As we begin our journey as the officers of the New England Chapter of CCIM, I want to thank our outgoing president Chris Norwood for all of his time, devotion and efforts on our behalf over the last two years. Norwood stepped in to the role in 2008, at a very difficult time for our chapter. He turned us around and guided us into a position of strength and his leadership has been a great inspiration to all of us. I look forward to working with Norwood again this year, in his role as immediate past president and chair of our new Governance committee.
I also want to thank my new officers for volunteering this year. Jeremy Cyrier as vice President, Bob Shannon as Treasurer (again) and our new Secretary, Mark Dickey. Also, I want to thank our new Committee Chair people for volunteering. They are Jeanne Barreta in Education, Erin Link in Programs and John Hughes in Membership. I hope that, together we will be able to take what Norwood has started and move it to the next level.
Speaking of the next level, exactly what does that mean? We are a chapter of over 150 members and have maybe 15 or 20 people who constantly come to our events. These events are outstanding ways to network and meet new contacts that will help you grow your business. One of my goals is to improve the communication methods we use to get our messages out to our entire membership base, and bring more events to our entire territory.
Next, we need to be more involved with the other commercial organizations in our area, such as the chapters of the other NAR designations (SIOR, CIPS, CPM, CRE, ALC), and the state and regional commercial groups in New England (CBA, RCA-MA, NHCIBOR, VTCIBOR & MECAR). We can share educational and event information with all of them to give our members a better way of working together. We will also be offering more educational programs in more parts of New England than ever before, and I sincerely hope that more of our members and future members will take advantage of them. We will also be offering more education to our current CCIM designees with the "After the Pin" programs from the Robert L. Ward Center for Real Estate Studies and the new "Site to Do Business."
Our job, this year, will be to help you, the commercial practitioner, to become even better at what you do by giving you the tools and the networking opportunities that you need. I hope you will use them to their fullest.
Sandy Brown is the 2010 president of the New England chapter of CCIM and president of Cale Commercial Realty Group, North Andover, Mass.