Dressed in a pinstripe suit, handkerchief folded neatly in his top pocket, he certainly looks the part. He also sounds it – his carefully measured speech is punctuated with Blairesque pauses and soundbites, and he rarely expresses a personal opinion.
No doubt the QS’s tact and diplomacy will stand him in good stead during his year as RICS president, but will it be enough to lead the profession through a tricky period when QS members’ traditional role is under threat from the irresistible advance of IT.
The RICS is also in the throes of trying to become more “relevant” to its members through its Agenda for Change, a three- to four-year rolling programme of consultations and taskforce-based research that is bound to bring to light some “challenges”, as Kolesar calls them. The institution also faces criticism – notably from QSs – that it is not relevant to their branch of surveying, as well as pressure to play a more active role in raising the calibre of graduates coming into the profession.
Kolesar is the first QS president of the RICS for five years, and, at 51, 10 years younger than most of his predecessors. His career as a partner at EC Harris is not being put on hold – Kolesar estimates that he will spend three-and-a-half days a week on his RICS work and the rest on EC Harris projects. He will also be doing his regular Sunday morning catch-up paperwork at home.
The 6 ft-plus new president joined the profession as a student surveyor in 1969 after completing a year’s sandwich course divided equally between the Ministry of Public Building and Works and Ewell Technical College . He qualified four years later and, in 1973, became an associate of the RICS.
He joined EC Harris in the same year, after his father-in-law arranged an interview with a friend who was a partner in the firm. After six months in the practice’s Surrey office, Kolesar moved up to head office in central London and has been there ever since.
Surprisingly, Kolesar originally planned to be a civil engineer. “I had this vision that it would allow me to work outside and build big bridges and motorways,” he says.
I’m going to be pushing the QS agenda, but my role is to represent 85 000 or 90 000 members who come from diverse backgrounds
He fancied the idea of getting his boots muddy, but it was not to be. After a year on a civil engineering degree course at the Regent Street Polytechnic, Kolesar failed an element of his 1967 end-of-year exams and decided that it was not the career for him.
He has worked his way up the ranks both at EC Harris, where he became a partner in 1976, and in the RICS, becoming vice-president of the institution in 1996. As a long-serving RICS member, he is well aware of the politics within the institution – QSs are a minority in the RICS and are seen as less glamorous than their property developer and chartered surveyor counterparts.
So, will he be using his time at the top of the organisation to push QSs’ concerns into the limelight? Yes and no. “I’m going to be pushing the QS agenda, but I mustn’t lose sight of the fact that my role as president of the RICS is to represent 85 000 or 90 000 members who come from diverse backgrounds.” One of Kolesar’s key policies is helping the RICS to focus on the services that QSs require. He cites the institution’s national networks taskforce’s idea of replacing its divisions with faculties based on members’ specialisms as one way of doing this.
These faculties would be responsible for training and development, providing guidance for members and promoting their activities.
Kolesar is also keen to draw attention to educational issues. A taskforce is currently considering what the RICS’ position on this should be, but he adds: “I believe we should tighten up on the accreditation of universities. We must influence the universities themselves in terms of the courses they put on.” He also believes that QS graduates should have more business training and that the RICS should put pressure on universities to include this element in courses.
Education and the status of the quantity surveying profession aside, the new president recognises that the institution has to deal with the fact that, like many other professional institutions, its members are questioning its relevance in their hectic lives.
He does, however, have some encouragement for sceptical new members: “I happen to think there is a lot to be gained from the institution in terms of networking and creating contacts for the future.” In fact, some fellow members of the junior RICS organisation from back in the 1970s have gone on to become clients or contacts with whom he can develop business.
