People skills put Jaccom back in the thick of things. Mark Jaccom, president, tenant representation division, GVA Williams.

Mark Jaccom has always been a people person and he's always been a real estate broker. His first job out of City College was at TCN Worldwide on Long Island where he cut his teeth on commercial deals before moving to local rival, Sutton and Edwards Inc.

He joined the ranks of Studley in 1992 and earned himself a place in real estate folklore as the man who jumped on a plane carrying a CEO to Florida just to convince him he was the right man to handle his space requirements.

His landmark deals for tenants running the gamut from financial giants to media conglomerates have been many and varied and his commitment to his clients is legendary.

Yet in 2002, when his mentor, Julien Studley, sold his company to its own management and handed the reins to the next generation of leaders at the firm he had founded in 1954, Jaccom said he found himself losing touch with the part of his business he'd most coveted: the people.

"[Following the buyout] I strictly worked the management side and, in doing that, I left the core of my real estate discipline behind, which is that of working with clients," said Jaccom.

It was the chance to get back into the thick of it that tempted Jaccom to accept an offer from GVA Williams this summer to head up its new tenant rep division in Manhattan. Jaccom is looking to grab a slice of the corporate real estate services pie for GVA as it embarks of a major expansion of its real estate services throughout the north east.

He has already set about forming a team that he says will be "the heart and soul" of the firm; a group of experts and analysts that will pump information into the arteries of the GVA Williams brokerage, ultimately helping expand its client base.

"It's critical that when we assess the quality of a building that we uncover or discover everything about it so that our clients can make an informed economic decision based on our objective audit. That ultimately makes for a better negotiating platform," said Jaccom.

To complete those objectives, Jaccom has devised a three-point plan that includes re-evaluating current staff; boosting recruitment of both brokers and experts in the various business sectors and; elevating the corporate image of GVA Williams.

"We are out there in a very systematic way," said Jaccom, who grew up in the Bronx. "We have target groups focusing on law, finance, education, investment sales, retail, industrial and non-profit firms."

Joyce Geyer, Jaccom's partner at Studley, has followed him to GVA Williams and is now developing the consulting group that is meant to enhance the company's capacity to address the expanding needs of its growing roster of fortune 500 corporate clients, as well as its base of regional and local clients.

Each team of specialists meets weekly to brainstorm on trade developments, deals and even industry chatter that might give them a hint of upcoming business and an edge on their competitors. Jaccom basically wants to know the real estate requirements of every business out there before even they know themselves.

He has set himself a five-year timeline to build GVA Williams' Tenant Representation Division into a strong regional player completing deals around the county. "We don't have to be the biggest, but we will be the best," he said.

As a broker who has earned his stripes fighting turf wars for his clients and shaving millions from overstretched budgets, Jaccom believes that good people skills are as pivotal to his success as the skilled staff he's surrounding himself with. For while the sophisticated real estate demands of today's clients may have changed in the nearly 30 years he's been in the business, the basics have always been the same.

"As my mother and father always told me, if you treat people as you like to be treated, everything should fall into place."