Gabriel Eckert, CAE, is the executive director of the Building Owners and Managers of Atlanta. BOMA-Atlanta is a trade association representing building owners, property managers, facility managers, building engineers and others who provide commercial real estate products and services. With more than 1,000 members, it is the second largest organization of its kind in the nation. He is responsible for overall management of the organization.

Gabriel was promoted internally within BOMA-Atlanta to the position of executive director in 2007 and since then, despite the economic recession, has assisted the organization growing membership 21%, increasing event attendance 33%, increasing educational enrollment 213%, growing revenue 21%, and has created several new member services.

Prior to serving in his current position, Gabriel served as director of communications and marketing for BOMA-Atlanta, and as the director of communications for the Georgia Cattlemen’s Association and Georgia Beef Board. There, he led GCA through a comprehensive restructuring of all communications programs, resulting in an average annual increase in net income of 104%, and he restructured the GBB’s Beef Month campaign, resulting in an increase in net impressions of 124%.

Gabriel is also a senior consultant with Ideas for Action, LLC. He has extensive expertise in governance, leadership, strategic planning, nonprofit startups and management. He also consults in the areas of corporate social responsibility and environmental sustainability.

Gabriel earned a Bachelor of Science Degree from Kansas State University, where he was named the Dean of Student Life Outstanding Graduating Senior. Since then, he has earned a Management Certificate from Emory University and an Advanced Leadership Certificate from the Georgia Institute of Technology. He also earned a Master’s in Business Administration from Kennesaw State University, where he was named the University Scholar, recognizing him as the top student in the Executive MBA class of 2011.

A certified association executive, Gabriel currently serves as vice chair of the Georgia Society of Association Executives Foundation, chair of the Board of Directors of the Green Chamber of the South, on the Advisory Council for the GreenBusiness Works Expo, and on the Construction Management Advisory Board for Southern Polytechnic State University. Gabriel was named the national emerging leader scholar by the American Society of Association Executives in 2006, and has been named three times by the Atlanta Business Chronicle as one of the Top 100 Who’s Who in Commercial Real Estate, a list of “100 leaders, dealmakers and legends who are changing Atlanta.” And in 2009, Gabriel was named by the Atlanta Business Chronicle as one of the Top 40 Under 40 in metro-Atlanta.