout her real estate career including the fascinating story of how she landed in the real estate department within her organization. Pam also shares her experiences of working abroad in Asia and how that differs from working in real estate from the U.S. Tune in today to learn more about Pam and hear a unique piece of advice that has not yet been shared on other episodes.
Memorable Moments:
6:22- You never know where things are gonna go. So you just have to roll up your sleeves and work hard and see where you wind up. Even though I didn't want to be in real estate, I rolled up my sleeves and just started hitting it hard, and then developed a love of it. Just because I started learning about it and all the different aspects of it.
12:22- Real Estate in Asia, particularly China, is very different. I was still a transactional attorney, so I was still doing a lot of the same things. But it just looks very different. So I would mainly say it was more teaching people, helping people get stuff done, rather than following the exact letter of the law, which actually, frequently, either there was nothing, or it didn't work.
18:11- What we try to do is we look at all the sources, all of the funding sources available to developers, for public infrastructure. We try to maximize the return from each source so that they have more money to put into amenities, beautiful streets, programming, and all the things we've come to expect from houses these days.
22:50- Oh boy, you know, the great projects to me are the ones where I'm more involved in them. So generally, it's a more entrepreneurial client.
24:31- Probably the most satisfying professionally is where I am today. Just because the further you get into your career, the better you understand it, the more service you are to your clients, the better you feel, right?
27:51- At some point or another in your career, someone expects you to know something. And if you keep leaving, every time it gets hard, you're not going to know anything. And it's going to be really painful in your late 30s because that's kind of when people start going, okay, time to produce, right?
Connect with Nancy:
Instagram: https://instagram.com/nancysurak
LinkedIn: https://www.linkedin.com/in/nancysurak/
Website: www.nancysurak.com
Connect with Pam:
LinkedIn: https://www.linkedin.com/in/pamelagiss/
Website: https://launch-dfa.com/
Podcast: http://landtolots.com/
Pam’s Book Recommendations:
Nancy Surak00:00
Welcome to She's Wild, the podcast for women and land in development. I'm your host, Nancy Surak. I created this podcast as a way to collect conversations of women in the land and development industry. I've been a land broker on the west coast of Florida for nearly 20 years. And I love to empower other women and to tell them about this amazing industry. But I find often that there just aren't enough women being featured on big stages, whether that's at local conferences, or nationally. So I set out to find these women myself that are killing it in my business across North America that are changing the communities that they live in every single day, whether they're building condos, multifamily, single family, office, or industrial projects. I hope that you will find this space to be inspirational, motivating, and educational. From time to time, I will feature women who are not only in my business, but also career coaches, and motivational speakers. Hello, welcome to shoes while the podcast for women and land in development. Today's guest is Pamela Giss a principal at Launch Development Finance Advisors, Pam structures and negotiates land secured public finance projects for real estate developments throughout the United States. She joined Launch Development Finance Advisors after spending more than a decade in Asia, counseling US companies in structuring and operating their overseas subsidiaries. Prior to moving to Asia, she was a real estate development and public finance attorney at a large Midwestern law firm. Pam welcome to the show. I'm super excited to have you here. You are my first finance related guest. So we're excited to learn all about the money side of the business. But before we do that, I love just to say, you know, welcome, thank you for coming on. Why don't you tell us a little bit more about like your history, your background, your career and get us kicked off.
