Liam O’Reilly

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A lifelong Beaches resident and currently living in Neptune Beach, Liam O’Reilly is Senior Land Development Manager at GreenPointe Communities, LLC. In addition to spending time with his family, he also volunteers for a variety of causes.

 

As told to Maggie FitzRoy

 

Q:  Where did you grow up at the Beaches?

A:  I lived most of my life in Jacksonville Beach and just recently moved to Neptune Beach.

 

Q:  Where did you go to school?

A:  For kindergarten through eighth grade I went to St. Paul’s at the Beach Catholic School. Then I went to Fletcher High School. My dad is from Ireland, so I grew up Irish Catholic.

 

Q:  What was it like growing up at the Beaches?

A:  I was the third of four children. My dad owned a landscaping company and we grew up over by Beach Marine. We grew up going to the beach, riding bikes around the beach. Our friend group was surrounded by beach families.

 

Q:  What type of business is GreenPointe?

A:  We buy real estate and create master planned communities.

 

Q:  What led you to your career?

A:  I went to college at Florida State and majored in civil engineering. I made a little bit of a career change. Civil engineers are essentially the designers of our infrastructure—roads, bridges, utility systems. I became a civil engineer and worked for land developers after college. My focus was private land development clients. After spending several years of understanding the process of design, entitlement and permitting of projects I was hungry to take the next step. I wanted to learn more and learn the other side of real estate development. I worked for a builder for a few years and then came here, where I am now, taking a project from raw land to a finished community where people live and raise their families. As an engineer, you are part of a team that does that, but I was hungry to be involved in the whole process. I started at GreenPointe two years ago.

 

Q:  What specific communities are you involved with currently?

A:  We have five communities in the Jacksonville area. I visit them regularly. We are actively developing almost 800 lots right now.

 

Q:  What are you involved in outside of your job with volunteer work?

A:  I’m involved with professional organizations and nonprofit organizations that I am passionate about. The professional organizations are Urban Land Institute, a global real estate organization here locally and I am involved with the North Florida chapter, where I co-chaired the Young Leaders group and sat on several committees. I also volunteer with the National MS Society and Monique Burr Foundation.

 

Q:  What do you do with the MS Society?

A:  I volunteer at the Bike MS event every year in the fall. It’s a Daytona Beach-and-back bike ride and along with my family (sister, mother and grandparents), I run a rest stop along the bike route. It’s a place for the riders to stop and rest and hydrate. We call it the Pirate Rest Stop. We all dress up as pirates. It’s a way to give back. The riders raise a lot of money and it’s our way to support the fundraising effort every year for the MS Society.

 

Q:  What do you do for Monique Burr?

A:  They help prevent child abuse and my focus is helping with the golf tournament they hold every year in December.

 

Q:  What else are you involved with?

A:  Right now, my main focus is with the Jacksonville Chamber Hightower Emerging Leaders Fellowship. It’s a fellowship that is a year-long program that connects and empowers the next generation of leaders. It connects them with the current titans of Jacksonville. I went through the 2018 class and then I was voted to serve on the board for two years. This year I was voted into the vice chair position.

 

Q:  What do you do in your spare time?

A:  My main focus is on my family right now. My wife, Brett, is a real estate agent and we have a 2-year-old son, Mac.

 

Q:  What do you like about living at the beach?

A:  I love the beach. I love the people. I love the community aspect of it. It’s home. It’s where family and friends are.

 

 

Photo by Maggie FitzRoy