Michael Merritt

With more than 17 years of workplace and design experience, Michael Merritt serves as a vice president on the workplace and project management team with UGL Equis in Chicago. Michael is responsible for developing client driven workplace strategies, needs assessments and alternative occupancy solutions for clients, in order to support the continued investment in the value-added services of the company's workplace platform and resources. As a project manager, Michael's experience ranges from project sizes of 5,000-240,000 square feet. Prior to joining UGL Equis, Michael was an assistant vice president and senior real estate portfolio planner for Washington Mutual Bank. He developed campus optimization plans, oversaw the regional deployment of real estate portfolio practices and initiatives and served on the bank's design standards team. He was responsible for lease and occupancy activity of 1 million square feet at the regional level. Michael also spent two years as their design and construction project manager where he managed capital projects for corporate properties. Before joining Washington Mutual Bank, he was an independent consultant to CB Richard Ellis for The Dow Chemical Company. He teamed with senior management in the development of a campus master plan to accommodate 600 employees from the Union Carbide merger. As the design/construction project manager for the series of projects in the master plan, he worked closely with the company's design, construction, security, telecommunications, network and customer related groups, in addition to managing the project budgets. Throughout his career, he has worked with such notable firms as Cisco Systems, TTX Company, Lockheed Martin, Herman Miller and Midway Games.