Pam Giss02:13
Thank you, Nancy. I'm really excited to be here. I've been looking forward to this. I've heard quite a bit about your podcasts and so. So I was really excited to be asked to be a participant. You know, I kind of wandered into real estate, I would say that, that I was a little unfocused in my youth. I was a later bloomer, and and I guess my focus was honed a little bit by a brief career in retail. And a little come to Jesus moment regarding my paycheck and and so I I wound up going back to school after grad after undergraduate and in doing a MBA, and then followed by a law degree and, and coming out of that, you know, I just had a different vision of what my life was going to look like I was going to be a corporate attorney, and I was going to be working with the SEC and doing all this exciting stuff with New York and flying back and forth, and mergers and acquisitions. And I, you know, I had no idea what any of that entailed. But it all sounds very sexy. And I told everyone that would that would listen to me that this is what I was going to do. And I was at a cocktail party at a developer's house literally the Saturday night before I started my my career on Monday. And I ran into one of the head of the real estate department at the firm where I was working. And we were talking and I'm sure I was smug and all that trying to playcate him, yeah I'll do a little bit of your scrubby work when I'm, you know, when I'm not in New York, doing big things. And I, you know, I go into work on Monday morning, and he's changed me into the real estate department. My life just fell apart. And I was like, Ah, I can't believe it awe this is terrible worst thing that's ever happened to me. And it turned out to be the best thing that's ever happened me. You know, I just the firm didn't head at a terrible. I'm sure it's better now. But they you know, they didn't have much of a corporate department and real estate at this firm was what was going on. You know, they had great, really aggressive, interesting, fun real estate department. And that's kind of you know, that's how I got off on this. It it's it's a really exciting career. There's so many different avenues like you said, finance. You can take math courses and wind up in real estate who knew? You can do just about anything that you can do in any other area. You can do it in real estate. So that's kind of the exciting thing. It's a big career.
Nancy Surak04:51
It absolutely is. I actually really love that you had this whole concept of what you were going to be right it's yes No, no, no, we're gonna have you over here. I always love those stories, because I'm like, yeah, you know, you can plan but sometimes to whatever the opportunity is, so so it was real estate, was it more transactionally related in the beginning is that where you kind of cut your teeth in the industry?
Pam Giss05:18
You know, I would say my first year was a lot of municipal law and a lot of straight kind of plain vanila real estate. So at a big law firm, you go in, and they're like, here are 50 leases. By the time you finish these, you're going to understand leasing, here are a bunch of AIA construction contracts. Here's this, here's that. And so I, I worked in a lot of different areas in real estate before really moving my second year into real estate development in public finance. And then after two years, I moved to a different law firm that another big law firm in town that also had a very strong Real Estate Development and Public Finance department. And I just, I was also planning on doing more corporate corporate work there and you know, just wasn't to be, I got snagged into the real estate stuff and never kind of came out of it. And, and, you know, I really, you never know where things are gonna go. So you just have to roll up your sleeves and work hard, and you wind up, even though I didn't want to be in real estate, I rolled up my sleeves eventually and just and started hitting it hard, and then developed a love of it. Just because I started learning about it, and and all different aspects of it. So yeah,
Nancy Surak06:43
yeah, definitely. So I noticed in scouring through your background, that you worked on a pretty interesting project up in St. Louis.
Pam Giss06:54
I had a lot of interesting projects, but which one?
Nancy Surak06:56
The one that I'm particularly interested in having you talk about? Is the stadium relocation. Now, I know it was a long time ago. But tell me like, what was that? Like? I mean, it's the St. Louis Cardinals, correct? Yeah, it was it was it was a project. Tell me about like how that went down?
Pam Giss07:13
Well, you know, I would say that as as a young attorney, as you start to develop in your career, and I think this is probably true outside of law, too. You work as the second to on a lot of different projects. And then you hit a point in your career where they're ready for you to step up. And I, you know, I kind of lucked out, because at that point in my career, the Cardinal Stadium kind of came down the pipeline. And so there was there were different, because it was such a massive transaction, there were different aspects to that there was sort of the the real estate finance deck that was unrelated to public finance. And that was really handled out in New York by the big New York law firms. And then real estate, our firm was in charge of real estate and public finance, the local public finance, and I did a little bit on the public finance, there were two pieces to it. And I did one of the two, two pieces, but then I was in charge of real estate. So that was like my first big project that I was, you know, on my own, and it takes over your life. You know, it is, it was a year of my life. That was seven days a week, you know, 12 hours a day. And the interesting thing was the Cardinals already owned most of the property. And yet, it was that complicated. So I had a great time. And, and we were nearing, we closed on on December 23. We were nearing closing probably a couple months out. And I got this opinion that had come down from New York that said that, that they agreed for purposes of their financing, that the infrastructure the stadium itself, was was could be classified as personally. And I thought, Oh, God, no. All of a sudden, because you can't title insurance in Missouri, you can't insure personally. So I'm scrambling trying to figure out how to get $400 million worth of title insurance to cover. But it was great. It was great fun. It was really hard working. And I loved it. It was one of the best experiences of my career.
