Jennifer Marks
President, BL Cos. Inc., Meriden
Age: 54
Industry experience: 34 years
Jennifer Marks’ responsibilities have expanded hand-in-hand with the growth of BL Cos., a Meriden-based transportation planning and civil engineering firm. Marks started out as a surveyor when the company had just eight employees. Since then, Marks has advanced to roles in business development and co-director of the surveying division before being named a principal in 2006. BL Cos., meanwhile, has grown to 250 employees in 13 offices from Norwood, Massachusetts to Houston, Texas, and it recently expanded its Bridgeport office to expand its business in the Fairfield County market. Marks is active in local industry circles as the 2016 president of Commercial Real Estate Women’s Connecticut chapter, CREW CT, an organization that provides networking and educational opportunities to approximately 100 members in the Nutmeg State.
Q: What do CREW members tell you is most important to keeping their skills up-to-date?
A: CREW’s mission is to create business development and leadership opportunities for women in the commercial real estate world. It’s a relationship-building and networking organization, but coupled with that, we want to bring an educational component as well. We try and balance programming through industry knowledge and education, what’s happening and what are the trends. We see a lot of development centered around (Bradley International) Airport and our transportation centers. We also provide a look at our soft skills, which we feel are important to leadership. Last year we ran a series on negotiations. The year before we did a technology series: what is the cloud, and what do you need for Internet security?
Q: Is the perception of commercial real estate as a male-dominated field changing?
A: It’s changing a lot. Women are becoming more vocal and more visible in the industry, particularly through our organization. We’re creating more visibility for women to be involved and we want to try to work women into our programming as moderators on panels.
Q: What’s the biggest project in Connecticut that BL Cos. is involved with right now?
A: We’re working on the FedEx (warehouse) at the former Aetna offices in Middletown, building a new distribution center. We just finished the new Jordan’s Furniture store in New Haven at the former New Haven Register building.
Q: Where are the best opportunities for job growth in commercial real estate in Connecticut?
A: I don’t want to beat a dead horse on the casinos. We’re seeing activity in Massachusetts and Connecticut with the wholesale distributors like Amazon that have come to our state. The shipping industry with FedEx expanding greatly and looking at the warehouse market, I definitely see growth in that. Retail is still strong. We work with many retailers across the country at BL Cos. It might not be ground-up development, but with a lot of retail, renovations are required to keep up with online marketing. We still see quite a lot of opportunities in retail. The mall owners are looking to do updates, not just new mall projects. We do work at quite a few of the largest mall owners, and they are constantly doing something at their property, whether it’s interior renovation or ADA compliance.
Marks’s 5 Recently Read Books
- “Busy, Stressed and Food Obsessed” by Lisa Lewtan
- “The High-Speed Company” by Jason Jennings
- “All the Light We Cannot See” by Anthony Doerr
- “The Goldfinch” by Donna Tartt
- “Happiness Project” by Gretchen Rubin
