JOINT BASE SAN ANTONIO-LACKLAND, Texas – It’s Mission Monday. Meet Susan Lasiter, a real estate program manager in the Air Force Civil Engineer Center’s Reach Estate East Branch.
Lasiter serves as the real estate manage for six U.S. Space Force installations and their geographical site units, along with 69 other support sites to provide guidance and training to real property specialists, helping them complete land acquisition and real estate documents like permits, easements and licenses.
By the numbers, that’s helping in the management of more than 37 million square feet or 339,000 acres of land with about $30 billion in real property inventory plant replacement value.
We asked the Sunnyvale, California, native to tell us a little about herself and the work she does for the Department of the Air Force.
What do you love about your job?
The satisfaction of seeing results in accomplishing an acquisition or disposal of a real property transaction and managing real estate instruments to completion. I enjoy conducting site visits and interacting with installation real property teams and other external agencies.
When it comes to your job, what keeps you motivated?
Feeling I am empowered by my leadership and have the chance to grow within my organization.
Why are you and your team important to the Air Force and Space Force enterprise and your customers?
Our branch is important because we perform critical, functional skills in the acquisition, management and disposal of real property assets enterprise wide. Our branch is responsible for ensuring statutes, policies and guidance on real estate transactions are adhered to and followed enterprise wide.
Describe a project or event you and your team worked on recently that gave you a great sense of accomplishment:
In Fiscal Year 2023, our branch accomplished the transfer of 640 acres of land at Schriever Space Force Base from the Colorado Land Board; the termination of a 62-year land lease at Molokai, Hawaii, where a 363 acres of land were returned to the Department of Hawaiian Homelands; worked the signing of a new school ground lease at Vandenberg Space Force Base, California, to support Lompoc Unified School District’s $43 million school grant application for FY24 and helped complete 20 instruments (permits, licenses, easements and leases) to support the USSF mission.
In addition, the branch led a Continuous Process Improvement team project where we conducted three workshops attended by 75 personnel to validate and verify 990 expired grants and the data cleansing of more than 6,000 instruments in the Automated Property System of Record.
How does what you do support AFIMSC’s strategic priorities?
As a realty specialist, I contribute to the overall mission of AFIMSC by delivering enterprise-wide real property expertise to ensure real estate transactions are executed according to the delegated authority by the Secretary of the Air force to support the missions of the Department of the Air Force and its partners.
Is there anything else you’d like to add which might help people understand the importance of what you do for the Department of the Air Force?
A realty specialist is a unique position in both the DAF and the Department of Defense because there is no equivalent specialty code in the military. It is a job that requires critical thinking and negotiation skills where technical skills and knowledge are obtained through appropriate training, mentorship and years of experience.