Nancy Surak09:26
That's amazing. So part of why I asked that is because I don't know if you follow things down here in the Tampa Bay region. But there's been oh gosh, it's been years and years and years of discussion about the Tampa Bay Rays moving their stadium from St. Petersburg, somewhere else either in St. Pete or Pinellas County or on my side of the bay, which is the Tampa side. And I don't know ultimately, there's so many rumors that fly throughout the market because it's been I mean, it's been ongoing for many years now. And but we're getting to a point now I think in their original contract or their landlease. So in their contract of where they're currently located, are finally approaching that timeframe where it's getting more serious that if they're going to move, it's it's got to be happening. I know there's a number of folks working in the background on that. So it's, it's pretty exciting to be involved in something that you know, is going to change, like, just the way the whole community engages with their sports team. So that's why I wanted to ask you, because I was like, oh, what was that? Like? Yeah,
Pam Giss10:26
It's is it's Cardinal Stadium really is the foundation of downtown St. Louis, I don't know that there would be much of downtown left, if the Cardinals hadn't come, you know, they of course, considered all of their options. But it made sense for them to stay down. And they have a very dedicated, loyal following. It is not like a lot of places where I've lived, where people show up on game day when they're winning. And good luck, you know, you see a bunch of red seats. It is a, it's really been the driver for a lot of things downtown. And so it was critical that that happened, they've done a great job. It is is a really neat Stadium. Stadium projects, as you probably know, are incredibly difficult. They don't pencil easily. It's really hard to the teams are frequently looking for, for the cities or the counties to pick up a large portion of the stadium. There are so hard to finance i It's not been the only time I've been asked to finance something like that. And it's it's really hard to do so. Yeah, I mean, I'm sure they're sometimes it's a negotiating tactic to get the local players to put more money into the stadium, but
Nancy Surak11:49
Yeah, sure. So So you went from those projects in the mid west to hopping over to Asia? I tell me, you live there. Is it 10 years?
Pam Giss11:59
Closer to 15?
Nancy Surak12:00
Okay, so tell me what was that like?
Pam Giss12:03
Fabulous, and actually, the timing was perfect. So I didn't have to do the workouts and the bankruptcies, and foreclosures and all of that I left in 2005 and and came back after everything had prettied up and cleaned up and 2017. But Asia is really a different world. Real Estate in Asia, in particularly in China is very different. I was still a transactional attorney. So I was still doing a lot of the same things. But it just looks very different. So I, it was mainly, I would say it was more teaching people helping people get stuff done, rather than following the exact letter of the law, which actually, frequently, either there was nothing or it didn't work, or, you know,
Nancy Surak12:49
No were the deals that you were involved with there? Were they actually in Asia, or we these Asian companies doing deals in the United States, or was a both,
Pam Giss12:59
We almost exclusively represented American companies, sometimes European companies coming into Asia to either set up a factory or acquire a factory or source product or that kind of stuff.
Nancy Surak13:14
Okay, so that's really cool. I knew you had a cool background, like an amazing background. So So you come back and you're like, Okay, I've done like the hardest deal of my life at this stadium deal that it's like impossible to get financed. I'm representing us companies that are building a title, which is not easy, either. And you decide, Oh, what am I going to do next? I'm going to do different, like financing for development projects.
