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There probably isn't a perfect descriptive word for John Troughton, but "unconventional" comes close. John is a senior director for Cushman and Wakefield Inc., a global commercial real estate company, and is the lead broker responsible for marketing and sales of the Stillwater Business Park.

Trying to characterize someone with words is not always fair, because words can be taken out of context. But in the case of John Troughton, there is something that is distinctively different about both his approach and his manner, and it's that substance that got him the Stillwater job. Add passion and persistence into the mix and what you get is a commercial real estate professional who has had a lot of success mainly in and around his east San Francisco Bay hometown of Richmond.

It follows that John's unique characteristics also led him into a niche where no other real estate professional specializes, the world of private equity companies. It is estimated that private equity companies own more than 15 percent of the U.S. privately held firms, and there are Redding companies that are part of that.

John attends and speaks at numerous private equity conferences around the United States and has become somewhat of an expert in cross-collateralization of real estate assets, a major stumbling block to mergers and acquisitions. Before you start yawning, that's as deep as I'm going to go on that subject.

What does all of this have to do with marketing Stillwater? The trick to marketing an area to prospective companies is finding out who is planning to either move or expand. Since private equity firms control many companies, it is an excellent resource. A broker like John Troughton provides real estate consulting services to these private equity firms, most of whom do not have their own internal real estate services. This entry provides excellent intelligence to what companies are planning for their real estate needs.

Having a global firm like Cushman and Wakefield, however, goes far beyond just the private equity niche that John Troughton has developed. John is a featured speaker at high level conferences all over the country, but Cushman and Wakefield has offices and commercial brokers all over the world and their network is of significant value. In addition, John has a team involved in Stillwater, including Cushman and Wakefield Brokers in Portland and Los Angeles as well as a local broker, Coldwell Banker C&C's Ken Miller.

This global effort is being employed on behalf of Stillwater and includes marketing to other commercial and industrial brokers, directly to companies and to the Corporate Services Advisors employed by Cushman and Wakefield, many of whom work directly with Fortune 500 companies, providing them with real estate consulting services.

John Troughton also does not sit around waiting for the phone to ring. He has already visited many of the competitor business parks in California, Nevada and Oregon and is tuned in to the current market conditions. Also, in addition to the thousands of brochures that have been mailed, a specific marketing piece was designed and is now available at hotels and resorts around Shasta County.

Needless to say, in this "what have you done for me lately" business, the big question now is, "who do you have lined up to come into Stillwater?" The short answer is that there is nothing imminent, but there are prospects, even during this period of financial uncertainty and real estate concerns.

Those "prospects" began developing long before construction began and continue to come in now that the project is finally being built. There is a long standing quote that "economic development is a process, not an event" and that description aptly applies to Stillwater. The business park gets us in the game for large projects, something that has escaped us for years.

John Troughton knows about the "game" and has played in it successfully for years. John Troughton is more convinced than anyone that he will be successful with Stillwater, and he is in the trenches working on our behalf and that's exactly what we need right now.

Jim Zauher is Economic Development Director for the city of Redding. His e-mail address is jzauher@ci.redding.ca.us.