In this eye-opening episode of The Real Finds Podcast, host Gordon Lamphere welcomes Andrew Farah, the CEO and co-founder of Density, a company revolutionizing how we measure and understand physical space usage in office environments.

Together, they explore the hidden inefficiencies of commercial office spaces, the myths around return-to-office mandates, and how anonymous, real-time space data can fundamentally reshape how organizations use their buildings, without infringing on privacy.

🔍 Key Topics Covered:

- Why “butts in seats” is a broken metric for workplace effectiveness

- How Density’s radar-based sensors provide real-time data while ensuring complete privacy

- Why camera-based systems pose legal, ethical, and cybersecurity risks

- “Ghost meetings,” unclaimed desks, and the vast wasteland of unused office space

- How high-trust, in-person collaboration builds stronger products and teams

- What federal government real estate downsizing means for office investors and REITs

- Creative solutions for return-to-office success: including in-building childcare

- The real impact of flexible work on young professionals, mentorship, and workplace training

- How future workspaces will blend AI, self-driving tech, and radically smaller, higher-output teams

📈 Whether you're a commercial real estate investor, a corporate occupier, or simply navigating hybrid work policies, this episode will change the way you think about space, people, and productivity.

📚 Books Recommended by Andrew Farah:

The Order of Time by Carlo Rovelli – A poetic exploration of time by a physicist who writes like a philosopher.

Endurance by Alfred Lansing – The true survival story of Ernest Shackleton’s Antarctic expedition (with a shoutout to navigator Frank Worsley).

Contact by Carl Sagan – A science fiction classic about our place in the universe, later adapted into a film starring Jodie Foster.

Unreasonable Hospitality by Will Guidara – Behind the scenes of Eleven Madison Park and the art of going above and beyond for customers.

Lessons of History by Will & Ariel Durant – A concise but profound meditation on human history, civilization, and recurring patterns.

Andrew also shares powerful advice for young professionals: read what you love until you love to read, and let curiosity, not competition, guide your growth.

📬 Want to connect with Andrew Farah or learn more about Density?

Website: https://www.density.io

Email: andrew@density.io

LinkedIn: https://www.linkedin.com/in/andrewfarah/

🎧 Subscribe to The Real Finds Podcast for raw, data-backed conversations with the operators, entrepreneurs, and visionaries redefining real estate and the built world.

📍 Available on YouTube, Spotify, Apple Podcasts, and wherever you get your audio content.

👍 Like. Comment. Share. Subscribe. Your feedback fuels these important conversations.

What happens when geopolitical uncertainty meets supply chain complexity? In this eye-opening episode of The Real Finds Podcast, host Gordon Lamphere welcomes Kristian O'Meara, known as “KO”, a seasoned global supply chain leader and Senior Vice President of Strategic Initiatives at JAGGAER. Together, they unpack the ripple effects of major trade policy shifts, most notably the U.S.-China tariffs, and how those disruptions have permanently reshaped the landscape for procurement teams, industrial space users, and commercial real estate strategists.

This is more than just a conversation about global logistics, it’s a breakdown on how to survive and thrive in a fractured global economy. Whether you’re a business owner trying to adapt sourcing strategies, a procurement executive navigating compliance challenges, or a commercial real estate agent watching industrial demand surge across inland markets, this episode gives you a front-row seat to the strategies that matter now.

🔍 Key Topics Covered:

✅ Tariffs and Trade Tensions: Gordon and KO explore the long tail of the Trump-era tariffs, how they disrupted legacy procurement pipelines, and why many companies were caught off-guard by the fragility of their global sourcing networks. You’ll hear how tariffs forced executive teams to rethink risk in a more tangible and location-dependent way, sparking major shifts in demand for U.S.-based industrial real estate and logistics assets.

✅ Supply Chain Resilience: KO lays out the new playbook for supply chain resiliency, including the critical role of digital procurement platforms, supplier diversification, and end-to-end visibility. Resilience today is not just about building inventory buffers—it’s about having the real-time data to make smart, fast decisions.