Pam Giss13:42
Yeah, well, when we when we moved back in Asia was funny because the I can't even tell it the stories where you would see people come in trying to build factories, and you don't have any of the traditional zoning, it doesn't look like that. It's you go to the government, you say I want to build a factory, and I want the factory to look like this. This is exactly what we're going to be doing. We're going to be manufacturing this type of widget. And that's sort of what your rights to that property are. So it's not a fee ownership like we wouldn't think of or it's sort of a leasehold interest, but your leasehold is tied to your use very specifically. So if you don't have distribution rights in your leasehold, then you don't have the right to do that on that property. That may have changed a little bit, but that's you know, that's how they sort of kept control of things. And the government is is a part of the developer. So anything that you develop in China, the government is your 50% development partner. And we had a client that came in and what they were they were trying they needed, they were bringing in heavy equipment that would go on the flooring, and so they needed a pretty heavy duty compaction of the earth. Right. And the local government said, yeah, we'd have no problem, no problem. And our client went out on the sidewalk the site and he's like my feet were sinking into the ground. So I knew We didn't have the compaction, right. And there's a big dispute that goes back and forth. And the government's embarrassed. And eventually they agree to bring in one ton ball, lifted up the crane, drop it into the ground, the whole thing disappears into the ground, you have to go get something to dig this one tall, it's so far in the dirt that they have to like dig it out for weeks, which was embarrassing, right, and the government says, oh, we'll go to a different location. And try again, same thing goes even further. You know, that's just kind of it was it was like a, it was crazy. So coming back, I lived in Vietnam for a few years after China. And when we returned to the States, we just wanted to live someplace where it was beautiful, where we could earn a living. And it was either international work or real estate and I I never lost my love of real estate. I did a little bit in China, it was fun. And so we just we settled on Scottsdale, and there's no international here, it was just kind of odd, but quite a bit of real estate. That's how we got back into it. And it's it the the I would say the big differences. When I left when I was in Missouri. It's not a big in migration state. As you may know, it was more about big box retail TIF tax increment financing those types of things. So it was one big box after another. I was like the queen of Walmart. And I came out here and rolled up my sleeves and got ready for Walmart. And that business was gone that day, you know that now that's like, empty warehouses, repurposing all this kind of stuff. And it's about residential. So I find myself doing more residential, some industrial deals.
Nancy Surak16:44
Right? So tell me about that. So you tell me exactly what you do at Launch on a daily basis or like a monthly basis? What are the sorts of projects that you're working on? And who are you guys helping from a finance perspective? And how does that work?
Pam Giss16:58
So we would take a project, it could be residential, it could be industrial, it could be retail, we don't see as much of that right now, of course, because of the market, but and we work with the developers to to basically mitigate the risks associated with the public finance, reduce their costs. You know, 50, 60, 100 years ago, cities did all this work, they were putting in the streets, they were putting in the sewers, they were putting in all this stuff. And as we started demanding more of our cities as they started having to, you know, do websites and all this other kind of stuff, and, and go out and do economic development and bringing companies in, they don't have the money and the resources to put that public infrastructure. And so they put that off on developers. So the developers went around to the states and said, We need something to put us on the same plane as cities. So you have the CDDs in Florida, Community Development Districts, you have all these, you have these districts across the states. And they have a lot of similarities between them. And the they basically put developers in the same position that a city or county would be in if they were putting in this infrastructure. And so what we try to do is we look at all the sources, all the all of the funding sources available to developers, for public infrastructure, and we try to maximize the return from each source, so that they have more money to put in amenities, beautiful streets, programming, all of the things that we've come to expect from houses these days. Right?
Nancy Surak18:36
Right. Yeah, so. So you mentioned it's CDD in the state of Florida here, but I know that it's like acronym galore. As every state or almost every region has like a different name, hippie with some of the more common ones besides CDD. What are they known as?
