The overhaul of San Diego's beleaguered Real Estate Assets Department will be headed by a former Navy fighter pilot and Top Gun instructor who has more than 20 years of experience in real estate.
Jim Barwick, 59, a senior vice president with QVA IPC Commercial Real Estate in University City, will begin Tuesday as the department's director.
He replaces William Griffith, who resigned in October after a report in The San Diego Union-Tribune detailed how the city lacks a precise inventory of its properties and doesn't know how they are all used. The inventory included properties the city sold long ago and did not include acreage that it now owns.
Mayor Jerry Sanders, who took office in December, has promised an audit of the city's holdings and a new system to monitor properties and leases.
Jim Waring, the mayor's chief of land use and economic development, said the department needs to revamp itself, and he looked at more than a dozen candidates before hiring Barwick.
“The more I've learned about it, we need substantial organizational and systems work done, but we don't need to rebuild it,” Waring said.
Barwick will earn $143,500 annually, slightly more than his predecessor.
He said he is aware of the department's troubles and plans to analyze the city's leases thoroughly. He said many were negotiated decades ago and some of the terms don't favor the city.
He also said it's unacceptable for San Diego to not have an accurate inventory of its properties.
“We're going to make sure there are no cracks for (properties) to fall through,” Barwick said.
Barwick, who grew up in Cincinnati, earned a bachelor's degree in naval science from the U.S. Naval Academy in Annapolis, Md. The fighter pilot served in the Navy from 1968 to 1977, flying about 140 combat missions in Vietnam in 1972. He said he never shot any enemy aircraft down.
He later attended the Top Gun school at what is now the Miramar Marine Corps Air Station, where Randy “Duke” was one of several instructors. Barwick said he knew Cunningham only professionally.
Cunningham, the former Republican congressman from Rancho Santa Fe, pleaded guilty in November to conspiracy and tax evasion charges after he admitted taking $2.4 million in bribes.
Barwick, who lives in Carmel Valley, also became an instructor at Top Gun during his final two years in the Navy.
A pilot for Continental Airlines for six years, he left to begin a career in real estate when the airline filed for bankruptcy in 1983. Besides working for two real estate companies, Barwick served as assistant director of the San Diego Unified Port District's real estate department.
Craig Gustafson: (619) 293-1884; craig.gustafson@uniontrib.com
