The Open Standards Consortium for Real Estate (OSCRE) recently announced the appointment of five members to its Board of Directors. OSCRE, the leading North American standards development organization for the real property supply chain, now has 18 people on its Board. 
The new members are:
- John Hall is a Principal and Chief Underwriter with Principal Financial Mortgage Capital Company, a national leader in providing commercial mortgages for all property types.
- Andrew Millar is Vice President of Technology at Brookfield Lepage Johnson Controls (BLJC) Canada, a Canadian solution provider for workplace management services.
- Robert Toothaker, CPM, is Chairman of CB Richard Ellis South Bend, AMO and represents the Institute of Real Estate Management (IREM), where he served as president in 2007.
- Zhen Tao is Vice President of Global Product Management for Intuit Real Estate Solutions, a global property management solution with more than 4,500 installations on five continents and in 41 countries.
- John Urubek is Founder and President of Appraiser’s Paradise and represents the Appraisal Institute, where he serves as a national educator for the organization.
“OSCRE Americas is fortunate and honored to welcome five seasoned veterans of outstanding organizations to our Board of Directors,” said Bruce Kellogg, OSCRE Board Chairman. “We know that 2009 will be even more vibrant and productive with their addition.”
The other members of OSCRE America’s board are Andy Fuhrman, OSCRE; David Clute, Cisco Systems; Henry Chamberlin, BOMA International; Jim Young, Realcomm; Maria Sicola, Cushman & Wakefield; Ed Lubieniecki, Real Foundations; David Brady, IFMA; Diane Herdt, U.S. GSA PBS; Mark Lesswing, National Association of REALTORS©; Peter Linkletter, Public Works and Government Services Canada; Brad Setser, Yardi Systems; and Ray Wong, CB Richard Ellis Inc.
New OSCRE Member
Meanwhile, Accenture, a global management consulting, technology services and outsourcing company, has joined OSCRE. Members of OSCRE include major private and public sector organizations representing more than $2.1 trillion in real estate assets, 12.3 billion square feet of floor space, and 1.4 million association members. Accenture’s role will be to collaborate with other members in the development of interoperable data exchange standards designed to significantly improve efficiency, transparency, and consistency for operations.
“OSCRE and Accenture share a common mission and vision for the global real estate industry,” said OSCRE CEO Andy Fuhrman. “Accenture’s industry expertise should bring much value to our efforts for continuous improvement for the real property industry, the primary infrastructure required by all other businesses and the second largest operational cost that has a direct impact on the number one operational cost— labor.”
Darren Nippard, executive director of Accenture’s Public Service practice in Canada, said, “Accenture is seeing leading organizations expand their back office investments in enterprise resource planning solutions to adopt real estate standards that meet the changing demands for a networked and more virtual workplace. Working with organizations such as OSCRE is key to rallying industry players around the data standards necessary to support the growing demands for interoperability and data transparency. The real estate industry needs to take steps to reduce these barriers and risks and to create a roadmap that enables our clients to best leverage their current investments in IT.”