18:53
MUDS and PIDS in Texas. So a mod is a little bit different in that it's a general obligation or they're a special assessment, you guys have special assessments to your CDDs. Texas has PIDs for special assessments and MUDs for general obligation. The differences you know, it's the same, it's it's money, but it's the CDs, the money from an assessment comes a little earlier in the project. So if the developers looking for you know, IRR returns money earlier, to build the infrastructure, you you got the best district for that. If you're looking for money later in the project, general obligation that rely that's like a line item and ad valorem tax like any of your other taxes that comes in as your value and your property grows, you have that tax goes up. So that's Texas. Here in Arizona we have a CFD, which is a combination of both GEOs and ESAs and revenue bonds of in California at sea At deeds, it's a little different structure. They're more like a cross between a GEO and ESA, really, they complicated the hell out of it. Of course, because it's California, the Metro districts in Colorado, everyone's heard of those also kind of a hybrid, it's a limited Geo, Utah and and now has the Metro District Model. They're called PIDs. And Idaho has CIDs, very similar to our CFD. So it's, it's all these little acronyms. They're very similar. They have a lot of things in common, but differences as well.
Nancy Surak20:39
Right. So when you work with a developer, and I know it may be different from state to state, but typically, if they're looking for public financing, what is the percentage of the value of the land that they're going develop? What are they what can they usually offset in that public financing tool to give them some relief that somebody else is going to be paying off that debt later?
Pam Giss21:06
It depends. A great deal from project to project and from state to state. So states have different limitations. Some states say that, that you have to have a three to one value to lien ratio. So the value of your property has to be three times whatever you're going to finance. Some states have a four to one or, or, or even within the state, the cities may have restrictions. Other states use different metrics. So it's going to depend on your location. And it's also going to depend on what's going on. So if you're in a very high like Boise, the City of Boise has a fairly high tax rate. We wouldn't want to compound that with a really high CID rate. Now, we can still do a CID in Boise, but which we try to we make sure that the project is marketable afterwards. We don't want to make it so that no one can afford to live there. So we try to it's like an art, you know, you try to balance it with all things around you. If you've got an entry level project, you're going to have a customer who is more sensitive to the amount of taxes we've put on that project, then, you know, development with $7,000,000 - $800,000 homes. So in Boise, we just it's actually in a suburb of Boise called Eagle. We just issued about $120 million worth of bonds for public infrastructure. So that was a pretty healthy project.
Nancy Surak22:29
Yeah, no, that's a great one. I would imagine that that was really exciting. So I think you've been with launch for about a little over four years, or about four years, correct?
Pam Giss22:36
I think yeah
Nancy Surak22:38
In that time, what's been one of your favorite deals that you've been able to see success with? From the public financing standpoint, what stands out is one that you're like, oh, that was a great project.
Pam Giss22:50
Boy, you know, the great projects to me are the ones where I'm, I'm more involved in them. So generally, it's a more entrepreneurial client client. I mean, the the project where we just issued the $120 million bonds, that was certainly sexy. That was a very sophisticated developer, and that that was able to do quite a bit on their own. And then I have developers that are more entrepreneurial, they have a smaller staff. And they rely on us for more than I kind of like I like both projects, for sure. But it's fun when you got to someone calling and saying chase this squirrel, chase that squirrel, I just don't have the staff to chase the squirrel. So it's, it gives us an opportunity to dig into areas where we might not otherwise dig.
Nancy Surak23:35
Yeah, no, you guys have a great team over there. And the fact that you're in multiple states makes you such a great resource for different groups that are not just in one state, but that might be crossing different state lines where they can really lean on you guys for just not only education, but the financing tools and opportunities. So I appreciate you talking about all the different areas where you guys are actively working in when you look back at the course of your career. So all the way back to, you know, law school to today. And you think back, what's been your most favorite timeframe?
