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Joanna Friesen Toler, PMP

Joanna Friesen Toler, PMP

VP, Construction and Design Manager - Corporate Real Estate & Facilities

Amegy Bank

Joanna Friesen Toler is a certified Project Management Professional (PMP) and is the Space, Design & Construction Manager for Amegy Bank, overseeing 1.2 million square feet of office space in Texas and Utah. Her responsibilities include space and utilization studies supporting the bank’s real estate strategies and overseeing office and retail projects.

After graduating from Texas A&M in 2004 with a Bachelor of Science in Industrial Distribution, Joanna began her career in sales before finding her way to a Houston-based interior architecture firm. While there, she consulted on several large campus projects for domestic and international clients in various industries. Joanna is an advocate for sustainable facility practices and believes that we, as facility owners and managers, have a responsibility to be good stewards of our real estate. She is a steering committee member of Kimiko Green, a community of facilities and real estate leaders committed to solving the problem of 17 billion pounds of office assets dumped into US landfills every year.

Joanna spends all of her free time with her husband, toddler daughter, and giant rescue dog. They reside in Houston, Texas, and currently are in the throes of the threenager phase. Her passions include the efficient use of real estate, rockin out to live music, and hanging out in rivers with her family and friends

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  • ECO-nomics: a business case for circular furniture programs
    Contains 1 Component(s), Includes Credits

    NeoCon Presentation Description: and ECO-nomic sense! There is a growing community of facility managers working together to drive sustainable change in the commercial furniture industry. In this value-driven session, we will share insights and best practices from kimiko green's roundtable discussions that include many fortune 500 global organizations. Founding members Dianne Murata and Jenny McMath will share financial scenarios including a case study from 8 million sq ft facility Los Alamos National Laboratory (LANL) that support sustainable furniture practices and make a case for circular furniture programs. Over the last three years LANL has purchased millions of $ in new interior products with a focus on sustainable and high-quality interior furnishings. However, it is only the beginning of their goal to maximize it's useable life and landfill diversion. Sustainable commercial furniture, if well maintained and warrantied, can last well beyond the accounting depreciation of the asset, ultimately saving taxpayer and/or organizational dollars. Waste reduction and keeping commercial furniture out of landfills has multiple environmental benefits, but implementing circular practices also makes great financial sense--whether planning and managing 8 million square feet or 8,000 square feet.

  • Let's Talk Trash: Furniture Decommissioning Truths & Myths
    Contains 1 Component(s), Includes Credits

    Do you think keeping commercial furniture out of the landfill has to be expensive, time-consuming, and complicated? Spoiler alert: It does not! In this session we will talk a lot of trash and in the process, we will debunk the common myths and reveal creative cost- and time-saving truths about sustainable furniture decommissioning. Kimiko Green is a community of facility owners and managers who have taken a deep dive into the challenges of decommissioning commercial furniture in a responsible and sustainable way. Through a series of roundtables, conversations, research and case studies (+ several gallons of coffee), the collective has identified 5 practical strategies that you can implement to improve furniture circularity within your own organization. Building on these foundational strategies, this action-packed session includes real world examples of landfill diversion that aren't expensive, don't require significant time or resources and are simple efforts that, when combined, can significantly move the needle towards more sustainable ff&e programs. This session aims to provide you and your organization with true inspiration, preparation, and practical knowledge needed to divert commercial furniture from the landfill--all while saving time, money, and stress.