Lisa Lugauskas
Lisa Lugauskas
President-elect, CREW-CT
Age: 57
Industry experience: 34 years
Steve Adams
She’s only been a member for five years, but Lisa Lugauskas is on a fast track to leadership at Connecticut’s largest organization for women in the commercial real estate industry.
An attorney at Fidelity National Title Insurance Co. in East Hartford, Lugauskas is president-elect of CREW (Commercial Real Estate Women) CT, which supports career advancement for women in the field. Lugauskas is committed to boosting the 10,000-member organization’s local membership – which currently stands at 99 – and increasing diversity within its ranks. Along with her full-time legal duties, Lugauskas teaches courses in business and real estate law at Post University in Waterbury.
Q: How have recent regulatory changes changed your full-time work in title insurance?
Q: As an attorney in a title insurer, we underwrite mortgages and titles, and we support attorneys who are in closing or have questions. We clear matters if there’s an unreleased mortgage or other items that require a release or affidavit. Starting in 2015 with the passage of the Dodd-Frank Act in response to the bad behavior on the part of big banks that led to the Great Recession, the Consumer Financial Protection Bureau totally changed all the rules for residential real estate transactions that require a mortgage. The entire set of forms was changed completely. There were minor changes to recording fees. We see on the horizon that remote notarization may be coming our way, and blockchain financing may be coming our way. There’s nothing yet, but we are behind the states with a virtual presence in real estate. Many states have e-recordings. We have that in Connecticut but in a very limited respect. We’re unusual in that attorneys represent clients in Connecticut. Most states have title companies present at real estate closings. Also, we have 169 cities and towns, and all of our real estate is recorded town-by-town. Most states have recordings by county. For e-recording purposes, it’s a lot harder for 169 towns to jump on board.
Q: What were the highlights of the CREW Network national leadership conference that you attended in June?
A: It was a leadership summit and all of the states were invited, and since CREW is an international organization there were a few chapters from Canada as well. There were breakout groups to assist in leadership and management, games and break-the-ice activities. I got to meet a lot of members from different states. And Cleveland is a great city. It was very modernized. We learned a lot about how to navigate our web site, which is undergoing changes. But there’s a big initiative to increase our diversity program in CREW. Women didn’t embrace commercial real estate when I began practicing law, and now fewer women of color embrace commercial real estate.
Q: Does CREW do outreach to college and high school students?
A: Every year in CREW-CT we have a career committee that reaches out to the local high schools, generally high-performing students in low-performing schools. We target those young ladies and we have an event at a facility that is undergoing a commercial project. They tour the project with pink hardhats and they listen in as members of the commercial real estate profession present to them: an architect, an accountant, an attorney, a project planner. These presentations are given with the hope that these gals will consider real estate as a future career.
Q: What’s your top priority for CREW’s internal programs for members?
A: We’re running a program Oct. 4 on development around the Bushnell (Performing Arts Center) area in Hartford. We also had a tour of Dunkin’ Donuts Park, had tours of breweries and this year the professional development committee ran a series of four lunch-and-learns on wellness: physical wellness, physical wellness and situational awareness including self-defense, emotional wellness and Reiki massage. Right now we have 99 members, which is not bad for a small state. Of course, one of our goals is to grow our membership. This year we added 14 members. We’d also like to improve our presence downstate. Currently, most of our members are geographically centered in the Hartford area. This past year, we held an event in New Haven County and it was well attended. We’d like to encourage down-state commercial real estate professionals to join. We also offer scholarships through the CREW Foundation, which is dedicated to advancing women globally by encouraging more women to enter commercial real estate. We have had three Connecticut scholarship recipients, two from UConn and one from Yale.
Q: What are CREW’s public policy goals?
A: As you know, Connecticut has been experiencing a brain drain. Anything that removes barriers to attract new industries to Connecticut, and makes it easier for commercial projects to begin: better parking, fewer zoning restrictions, anything that encourages commercial development. The CTfastrak project has been nothing but successful, and the Dunkin’ Donuts Park was a big success.
Five Favorite Rescue Animals:
- Sirius Black – three-legged dog
- Richard Parker – one-eyed cat
- Jelly – dog with heart murmur
- Germany Joan – blind cat
- Uncle Vanya – stray with feline leukemia