Pam Giss24:14
Gosh, definitely not law school. I don't know they're all so different. So I loved the experience in China, but I really wasn't the most satisfying professionally. But I loved the whole experience. And probably the most satisfying professionally as where I am today. Just because the further you get into your career, the better you understand it, the more service you are to your clients, the better you feel, right. So I think that anyone who rolls up their sleeves and digs into something I mean, if you're a fence setter, you're not going to be happy wherever you are. If you you know if you don't jump in there take risks. risk failure. I mean I I can't tell you the number of failures I've had. If you're not willing to go through all of that, then you don't get the cherries on top. And I feel like that today is more rewarding than yesterday, because I know more today than I did a year ago or 10 years ago, or certainly 20 years ago. And that's as it should be.
Nancy Surak25:24
Yeah, I would agree with that, you know, I, I was just talking with an attorney yesterday, we've been negotiating a contract for a number of days, and, and I was saying to the gentleman, I was like, Hey, I'm not an attorney. I'm not, I'm not authorized to practice law. But that doesn't mean that I'm not in the weeds with you.
Pam Giss25:41
Right.
Nancy Surak25:41
I that is part of what I bring to a deal for my client, I am looking at every word in every line in the contract, because I'm I'm and I'm applying my 18 or 19 years of experience. through that lens, I'm looking for where the holes are. And I was explained to him, I was like, listen, I'm not trying to get in your space. But I want you to know that you can rely on me as another pair of eyes, I, I take great, great responsibility when it comes to that. And he was like, super gracious. And he's like, I know, I know, actually love working with brokers like you, because I do really appreciate the fact that you're trying to protect your client. But you know, and it's been fun, because we can kind of tag team and strategize and just ultimately, at the end of the day, take all the experience we have, and protect our clients, so that they can ultimately either sell a property or build a property that is going to be really a remarkable experience for them. Either way, you know. So I think, you know, you talking about jumping in and being willing to fail is a great segue into the first of my three final questions, I always ask that if somebody young were to reach out to you and say, I'm interested in development, or I'm interested in learning more about the financial component of development, I just need some advice. What would you tell somebody other than, Hey, be willing to take a risk and, and fail, what's another piece of advice
Pam Giss27:11
I would say stick, you know, stick with it, find a firm. A good place to work and stay there. I keep seeing this. And I look at resumes every day. And I see resume after resume after resume where the person's been in one place one year, and then they were two years and then one year and then six months, and I just throw them in the trash. I'm like, I'm not because that person's not gonna stay with me either. Because this is a really hard job, as are a lot of careers. And this is another one. And when it gets hard, you're gonna leave. Stick with it. Because you're going to find yourself, you may have a great salary, you know, you may jump for more money every time and but at some point or another in your career, someone's going to expect you to know something. And if you keep leaving, every time it gets hard, you're not going to know anything. And it's going to be really painful in your late 30s. Because that's kind of when people start going, okay, time to produce, right.
Nancy Surak28:08
I think that I That's great advice. Because, you know, earlier in my career, I had like, I don't know, like every three years or so roughly. And then it was 10 years. And then I've been with land advisors now seven years going on my 8th you know, I just started my eighth year. And you know, it takes like two or three years to kind of get your feet under you. It does no matter your experience, like I've been a broker forever. But it takes a while to kind of learn like corporate culture and company culture and figure out like where your spaces and the bigger model.
Pam Giss28:37
It does.
Nancy Surak28:39
So I appreciate that you said that I get that's really good advice, especially for young people today. It is important that a company invest in you to like I get that as well. But you're right. Like you have to be willing to kind of work. You have to be willing to roll up your sleeves and take the good and the bad. Okay, so the other question I have is, is there a book or a podcast and I know you I know you have one podcast that you'll mention, besides mine, that you find particularly interesting, informative, inspirational, either in your profession or in your personal life that you could recommend to folks who are listening today.
