Joe Olszak has been a busy guy. The COO of The Townsend Group has seen his organization expand rapidly during the past few years as the real estate market has flourished, and that is necessitating an expansion of Townsend’s brain trust. Townsend has hired more than 30 people in 14 months.

“We are in expansion mode,” he flatly states. “Our clients are large and sophisticated and demand the best talent, so we will go out and find the most experienced people possible.”

In his hunt for fresh intellectual firepower, Olszak is likely to bump up against Amy Price, COO of Bentall Kennedy’s U.S. operations, and Mark Wilsmann, managing director and head of equity investments at MetLife Real Estate Investors, both of whose companies are aggressively expanding their footprints.

Bentall, a 100-year-old Canadian firm, has outgrown its domestic market, which was the genesis of its merger with Kennedy Associates Real Estate Counsel to form Bentall Kenn