During my presidency, 2004, goals were to increase IREM awareness as an additional means of increasing membership. We embarked on an active public relations campaign with news releases and meetings with celebrity guest speakers, to create interest in IREM. Guest speakers at our monthly meetings included Boston mayor Tom Menino speaking about real estate development opportunities in Boston and channel 5 anchor Susan Wornick speaking about the value of good customer relations. Our campaign was successful as we met and exceeded our new member goals and was recognized and received at the national IREM conference, the ARM Recruitment Award, having the most new ARM's for any chapter that year.

As regional vice president for region 1, 2006 and 2007, the goal and new slogan was IREM FIRST, For Info, Resources, Solutions and Training. I focused on bringing the New England chapters to work together and succeeded in the area of the income and expense analysis submissions. The region was awarded, at the fall IREM national conference, Most Improved Region for submissions of the income and expense analysis. In keeping with IREM FIRST we also represented the chapters through its members and friends of IREM in trade shows and college fairs throughout the term.
Chris Mellon is a past president of IREM, Boston, Mass.