Pam Giss29:17
You know, I this is great, but I spent when I'm running in the morning, I listened to I listened to things I like. And I actually like there's a speaker called Father Richard Rohr, he's a Catholic Franciscan priest and he has a series about falling upwards are first half of life, second half of life. And they grounds me You know, I I, when I kind of am really anxious or I'm worried about something outside my control, or I just kind of go off on one of my little mind benders. I find that very grounding, and I like the way that he says things. I'm not Catholic. I'm not, you know, whatever. But, but I find that soothing. And then the other thing I kind of read or I like I read a lot of the classics, I kind of go back and read all the stuff that I read the Cliff Notes for when I was younger, you know, in high school and college and grad school, but I also like the Born to Run, you know, the kind of running things like in my next life, I'm going to go back and be an ultra marathoner. You know, something? Oh, no.
Nancy Surak30:31
That's awesome. Yeah, I, you know, when COVID first happened, I went from working out real early to running again, on concrete. And I was doing in the beginning of COVID, a marathon a week, not all at once, right, not at once over the course of the week. And it just took like a huge beating. I mean, I love to run, but I was just like, I can't do that anymore. I'm too old. But I really admire people who love to run long distance. I once watched the Chicago Marathon.
Pam Giss31:04
Oh, wow.
Nancy Surak31:05
And I never participated. Let me clarify that, but I watched it. And it was really remarkable to see people across the finish line.
Pam Giss31:12
It's very inspirational, isn't it?
Nancy Surak31:14
So if you are a long distance runner, like in addition to you working in law in public financing, like my hat's off to you, because that's not I shouldn't be surprised, but it's not easy.
Pam Giss31:27
I just, it's my it's like my sanity in the morning, right. It just gets me ready for the day and I don't run every day, but it I need it.
Nancy Surak31:39
Now. Awesome. Okay, so you didn't mention your other podcasts. So I'm gonna let you do that. Now.
Pam Giss31:44
Carter, Froelich and launch have a podcast that I would encourage everyone to listen to this last one. We had Carl Pischke from RCLCO join us. And it was very interesting. He was talking about masterplan communities. And what sets them apart? Like how do you get a Lakewood Ranch or a Villages or Vera or you know any of the ones that you've got in Florida? Because really, Florida dominates the top 50 masterplan communities every single, I mean, Texas typically has more communities in the list, but the top ones are always Florida. So it was very interesting to hear him talk about that.
Nancy Surak32:26
And the name of that is Land To Lots correct
Pam Giss32:28
Land To Lots
Nancy Surak32:29
Land To Lots, we'll make sure that we have that link in there for anybody who wants to learn more about the financing component and how they can utilize the tools that you guys can help folks with. There'll be a nice little plug for you guys. And then finally, I love to just say you know where if someone's listening and they want to follow you? Are you active on LinkedIn? Is there a social media handle that you can share with us where they can kind of follow like you for news and tips and insight.
Pam Giss32:57
I am an active on LinkedIn. So you can find me Pamela Giss. And you know, I am not launch development finance advisors does have a website.
Nancy Surak33:09
And it was really a pleasure getting to know you a little bit better. And I hope to see more of you, especially in the state of Florida. You know, we have a lot of projects down here so and for folks who are looking to learn more about what you guys, the service that you provide, when it comes to financing, I'll make sure that all your contact information is in the show links as well. It's been a pleasure. I'm so glad that you join me here on She's Wild.
Pam Giss33:34
Thank you so much, Nancy, I'll see you soon. Yes, you will.
Nancy Surak33:39
Thank you for joining us for another episode of She's Wild, the podcast for women and land and development. If you enjoyed today's show, please go out and rate us so that we can be found by other women in our industry. And if you know women who are working in land and development, please share this podcast with them. And if you know a total rock star woman, badass chick who is killing it in land and development anywhere in North America. I want to know who she is. Please reach out to me so that I can feature her on an upcoming episode.