Meet the New Breed of Board Member
March 16, 2015 — Josh Fox has been on the board of the 206-unit condominium at 340 East 23rd Street for the entire seven-year life of the building, and president for the last three. In that time, he has proven himself a certain kind of board member, one who is more than a board member. He acts more like manager — a take-charge guy who has obsessively turned the idea of money-saving into an art form. Among his accomplishments: he has negotiated lower utility rates with the gas and electric companies; found a different bank to lower banking fees and interest rates; found a new landscaping company at a reduced cost; reupholstered outdated building furniture to avoid replacement costs; started e-mailing building documents to board members instead of printing them; and has instituted a dozen other practices intended to decrease costs and/or increase revenues. Such actions shouldn't be surprising, either: Fox is the founder and CEO of a company called Bottom Line, which analyzes nonprofit corporations and municipalities and helps them control their costs.
Fox has a kindred spirit in another board president, Michael Herzog, who is just as busy. As the president of the 68-unit co-op at 257-291 Cedarhurst Avenue in Cedarhurst, Herzog has been actively involved in the affairs of the garden apartment house for more than three decades.
He was an accountant for many years, and arrived at the property in 1961, raised his family there, represented the tenants in negotiations with the sponsor during the property's conversion to a co-op, and has been board president from 1988 to the present. Now 77, he hasn't slowed down, spending at least 28 hours a week on co-op business.
"I was walking the grounds the other night," he recalls, "and I noticed that one of the lights was out, which the porter wouldn't have seen because he isn't here at night. So I called him at home at 9 o'clock that night and informed him he should replace it the next day."
These two men are as different as different can be — but they have three things in common: they want to save their properties money, they are hands-on, and they care.
Fox and Herzog represent a new breed of board member, different from the average one who attends meetings, maybe sits on a committee or two, regularly votes on issues, and is a little involved in management, but has no interest in the minutia. Conversely, this new breed is constantly searching for the great white whale of cost-savings, and more often than not, finding it.
Management executive Gerard J. Picaso, managing director of the Gerard J. Picaso division of Halstead Property, has run across such individuals during his three decades managing property — and he finds them helpful. "They're on the property, they care about it, and they offer you a second pair of eyes. If their agenda is to make the building run well, and they work with you, then [it's good because] you have almost like an on-site property manager there," says Picaso. "I have a couple of buildings where the board presidents are very, very active, and very, very knowledgeable and we work very well together. One of them is a flat-out genius and does all kinds of research and has a tremendous mechanical aptitude as well as a financial background. The building runs great, he works with the super and the resident manager, and we save money all the time."
The "highly involved" Fox and Herzog are seen as a boon not a bane by those who work with them. "Michael is the most caring board member you have ever met in your life," says Steve Greenbaum, director of management at Mark Greenberg Real Estate. "He will make you think and challenge you in a very good way."
Fox and Herzog are looking out for the building, and check their egos — more or less — at the door. "Here is the difference between Michael and [an 'interfering' board member]," observes Greenbaum. "If Michael sees that a light is out, he will call the superintendent. The other type will see the light is out, and he will write you a five page e-mail on how you need to make sure the light bulb never goes out again, and what you need to do to fix it, where you need to buy a light bulb, how many people it takes to change that bulb, and how much time, and why wasn't the procedure in place three years ago?"
Adapted from "Highly Involved ... Highly Evolved" by Tom Soter (Habitat, March 2015).
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