Chair and Vice Chair positions were elected by members of the Strategy and Planning Metrics Workgroup of the Open Standards Consortium for Real Estate (OSCRE), a non-profit organization of industry leaders driving development and adoption of e-business standards throughout the real estate industry via the “OSCRE Standard™, ”an electronic data exchange model.

The mission of the Strategy and Planning Workgroup is to select, define and standardize the metrics by which the real estate industry measures itself; the data elements from which these metrics are derived; and the protocols necessary for transparent communications between technologies that process this information.

The Chair and Vice Chair positions lead the workgroup in establishing the roadmap, setting the timetable for delivery of the workgroups data standards and interfacing with OSCRE’s executive, management and technical teams.

Workgroup members elected John Vivadelli to the Chair position. Kay McNew and Mr. Robert Shepard will share the Vice Chair position.

Mr. Vivadelli, founder and CEO of AgilQuest, has broad-ranging experience in the technology field as both a market visionary and product developer. Vivadelli is a well-respected industry expert in the fields of alternative office environments, real estate metrics, cost management and business continuity.

“We`ve accepted the challenge of defining the metrics by which the real estate industry measures itself and guiding the development of standards necessary to allow information interchange between software applications,” said Vivadelli. “Our workgroup represents a cross section of the industry, including government and private sector real estate users, software vendors, consultants and other experts all collaborating to ultimately reduce the friction and costs associated with real estate processes. Our goal is to give those involved in the real estate business the comfort of knowing that the best of breed applications they choose to acquire will integrate together and support their real estate and workplace management lifecycle".

As a major stakeholder from the owners perspective, “GSA PBS is streamlining our processes and systems to deliver higher quality service to our customers and the American taxpayers, the work being done at OSCRE is setting the standards for the open interchange of real estate data between members of the CRE industry”, states Kay McNew.

Ms. McNew serves as the Commissioner for Organizational Resources for the Public Buildings Service, U.S. General Services Administration. The Public Buildings Service is one of three major components of GSA, and manages 337 million square feet of space in 8,700 properties.

In her role as AC for Organizational Resources, Ms. McNew is responsible for managing all aspects of Public Buildings Service assets – Human Capital assets, Physical Capital assets, and Technology Capital assets supporting PBS’ mission of providing safe work environments for one million Federal employees. Her responsibilities also include management of portfolios of vendors and offerings. In managing the assets and portfolios, the office systematically plans, acquires, develops, manages and divests to ensure all resources are delivered efficiently and effectively when needed.

“The OSCRE forum facilitates and fosters working with our industry partners to come together and to develop standards which best serve the property market, this effort is key to the evolution and support of the CRE eBusiness environment of the future” says Mr. Robert Shepard who currently serves a dual role for the Public Buildings Service, U.S. General Services Administration. In his role as the Pacific Rim Regional Chief Information Officer, Mr. Shepard leads the information and technology initiatives to support PBS’ mission of providing safe work environments for the regionally located Federal employees. Within the Pacific Rim Region, these properties total 34.5 million square feet in 188 government-owned buildings, and in over 900 commercial buildings.

In his role as Director of the National Integrated Intelligent Information Center, located in Washington, DC, Mr. Shepard manages the consultative and analytical services to assist our PBS customers in the development of business requirements that align with their missions and supports enterprise-wide information sharing.

About the Open Standards Consortium for Real Estate (OSCRE)
Headquartered in Washington D.C., OSCRE’s mission is to effectively facilitate the standards development process among key real estate stakeholders, including owners, investors, operators, tenants, developers, service providers, regulatory agencies, consulting firms, vendors and suppliers —to benefit all stakeholders and enable the real estate industry to function more efficiently in the digital economy.

For detailed information, visit their website at http://www.oscre.org, call (831)458-3346 or email at This e-mail address is being protected from spambots. You need JavaScript enabled to view it