My first day on the job as an intern for Jim Petrucci was an exhil­a­rat­ing expe­ri­ence. Prior to our first meet­ing, I was briefed over e-mail by Mr. Petrucci, and his project man­ager Peter Polt, over the pro­posal they were plan­ning to deliver on the 31st: a 52-page pam­phlet detail­ing a pro­posed deal with the Lehigh Val­ley Air­port Author­ity to man­age the dis­po­si­tion of 700 acres of prop­erty. This pro­posal was made sig­nif­i­cantly more com­plex by the joint nature of the project; J.G. Petrucci Co., Inc. was func­tion­ing jointly with four other com­pa­nies to offer a com­pre­hen­sive solu­tion cov­er­ing both the con­sul­ta­tion and mar­ket­ing of the LVAA’s properties.

Faced with the daunt­ing prospect of intern­ing with Mr. Petrucci dur­ing such an impor­tant pro­posal, I was ini­tially intim­i­dated, but my intro­duc­tion to him imme­di­ately reversed that feel­ing. He met me at the Star­bucks on With­er­spoon and Nas­sau, and after a firm hand­shake, we headed off to eat at the Stony Hill Inn in Som­er­set County. Along the way, I learned about Mr. Petrucci’s back­ground, and his inter­est­ing intro­duc­tion into the real estate busi­ness. The cur­rent com­pany, J.G. Petrucci Co., Inc., actu­ally began legally as the Prince­ton Safe­guard Enter­prise, where Mr. Petrucci founded the cur­rent Safe­guard pro­gram in Prince­ton Uni­ver­sity. Fol­low­ing his grad­u­a­tion, how­ever, he revamped the com­pany towards devel­op­ing a com­pre­hen­sive approach to real estate, pro­vid­ing both the design­ing and build­ing ser­vices for com­pa­nies need­ing build­ings to func­tion in. Over the next 25 years, he built up the com­pany into an orga­ni­za­tion span­ning Penn­syl­va­nia and New Jer­sey, with a focus in the Lehigh Val­ley, PA.

At Stony Hill Inn, we ate with Peter Polt, the project man­ager for the LVAA pro­posal. Dur­ing din­ner, he briefed me over the specifics of the pro­posal they were plan­ning to deliver tomor­row, and talked to me about his expe­ri­ences in col­lege. His core advice to me? “Take advan­tage of the peo­ple you know. There’s no bet­ter place to net­work than col­lege.” We also dis­cussed his entry into J.G. Petrucci, and he explained the plethora of rea­sons he chose this com­pany over Wall Street. He found the free­dom of man­ag­ing dif­fer­ent projects, choos­ing his own office hours, and hav­ing the oppor­tu­nity to try his hand in dozens of dif­fer­ent posi­tions for the com­pany vastly supe­rior to the tedious, single-minded jobs he would have found elsewhere.

After din­ner, Mr. Polt took me to the Mar­riott, a hotel built and partly owned by Mr. Petrucci, where I would be stay­ing for the night.  Right across from the hotel was the brand new St. Luke’s Ander­son Cam­pus hos­pi­tal, a  project Mr. Polt assisted with. We toured the out­side of the hos­pi­tal, and I learned about the reg­u­la­tions by the gov­ern­ment that deter­mined the loca­tion of the hos­pi­tal in the first place. “Real estate is 50% about deal­ing with reg­u­la­tions,” Mr. Polt explained to me, and the next day I would see that all more clearly. Fol­low­ing the tour, we went back to the Mar­riott and I went to bed.

