Getting technology right

David Clancy is the computer honcho at Coldwell Banker Pacific Properties

David Clancy Title: Vice president of information technology Job: Manages and maintains the computer facilities and Web site of Coldwell Banker Pacific Properties

David Clancy faced a difficult decision when he decided he wanted to earn some certifications in computer science: "Study in the snow, or study in the sand" -- the snow being in Michigan, and the sand being in Hawaii.

Hmmm.

Clancy chose the sand, and now, 12 years later, he is vice president of information technology at the state's largest real estate firm, Coldwell Banker Pacific Properties, in charge of all its computer services and equipment, and managing its Web site, too.

"I wish it was a more sophisticated story, (about how I came to Hawaii)," Clancy said last week, "but my mother and sister both live here, and I was starting my second career in computer science, ... so I opted with catching up with my mother and sister and studying in the sand over here."

His plan was to get certified in Microsoft networking systems at the Computer Training Academy here and eventually return to the mainland. Reality, however, intervened.

"I thought I was on my way to California to work in Silicon Valley, but the Prince Hotels made me an offer I couldn't refuse before I made it there. And it was a smart move, too," he said, "because with the tech bubble, I fared much better at the hotel than I would have in Silicon Valley."

He continues to fare well at Coldwell Banker Pacific Properties, which has seven offices on Oahu and more than 500 agents.

Clancy, 40, is a graduate of Carl Brableck High School in Roseville, Mich. He attended a flight program at Western Michigan University, then switched to the University of Michigan where he studied mechanical engineering and computer science. He might have graduated from there if he hadn't had a family business in Detroit to join, Clancy Engineering, run by his father, Gary, who these days, Clancy said, "plays almost as much golf as he works."

Clancy is single and a resident of Kahala.

Mark Coleman: How long have you been in your current position at Coldwell Banker Pacific Properties?

David Clancy: For about five years now.

Q: How many people do you have working in your department?

A: There's three other people in my department.

Q: And what do they do?

A: Well, you know, our primary objective is to provide support for the 600 employees and agents of Coldwell Banker Pacific Properties. We actually run all of our IT (information technology) systems ourselves, so we not only build them and roll them out to agents, but we also provide ongoing daily support.

Q: What were you doing before you joined Coldwell Banker?

A: Well, I was still doing technology, but I was doing it for the Hawaii Prince Hotel. I helped them out with that little Y2K problem that everybody had back in '99. And before that, in my former life, I was a mechanical engineer, back in Detroit, Mich.

Q: With whom?

A: It was a family business -- Clancy Engineering. We did a lot of things, but the summary of what we did was prototype design and engineering for manufacturers.

Q: How did you get this job?

A: I was at the Prince Hotels, and we had wrapped up a few large initiatives, so I was interviewing with a few companies, and in interviewing with the owners of Coldwell Banker, back then, the real estate industry was really taking off, and Coldwell Banker was growing quickly. So they explained some of the initiatives they wanted to tackle, and I saw it as a great opportunity.

Coldwell Banker ... laid down some pretty high standards for their network that they wanted me to build, and the cornerstones were mobility, reliability, training and support.

Q: How big of a computer network are you dealing with at Coldwell Banker?

A: Well, we have seven offices in town and a little over 500 real estate agents working with us, most of whom work remotely. Each office typically has anywhere from 70 to a hundred agents. Some offices are 50 desks, some are 80 desks. And in each one of these offices, we have work centers that agents can work at, but most of the agents these days have their own laptops.

Q: Do company agents have to use their own laptops or do you supply them?

A: They use their own laptops. Then we have -- each office has -- about 10 computers available for people who are just stopping in to do conferences or something like that.

Q: What about desktop computers, PDAs, and things like that?

A: Yeah, that all falls into the mobility world in my daily life. We created a program called the Coldwell Banker Virtual Office. So from any computer, our agents can now log in through the Internet and go to work. They can do in-office remotely now, which has just been fantastic for them.

Q: Are the agents allowed to download their own programs?

A: The way we've handled that, we've actually assembled all the programs our agents would need and installed them on the Virtual Office, and preconfigured them. So if you're a new agent coming on with Coldwell Banker, you get a user name and password to log in, and everything you need to do real estate is ready to go for you, including your e-mail, fax numbers, all that stuff. And from an independent-contractor point of view, that is just fantastic.

Even down to PDAs, we set it up for them so that all their e-mail and contacts and calendars are on there for them, and synchronized with our servers. And if anything goes wrong with that, we just ask them to bring it back and we fix it for them. And we sit with you for a half hour and we train you on your PDA, so you're comfortable with the technology when you walk out the door.

Q: How do you ensure security for your company's data, especially when somebody loses their laptop or it gets stolen?

A: Our key product that everybody logs into from the laptop, Virtual Office, that is actually stored on our system, so if you lose your laptop, all you need to do is get another laptop and log in and it will all be there again.

Even with your phone; if you lose your phone, and you're worried people might see what's on your phone, all you have to do is call us, and within 30 seconds, we can wipe everything off that phone. So security is built into the system.

Q: What kind of data are you in charge of marshaling and updating all the time, and how is it useful to the agents?

A: All the (real estate) listings, those are handled by the board (the Honolulu Board of Realtors). But all the things that individuals are normally tasked with, like doing virus updates and security updates and program updates, we do all that for them, on the Virtual Office system.

Q: Who handles hardware repairs in your department?

A: We do that internally. We have about 20 servers and we've installed all those servers ourselves, and we also maintain all those servers. Strategically we did that so we could react quickly to any circumstances that come up. And we've standardized all those servers so we can be sure to have spare parts on hand.

Q: Do you have to carry a pager or cell phone, in case an agent has an emergency with his or her computer?

A: Yeah. We've built this system to monitor all our computers and servers and Internet connections, and it checks each one of them every 30 seconds. Any time there's any alerts on any of those systems, we get a page on our phone.

Q: How do you keep up with the latest hardware and software developments in your field?

A: That's an ongoing thing. We subscribe to all the obvious trade journals, and read a lot, and being in the position I'm in, I get to talk to a lot of sales folks.

Q: Do you spend much time on the computer when you get home at night, or are you too burned out by then?

A: You know, fortunately I'm to a point now where that's not necessary.

Back in the early days when we were building out our systems -- not that I was complaining about it -- there was a lot of after-hours upgrades. But nowadays things are running smoothly, and we have an excellent staff, too. So when things aren't running smoothly, I have excellent help to help fix the problems.

In fact, one of the things I'm most proud of is the performance of my staff, and their desire to meet the high internal standards for our agents and staff.

Three years in a row -- this is really what I'm most proud of -- we survey our agents asking them how we're doing, and three years in a row we've scored a 99 percent satisfaction rate with our agents and staff, and that's when you know you're getting technology right.