PETE GARCIA
Pete Garcia
Pete Garcia is a Principal in I.D.E.A Partners, together with David Malmuth—a development organization concentrating on the creation of the I.D.E.A. District—a unique urban, mixed-use project in downtown San Diego, California, focusing on Innovation, Design, Education, and the Arts. Prior to starting I.D.E.A. Partners, Pete spent an entire career as a builder, developer, and engineer of major public and private real estate projects throughout the United States, Mexico, and Costa Rica, including residential, commercial, retail, industrial, hospitality, manufacturing, research, educational, process, and infrastructure projects.
From 2005 to 2010 he consulted for several companies, including Walt Disney Imagineering, and EMCOR, a Fortune 500 company and one of the largest engineering/construction/facilities services companies in the US/Canada/UK.
From 1996 to 2005 he was President/CEO of University Mechanical & Engineering Contractors, a major engineering and construction company with over $150 million of yearly revenues and over 1,200 employees with individual design/build projects exceeding $50 million. Offices are in San Diego, Los Angeles and Phoenix, Arizona.
From 1989 to 1996 he specialized in turnarounds of troubled companies and projects for institutional clients, including Portland General Electric, Hawaii’s Bishop Estates, Catholic Health Care West, and as Federal Bankruptcy Trustee. For Portland General Electric in particular he helped develop, enhance and divest their real estate portfolio including holdings in residential, commercial and industrial properties over a period of five years.
From 1973 to 1989 he developed, built, designed, and bought/sold major real estate projects, including developing and building the first biopharmaceutical facility in San Diego for Hybritech.
And from 1969 to 1973 he worked for Exxon in Texas designing and building major process plants at the biggest refinery in the world.
Education
Bachelors degree in Industrial Engineering from the University of Florida
Professional Affiliations
• Past Vice-Chairman of the State of California Commission for Economic Development
• Past Chairman of the San Diego Regional Economic Development Foundation
• Member strategic roundtable of San Diego Regional Economic Development Corporation
• Past Chairman and now Board member of AVID Center
• Member of San Diego State University Engineering Department Advisory Board
Significant Projects and Events
Development, Design and Construction of Hybritech
Led the team that developed, designed, and built the first biopharmaceutical facility in San Diego and one of the first ever. As the real estate venture capital entity we helped seed an industry, and many high-paying technology jobs in San Diego, given that most biopharmaceutical firms in San Diego spun out of Hybritech.
Developed/built/managed/enhanced/disposed a real estate portfolio for Portland General Electric
Led a team that, over a period of five years, exited Portland General Electric out of an ill-advised effort to become a major real estate developer in Portland, Ore- gon. Our team completed all projects under develop- ment, managed and enhanced the entire portfolio and sold all properties individually. This was a very large portfolio that included a master plan development with single-family residential homes, custom lots, condo- miniums, apartments, a neighborhood shopping center, and office buildings. Other projects in the portfolio included apartment complexes, retail, and retirement independent and assisted living.
Designed/built the Co-generation plants for UCSD and SDSU
Led the company that designed and built the plants at both universities that generate all the electricity and steam for their entire campuses. These very complex, major projects were built without any interruption to the campuses, and the end results exceeded all expectations.
Built a major semiconductor plant in Costa Rica for Intel
Led the company that built and assisted in the design of a complex semiconductor plant in Costa Rica, shipping everything to that country in containers and built the plant utilizing unskilled local labor that we fully trained and supervised. The project was completed with first-world quality, schedule, safety, and third-world cost to the full satisfaction of Intel.
Published author, motion picture writer/ producer, and painter
Published author of an award-winning novel. Wrote and produced an acclaimed motion picture, and his paintings are held by private, corporate, and institutional collectors throughout the US.
Immigrated alone to the US from Cuba at age 13