Jan­u­ary 31st, 2012

Deric and Jim Petrucci

The next day, I woke up bright and early. After don­ning a suit, I headed down­stairs to the lobby of the Mar­riott, where the team assem­bled to deliver the pro­posal to the LVAA. From Cush­man & Wake­field, a con­sult­ing com­pany, came Peter Waldt and Steve Cooper; Bryan Oscar­son came from AECOM to rep­re­sent the com­pany in charge of deal­ing with FAA reg­u­la­tions; Andrew Ben­nett came as a rep­re­sen­ta­tive of Pen­noni; and finally, Mr. Petrucci, Mr. Polt and Tom Shaugh­nessy rep­re­sented J.G. Petrucci Co., Inc. After intro­duc­ing myself to each of the team mem­bers, they quickly ran through the pro­posal and cov­ered pos­si­ble ques­tions and their responses to them. Next, we headed to the Air­port Authority’s office at Lehigh Val­ley Air­port to deliver the pro­posal, which was a resound­ing suc­cess, though Mr. Petrucci iron­i­cally began the pro­posal with, I quote, “Let me start with the rea­sons you shouldn’t hire us.” Fol­low­ing the pro­posal, sev­eral mem­bers of the audi­ence sug­gested to me that the Petrucci-led group was by far the best offer on the table, and that the other com­pa­nies in com­pe­ti­tion had lit­tle chance against such a com­pre­hen­sive plan.

Fol­low­ing the pro­posal, Mr. Shaugh­nessy took me to Beth­le­hem, Penn­syl­va­nia in order to tour the old Beth­le­hem Steel Fac­to­ries and the var­i­ous build­ings in devel­op­ment by Petrucci, Co. On the out­skirts of Beth­le­hem, mul­ti­ple build­ings were being con­structed by J.G. Petrucci, includ­ing one for FedEx and sev­eral ship­ment com­pa­nies, and there were also sev­eral Petrucci owned patches of real estate for sale. While we were there, Mr. Shaugh­nessy filled me in on the his­tory of Beth­le­hem; how it grew as the largest steel pro­ducer in the U.S. dur­ing the World Wars, and then shrunk as the steel fac­to­ries were shifted to other areas. We then ate at Beth­le­hem Pizza, and dis­cussed the expand­ing future of J.G. Pet­truci, Co., a rapidly grow­ing com­pany with no signs of slowing.

Next, he passed me off to Ryan Wag­gner, a 25-year-old Project Man­ager for J.G. Petrucci who gave me a good look at the work­ings behind J.G. Petrucci and the actual con­struc­tion process of its build­ings. Mr. Wag­ner took me to go see a brand new QuickChek gas sta­tion in New Jer­sey that he was cur­rently in charge of con­struct­ing, by man­ag­ing the flow of work­ers and pace of devel­op­ment. On the trip there and back, he explained to me the logis­tics of being a project man­ager for a com­pany with such a diverse port­fo­lio, and showed me a poten­tial career right out of col­lege; a var­ied, cre­ative job that required sig­nif­i­cant amounts of trav­el­ing and involve­ment in many areas of the com­pany. Mr. Wag­gner under­scored Mr. Polt’s asser­tions about the ben­e­fits of his job; they both seemed per­fectly con­tent with the free­dom and abil­i­ties of their posi­tions with J.G. Petrucci, and expressed their sin­cere hap­pi­ness at being part of the company.

Finally, Mr. Wag­gner took me back to Prince­ton at around 6 pm. Though I was exhausted from the long day, I was sin­cerely happy with the peo­ple I had met and the expe­ri­ences I had gained. From this Princetern­ship, I’ve devel­oped a strong inter­est in the area of busi­ness; Mr. Petrucci showed me how a well-run com­pany could suc­ceed even in a harsh eco­nomic cli­mate, and how his tire­less work ethic inspired devo­tion from his employ­ees. This expe­ri­ence has opened my eyes to the world of real estate busi­ness, and as a result, I’m seri­ously con­sid­er­ing alter­ing my pri­mary major of Mechan­i­cal Engi­neer­ing, per­haps look­ing more into Finan­cial Engi­neer­ing or a major that will put me in a bet­ter posi­tion to pur­sue a posi­tion at a com­pany like J.G. Petrucci, Inc.