March 20, 2017

KLNB Announces Retirement of Managing Partner Andy Georgelakos

-- Decision to Retire Follows Two Years of Highest Transaction Volumes Ever Achieved at KLNB -- -- Strategic Search is Underway in D.C./Northern Virginia region for Successor --

Baltimore, Md. – KLNB, the full-service commercial real estate brokerage, today announced that Andrew J. Georgelakos, principal and managing partner will retire June 30, 2017. Georgelakos will leave KLNB after leading the firm to its two most successful years, with nearly $1.5 billion in annual transaction volume for both 2015 and 2016.

Among his many achievements, one of the most notable was Georgelakos’ foresight in the early 2000s about the potential for expansion around the Washington Dulles International Airport. With his encouragement, St. John Properties and Merritt Properties expanded from the Baltimore region into the burgeoning Northern Virginia market, and the sales that resulted led to expansive growth in revenue, company size and geographic reach for KLNB.

Looking back at his 31 years at KLNB, Georgelakos says what he is most proud of is the firm’s status as an employee-owned company. “Young people who are willing to work really hard and embrace their entrepreneurial spirit have the very special opportunity to earn a share of the business. We end each year debt-free, with the ability to reward those shareholders with the profit,” he said. “The success of our company is fueled by employees who own the company.”

Georgelakos joined KLNB in 1985 as a broker. In 2000, when he was named the interim managing partner, he still didn’t want to give up his role as a broker. “Managers can be replaced, but a broker with those valuable contacts can’t,” he quipped. “It was supposed to be an interim, part-time position, and here I am 17 years later.”

With his departure less than four months away, Georgelakos is actively pushing forward KLNB’s presence in the Washington Metro region, with plans being carried out to expand both volume of brokers and clients in retail, industrial and office spaces across D.C., Northern Virginia and the surrounding areas.

Georgelakos was the recipient of the 2004 Washington Business Journal’s “Suburban Transaction of the Year Award” for the sale of the 540,000-square-foot WorldCom Headquarters. He was recognized as one of the top five real estate brokers in the Washington Metropolitan area by the Corridor Business Journal and received the “Heavy Hitters Award” from the Baltimore Business Journal. He was also the recipient of the Greater Baltimore Board of Realtors’ “Transaction of the Year Award” in 1995.

He has worked on a number of notable projects including the sale of more than 350 acres of R&D flex land in Northern Virginia in the Dulles Airport area, the representation of Walmart in 300,000 square feet of sub-lease space in Baltimore and the coordination of a three-state site selection search and build to suit RFP for McCormick Spice Company’s 370,000-square-foot distribution facility in Riverside, Md.

Even now, Georgelakos hesitates to call this next step retirement.

Although he is shifting away from his managerial role at KLNB, he plans to become one of the firm’s clients as a real estate investor himself.

First, though, he intends to spend time with his wife, family and friends, traveling across Europe and to his family’s native country of Greece. He and his wife, Jeanne, also plan to spend time together in Florida, where she is an adjunct professor at Florida Gulf Coast University.

Georgelakos’ eldest son, Dimitri, is a top-performing retail broker in the D.C. and Northern Virginia markets and a member of the executive committee at KLNB; his younger son, Peter, is an investment advisor with Morgan Stanley in Baltimore; and his daughter, Alexis, is a special education resource teacher in the Fairfax County Public Schools system.

The search for a new managing partner is already underway and is being led by KLNB’s succession committee. The search is heavily focused in the D.C./Northern Virginia region, where KLNB is experiencing remarkable growth.

KLNB’s executive committee is well poised to confidently and seamlessly lead the firm in the interim.

About KLNB

KLNB is the dominant provider of commercial real estate services throughout the mid-Atlantic region. A full-service commercial brokerage and real estate services firm, KLNB provides a variety of services including tenant and landlord representation, leasing, investment sales, property management, financing, and appraisal & valuation services. Headquartered in Maryland, close to 80 full-time brokerage professionals work across KLNB’s five full-service offices located in Towson and Columbia, Md.; Washington, D.C.; and Dulles and Tysons, Va. http://klnb.com