For more than 85 years, the Appraisal Institute (AI) has been a global professional association of real estate appraisers. AI works to develop real estate industry leaders and establish an appraiser presence in the United Stated Congress through its Leadership Development and Advisory Council (LDAC). The Council is a group of dedicated appraisers who together once a year in Washington DC to generate solutions to challenges facing the appraisal profession.
Last month, I had the pleasure of attending my first LDAC session in Washington DC. I entered with no expectations other than using it as an opportunity to learn more about the Appraisal Institute and offer up a thought or two on promoting our industry. By the end of the week, I walked away from LDAC exceeding those expectations.
The LDAC discussion sessions afforded the opportunity to engage and brainstorm with appraisal professionals from all around the country. The sessions served as opportunity for us to come together to generate actionable ideas to solve some of the appraisal industry’s toughest problems. Serving as a member of the Ohio Chapter’s education committee I was very passionate about the education discussions. Based on my experience, I know that AI’s educational offering is superior to other competitive offerings. Our group discussed ideas on how to not only get non-AI members to take AI courses but to also use our education offering to entice non-members to become members.
Since 1999, the Cleveland Browns have played in the First Energy Stadium – a first-class, 67,000+ seat stadium paid for by both public and private dollars. In the United States, there are 226 stadiums with seating capacities ranging from 20,000 to 107,000. And of them, 31 are NFL stadiums – remember the New York Giants and Jets share the MetLife Stadium.
For the last couple of weeks much of the talk surrounding the Oscars hasn’t been around which movie will win best movie, but instead about the lack of minority representation in the top four category nominations. The media has made sure we knew who was boycotting the telecast and giving us their thoughts on what Chris Rock, the host of this year’s Academy Awards, should say on the topic.
This year, I found myself traveling to three very different malls – Beachwood Place, an enclosed shopping mall; Legacy Village, an open-air lifestyle center and Eton Chagrin Boulevard, a mixed use boutique retail, dining and office space; all of which were no more than 4 miles apart.
If I would have flown, I could have left after breakfast and would have been back at the office in time for a lunch meeting. It would have cost me about $285 more to rent a Cessna 172 and fly myself roundtrip to Grand Rapids. For me, flying – just makes good business sense.
