Joe Trumbetti, 31

Joe Trumbetti believes in being a jack of all trades.

The New Jersey native began his career as a civil engineer, joining AECOM Tishman not long after earning a master’s from Johns Hopkins in 2017. Three years at Tishman exposed Trumbetti to skyscraper construction in Manhattan, but something was missing. He eventually realized that engineering wouldn’t necessarily expose him to less technical, “softer” skills in the design and building realms. 

So, Trumbetti transitioned to a whirlwind design-build manager role at ARCO. Experiencing a project “from cradle to grave,” he said, flicked on the developer’s lightbulb. 

“I got exposed to the entire development life cycle, and that’s what got me hooked,” Trumbetti said. “I realized there’s so much more to it than just bidding a job, getting a contract, scoping out the work, awarding it, managing it and turning it over. There’s a whole life that happens before and after that.”

Trumbetti is currently a project manager for RXR, where he leads development construction services on more than $700 million of ground-up development, and supports another $400 million in the pipeline. Two of his current major projects include Ave Hamilton Green, an 850,000-square-foot, mixed-use development in White Plains, N.Y., and a new, 17-story headquarters in Downtown White Plains for the New York Power Authority. 

Trumbetti says he loves watching a project grow from its infancy, an experience made all the more visceral thanks to a 16-month-old son at his home in Westchester County. 

“Being involved in projects from the earliest stages to the later stages helps you to be a more well-rounded developer, in my opinion,” Trumbetti said. “A lot of considerations that are made during design, during construction, are sometimes made in a vacuum. Having been involved in the process, from acquisition all the way to disposition or occupancy, you learn about a lot of the consequences of some of those decisions, good or bad. … It helps you be a better decision-maker, in my opinion.”