The Current | The Work Behind the Fun
THE CURRENT | Issue No. 011
The Work Behind the Fun
At Gaedeke Group, a dedicated committee makes sure the people who show up every day feel seen, celebrated, and connected.
There is a widely held belief in commercial real estate that culture is a byproduct, something that emerges on its own if you hire good people and point them in the right direction. Gaedeke Group takes a different view. Culture is something you build deliberately, the same way you build a well-run building: with structure, care, and people who take it seriously.
That is the work of the FUN Committee.
The committee is a small group of Gaedeke team members who have taken on something that looks lighthearted from the outside but requires real thoughtfulness to do well: making sure the people behind the company feel genuinely appreciated. Their work spans the full calendar year, from sourcing and distributing employee gifts to organizing the annual holiday party, coordinating happy hours, and producing a regular internal newsletter that shares company news, employee photos, shoutouts, and a running calendar of what is coming up next.
The People Who Make It Happen
Ivona Riley and Katrina Torrey are the committee’s current co-leads, and the program reflects their combined attention to detail and genuine investment in the team around them. They plan far enough ahead to make things feel effortless, which is exactly the point. A well-timed gift, a happy hour that actually fits the team’s schedule, a newsletter that makes someone feel recognized by name. None of that happens without someone doing the planning before anyone else notices the gap.
The committee also carries the fingerprints of people who helped build it. Debbie Marshall, a longtime Gaedeke team member, was instrumental in shaping the FUN Committee into what it is today. The foundation she helped lay is still evident in everything the committee produces.
“I’ve worked in this industry for a long time, and the culture here is genuinely different. This team shows up for each other the same way they show up for our tenants, and that’s not a coincidence. It’s who we are.”
Armon Golliday, Vice President of Marketing and Tenant Relations, Gaedeke Group
More Than a Party
The committee’s programming runs deeper than a single event. The internal newsletter, distributed regularly to the full team, is a consistent reminder that the company is paying attention. Kudos sections call out employees by name. Photos from recent gatherings keep people connected across offices. Upcoming events give everyone something to look forward to.
Then there are the moments that become traditions. The annual crawfish boil is one of them, a gathering that has earned its place on the Gaedeke calendar not because it is mandatory but because people genuinely want to be there. The holiday party, the happy hours, the small gifts that arrive at the right moment: taken together, they add up to something meaningful.
Why It Matters
In any company, the distance between a job and a workplace people care about is usually bridged by small things done consistently. A shoutout that arrives when someone needed to hear it. An event that gives a team a chance to breathe and connect outside of a project deadline. A gift that shows the company was thinking about the person, not just the role.
Gaedeke has always operated with a long view: long-term ownership, long-term tenant relationships, long-term thinking about the buildings and communities it serves. The FUN Committee is an expression of that same philosophy applied inward. The people who make the work possible deserve to be invested in, not just during performance reviews or milestone anniversaries, but throughout the year, in the regular rhythms of daily work life.
That is what Ivona, Katrina, and the team members before them have built. And it shows.
