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Gregg Healy , Executive Vice President and Head of Savills Industrial Services in North America shares insights into the sector and the importance of facilities location strategy

Can we start with an introduction to you , your career history , and how you came to be at Savills ? I ’ ve had a bit of an unusual path to get to this role . I ’ m certain my parents never expected their son who majored in Philosophy and Japanese to be leading the North American industrial platform for a global commercial real estate advisory firm !

After spending several of my university years between Scandinavia and Japan , I ended up taking a management training role with a Japanese plastics company outside Tokyo . I was the only non-Japanese person working at the company , so it was a truly immersive experience .

From the get-go , I had to attend plastic injection molding school in Japanese , and then work the production line for several months before my next rotation . It was an experience that every young person should go through early in their career . We worked Monday to Friday from 8:00 in the morning until 8:00 at night , with meals provided by the company . On Saturdays , with overtime pay , we worked from 8:00 to 5:00 . I took a company bus to work and back daily and lived in a company dormitory , with my room being about ten-by-ten with no furniture – just mats on the floor and shared bathrooms . It was an amazing experience , one that really shaped my work ethic . As I advanced through the internal rotations , the company put me on the global business development team . Being the only true English speaker , I was sent all over the world , helping the company establish global partners for sales and distribution as well as licensing to manufacture .

Later , I was tasked with building a new manufacturing operation for this company in the United States which brought me back home . That was my hands-on MBA as I had to develop a team and do everything from product certification to manufacturing line setup to sales and distribution . After five years , my ( future ) wife encouraged me to put my resume out to market for an opportunity for growth .

I accepted a position with a newly formed Honda Motors subsidiary known as Komyo

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