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For nearly 25 years, Mary Gamage has helped Hannaford Supermarkets build and remodel stores across the northeast amid fierce competition and soaring construction costs. It’s a tenure that’s seen her go from being a junior real estate representative to a leader overseeing the entire real estate department.
The director of real estate credits much of that success to a perspective that acknowledges the ebbs, flows, and nuances of her work. For her, projects are like journeys.
“The work takes a long time to get to a successful place. There are projects we work on that don’t ever turn into a new store, and it can be discouraging in the early stages,” she says. “I’ve had to learn a lot about persistence and patience. I’ve also learned that there are times when projects have to go on the shelf and hopefully you get to do them later.”
She adds, “You have to rely on the steps and the wins along the way to keep moving forward.”
That mentality helped Gamage view one of her most challenging projects as one of the most rewarding. In 2009, she and her team were working to transform a vacant high school in Augusta, Maine, into a new store. It had every issue you can imagine: difficult permitting, organized opposition, complicated title issues, and more.
“It was really interesting, challenging, and stressful because we had a lot of money involved and we didn’t know whether we would be able to pull it off,” she explains.
While the project made for some sleepless nights, Gamage and her colleagues also saw an opportunity to demonstrate the company’s commitment to making the world a better place. Using a framework from the US Green Building Council, they made the location the first supermarket in North America to have a Platinum LEED certification, a globally recognized symbol of sustainability achievement.
“It takes optimism, perseverance, and working collaboratively with many people to make sure we have a business model that matches the needs that are out there that we can grow with.”
Mary Gamage
For Gamage, that journey not only demonstrated the value of persistence and patience but Hannaford’s commitment to sustainability.
“It’s a lot easier to work for a company that’s really trying to do the right thing,” she says. “We’ve played a huge role in food insecurity support and have figured out ways to have zero waste in our stores and to develop responsibly.”
These days, Gamage is focused on driving new store growth while taking care of Hannaford’s real estate portfolio. That requires her to “stay ahead of the game” and to work closely with her business partners so that Hannaford can evolve with the needs of customers, she says.
“We remain very disciplined and work hard to understand the needs of customers and potential growth opportunities,” she says. “Are there competitors who aren’t doing the job that we could in an area? Are there pockets of population growth? It takes optimism, perseverance, and working collaboratively with many people to make sure we have a business model that matches the needs that are out there that we can grow with.”
Gamage also enjoys a “side project” and has recently helped remodel Hannaford’s corporate office into a modern and flexible workspace to meet the needs of a hybrid workforce, with the help of trusted partners at architecture firm SMRT.
Gamage’s leadership philosophy has been as much of a journey as the projects she’s passionate about. She started her career in banking where she was introduced to commercial real estate. There, she had the chance to work for the first woman to hold a senior leadership position in the bank’s history. As an early-career professional, Gamage soaked up as much as she could from the trailblazing leader.
“We’ve played a huge role in food insecurity support and have figured out ways to have zero waste in our stores and to develop responsibly.”
Mary Gamage
“She was someone that was doing a great job of effectively navigating with a refreshing style,” Gamage says. “She showed me how to lead in ways that were different than a typical top-down directive approach. She was a relationship manager and was more like a mentor-coach.”
Gamage mirrors some of those traits herself, approaching situations with an open and collaborative mind.
“I see my work as a journey that involves many people, not just my team but other parts of the company that don’t report to me,” she says. “As a leader, it’s necessary to inspire those people and to be a bridge between the people getting the work done and those who are responsible for making sure they are properly resourced.”
She also operates under the belief that “there’s not one way to get something done.”
“How I would do it might not be how someone else would, and I try to work with my teammates to give them the confidence to offer their own ideas and ways to be creative,” Gamage says.
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