✅ The Nearshoring Boom: One of the biggest takeaways from this conversation is the structural movement toward nearshoring. Companies are no longer treating it as a theoretical future; it’s happening right now. KO explains why this shift is creating ripple effects across Mexico, the U.S. Southeast, and the Midwest, making “industrial space” more important than ever for procurement and operations leaders.

✅ Technology Meets Policy: As procurement becomes more central to enterprise strategy, regulatory compliance, trade reporting, and ESG mandates are colliding with digital transformation efforts. KO discusses how platforms like JAGGAER are helping organizations not only comply but also compete.

✅ Why Real Estate is Now a Supply Chain Issue: Gordon and KO touch on a compelling trend: the convergence of physical logistics, real estate, and digital strategy. As warehouses, ports, and even energy access points become critical nodes in corporate strategy, the ability to secure the right space in the right place is becoming a competitive advantage.

📈 Related Resources: Need a strategic real estate plan to match your evolving logistics footprint?

📥 Download our Industrial Space Action Plans for:

Occupiers: https://www.vvco.com/industrial-space-occupiers-action-plan/

Property Sellers: https://www.vvco.com/industrial-property-sellers-action-plan/

Investors: https://www.vvco.com/commercial-real-estate-investors-action-plan/

Explore more at: https://www.vvco.com/industrial-space-in-chicago-buy-sell-lease/

Power Planning Is Now Real Estate Planning: Why Data Centers Are Redefining Site Value

In this episode of The Real Finds Podcast, host Gordon Lamphere sits down with Pete DiSanto, a marine engineer turned microgrid and energy infrastructure expert, to unpack one of the most pressing challenges in commercial real estate today: how power access, not just location, is becoming the ultimate driver of site value.

As data centers evolve into the physical engine rooms of the global digital economy, the development process has flipped. It’s no longer just about zoning, broadband, or fiber—it’s about securing scalable, resilient energy access. In today’s grid-constrained environment, interconnection delays of 3–7 years are not uncommon. Pete explains why traditional assumptions about utility hookups no longer apply and why “just adding a transformer” is a naïve myth.

👉 Whether you're a real estate developer, private equity investor, or infrastructure fund evaluating potential data center sites, this episode is packed with essential insights on the future of behind-the-meter power, natural gas infrastructure, and microgrid design.

From gas turbines and fuel cells to LNG bridging, small modular nuclear reactors, and evolving redundancy standards, Pete outlines why microgrids like those from Enchanted Rock are no longer a nice-to-have—they’re becoming the gating factor for feasibility, financing, and speed-to-market.

🔋 Key themes covered:

• How interconnection queues have ballooned and what to do about it
• Why utility-grade infrastructure is no longer enough
• Creative solutions for powering sites ahead of grid upgrades
• The new role of natural gas pipelines in real estate underwriting
• What modular nuclear means for the future of clean power

Why the smartest investors are solving for “speed-to-power” before they ever break ground

💡 Power Planning is Now Real Estate Planning. In the race to build scalable data infrastructure, developers can’t afford to ignore the power side of the deal. No energy = no asset. Resilient power isn’t just about uptime, it’s about making land bankable.

As Pete puts it: “You don’t get to take a day off. You either solve the problem or you don’t get home.”

Relevant Resources:

Learn more about industrial real estate development at Van Vlissingen: https://www.vvco.com/industrial-space-in-chicago-buy-sell-lease/

Read our latest market insights on the Van Vlissingen blog: https://www.vvco.com/news/

Work with a Van Vlissingen commercial real estate broker: https://www.vvco.com/contact/

Discover how Enchanted Rock is powering data center resilience with natural gas microgrids: https://enchantedrock.com/

Enchanted Rock microgrids offer flexible, on-site, dispatchable power that meets peak loads without compromising reliability or waiting on grid upgrades. Even better, they’re built to evolve, with dispatchable, on-site power that meets demand today and can later transition into grid support—helping data centers become assets to the grid, not liabilities.