The long road to success as the ultimate dealmaker.

His name has become synonymous with big deals and big name tenants.

There was the 1 million s/f he leased to Bank of America in its tower at One Bryant Park after helping to advise the bank to co-develop the building in the first place with the Durst Organization. There was Merrill Lynch's 450,000 s/f lease at 2 World Financial Plaza. Then there was the more recent 450,000 s/ f sublease last summer of Wachovia's space at 1 World Financial Plaza to Morgan Stanley. And those are just a few of the deals he has helped bring to fruition. Indeed, Jones Lang LaSalle's New York region president, Peter Riguardi, has put his stamp on so many notable transactions, his resume tallies in the millions of square feet and seats him indisputably as one of the top brokers in the city and perhaps even the country. His impressive credentials, as well as the managerial ability he demonstrated as a principal at Colliers ABR, were exactly why Jones Lang LaSalle was so eager to bring him in to run its New York City office just over three years ago. But just as Riguardi's celebrity has boosted JLL's profile, Riguardi was quick to assert how JLL's depth of services and brand name have done the same for him.

Having an impressive supporting cast surrounding him, as well as JLL's global reach and array of service lines, such as investment sales, construction and building management, and various advisory services at his beck and call, Riguardi says he has never been more competitive as a dealmaker. The key advantage of his new position in fueling his ongoing string of big transactions is that it allows him to consistently gain high-level contacts within an array of potentially space hungry corporations. That access has kept his pipeline flush with opportunity. Riguardi is currently working with Chinese real estate firm Van Tone, which is rumored to be considering hundreds of thousands of square feet at 7 World Trade Center. He is also involved in Bank of America's search for a big block of space in a building that is in the vicinity of where its new tower will be.

"There's no comparison to where I was," he says. "The point at which you meet someone and then do business with them is a lot shorter, people don't only have confidence in you, but your firm."

"You want to ideally be in a situation where your interests are aligned, the firm's and yours, so that neither one is growing without the other. And that's the kind of situation that I'm in."

The importance of mutual growth is something that Riguardi understood early in his career. Where many young brokers might try to break into the world of big deal making by taking the arduous route of trying to go directly to a big space user's head decision maker, Riguardi began his career at the Williams Company working on smaller deals--but for important clients like Merrill Lynch and Morgan Stanley. He forged relationships with contacts lower in the chain of command, but those young managers eventually climbed up their companies' managerial ladders concurrent with Riguardi's own ascension in the real estate industry, and Riguardi soon found himself in a sublime position. Just as he began mastering the skills necessary to handle the largest deals, such major transactions were available to him because his well-placed contacts had gained enough rank to offer them to him.

"It's like a marriage, it can't be a good situation if it's just you who's growing," Riguardi said. "People you know, they start to grow in their business and you hope to help them because you're also growing and you hope that they'll help you grow when they can."

Another factor in Riguardi's success was that he had the good instinct, even at a fledgling stage in his career, to insist on entering into exclusive contracts with the tenants he represented. This allowed him, he said, to truly analyze objectively what space best suited a tenant's various space requirements, rather than pitch them on a particular space that may not be ideally suited for them but which offered him a chance of competing against a pack of other brokers who were lobbying in the same biased manner for their own spaces.

Tenants came to appreciate how exclusive contracts with brokers aligned the interests of both parties, but Riguardi's protocol also meant he had to walk away from a number of deals where his conditions could not be met, not an easy thing for a young broker with lofty ambitions. It did guarantee however that in the deals he entered, he would be able to enjoy enough control to demonstrate thoroughly his real estate expertise, something that so many of his peers, trapped in a self serving and futile competition with each other, weren't able to do.

"When I got into the business I met a lot of guys who had been around for 10-15 years but seemed to have only one-two years of experience 10-15 times, not really 10-15 years experience," Riguardi said. "If I have the ability to show you everything, every space I know of, I can find the best space for you and not be biased about my own building and become totally self serving."

"I've always worked on deals only where I controlled that part of the situation. If someone called me up and said 'I'm looking for such and such type of space what do you got?' I'd say I'm not really interested in being a part of that deal. When I can have an exclusive, that's what allows me to be a professional and do my job properly. It's tough to turn deals down, but it's a matter of discipline."

Standing up for his own integrity and creating a situation with his clients where his knowledge of the market could best be showcased and directed in the client's interest--while a savvy business move that paved the way for his success--didn't always win Riguardi praise among those who saw brokerage as a business of inherent non-exclusivity.

"Tommy Lasorda said in baseball, 80% of the people don't care what happens to you and 20% hope something bad happens to you," Riguardi said. "I would have to say that in the real estate business it's 50/50."

Describing himself as a guy who "avoids the highs and lows" and maintains an emotional even keel so that his focus is never interrupted, Riguardi, perhaps unsurprisingly when considering his stature in the industry, is one of those types who isn't dissuaded by past failures or is wooed into complacency by his grand successes. Rather, he focuses single-mindedly on completing the deals in front of him and on growing his and the firm's future business.

For him, the journey appears to be just as enjoyable as the destination.

"When it's a quiet day, when it's the Friday after Thanksgiving or Christmas week and it's quiet in the office, I don't like it," Riguardi said. "When there are not a lot of voicemails, then I'm more concerned than if there are a lot of voicemails. The most fun is figuring out an approach to a new piece of potential business, believing in it, and then hearing from client that you've won. I love that."