Tanner is RES’ Director of Strategic Consulting. Tanner’s unique background in business, community planning, and GIS analytics allows him to help RES’ clients to draw important connections between strategy, analytics and the surrounding community—leading to successful market strategies. Tanner is there for clients through every phase of their projects, including data collection, analytics, opportunity identification, final presentation and approval.
Before joining RES, Tanner held a key position on the CBRE Healthcare and Portfolio Analytics team.
Tanner received his undergraduate degree in Rural Studies from Abraham Baldwin Agricultural College and a M
aster’s degree in Geography. While employed at RES and CBRE, Tanner worked to further grow his knowledge base to serve clients by earning his second Master’s in Global Business Management from the University of Alabama.
Tanner is married and recently welcomed his second child into the world. When he is not helping clients build awesome ambulatory strategies, he enjoys getting a good night’s sleep, spending time with family, outdoor adventures, restoring automobiles and building scale models.
We caught up with Tanner to ask him a few questions to help you get to know him better:
Q. What do you like to do for fun?
A. Honestly, anything I can to relax. Balancing work life and a new baby life is tiring. Sometimes it’s reading a book, sometimes it’s playing video games, sometimes it’s working on a wood working project, and sometimes it’s smoking some meat and having a drink.
Q. Something most people don’t know about you.
A. I’m typically a pretty open person but If I had to come up with something, I would probably say it’s that I’m a serious perfectionist. I am horrible at starting a project and not finishing it because I get so caught up in it trying to be 100% perfect that I usually get disappointed if something isn’t. I have thrown models away at 70% complete because something went wrong. I’ve scrapped wood projects if something isn’t working. I am my own worst enemy and more critical on myself than anyone else. Sometimes it’s a great thing to have and really leads to each client getting the best project, but it’s also a massive burden at times. I wish I could adopt the “what happens, happens” lifestyle that my wife has, but I can’t. I function with detailed plans and need those plans to go as nearly flawlessly as possible.
Q. What’s your favorite part of working with RES clients?
A. I guess it would be the enjoyment associated with being able to teach people something new and different. I really love teaching people how to do something for themselves and seeing them succeed at it.
Q. How is it different than other jobs?
A. The leadership, for a few reasons:
- The ability to control yourself and not have someone micromanaging you to death. Sometimes projects take longer than others, run into snags, are more difficult, etc. and not having someone breathing down your neck 24/7 is so refreshing. Some days you just need to disconnect, take a breather, etc. and being able to do that without worry of someone “clock-watching” me is one of the best things anyone could ask for.
- It’s also helpful for what I said above about being a perfectionist. I will absolutely be overwhelmingly critical about myself if I make a mistake. I know they happen sometimes, but I hate mistakes and feel like I’ve failed if I make one. Failure for me is a big thing that really gets me down. Charles, Scott and Andrew have done a wonderful job understanding each person, so they typically do really great with not dwelling on any mistakes because they know I’ll be far more critical of myself than anything they could say. Instead, they do really well at focusing on the words of affirmation piece and praising the positives while letting me deal with any negatives. That attitude has led me to be more willing to go the extra mile because I know I have the support I need.