New to Prologis and based in our Denver office, construction procurement manager Forrest Etter talks about what it’s like to work at a company where the culture is defined by continuous improvement and rapid change—two traits he’s taken on readily and with gusto! Let’s hear more from Forrest.
PLD Comms: Tell us about your background and any special skill sets.
Forrest: I have a bachelor of science degree in mechanical engineering from Duke University. Special skills? I’d have to say home renovation—I have completely remodeled not one but two houses! Before Prologis, I worked as an Americas-based procurement analyst and as a real estate development manager.
PLD Comms: You’re pretty new to Prologis. Welcome! Why did you choose us?
Forrest: I was attracted to the company culture of continuous improvement. I love the direction the company is headed in—toward more tech-focused solutions and expanding the business beyond traditional warehouse development. My role focuses on embracing change as we work to adapt and optimize processes to create global standards and procedures. The goal of these standard processes is to improve building construction quality and speed up scheduling, which ultimately provides a lot of value to a customer who can get into their space even more quickly.
PLD Comms: Let’s hear your elevator pitch on procurement and why it’s so important to Prologis’ customer-centric approach.
Forrest: Procurement is operating at a very exciting time at Prologis as we look for ways to leverage our global scale, standardize our building specifications and align on global best practices and processes. The opportunities to become more efficient and to save money are endless! Altogether, the initiatives being explored by the Procurement team will allow us to build-out buildings more quickly, for less money and with the greater flexibility that our customers need. Essentially, our team looks at ways to buy things cheaper. Our goal is to leverage the scale of Prologis to negotiate better pricing agreements and improve the quality of the goods we purchase.
PLD Comms: In your short tenure at Prologis, you’ve been recognized as a leader in change management and praised for your work in collaborating with Development team managers to standardize negotiations to drive savings on new development. Can you please elaborate?
Forrest: Our Development managers do an amazing job operating mostly autonomously within each region, using their own preferred means and methods to get the job done. One of the goals of my position is to share best practices, standardize the process for negotiations with general contractors and generally be the thread that connects development managers across the nation and synthesizes the massive amount of data we receive from the field.
PLD Comms: What does “innovation” mean to you, personally?
Forrest: It means identifying a problem, or an opportunity, and finding a creative and novel solution to address that problem.
PLD Comms: Any plans for a THIRD home renovation?
Forrest: Absolutely yes! I’d love to be able to find a fixer-upper in Denver—or even better, help with the development or remodel of a home closer to the mountains.
