President's message: NECCIM Annual Election & Dinner

On October 4 at CCIM's Annual Elections Dinner & Installation of Officers, our new slate of officers and guests enjoyed dinner while listening to our speaker, John Kattar, chief investment officer at Eastern Investment Advisors. Congratulations to our new slate of officers: president, Chris Norwood, CCIM, of NAI Norwood Group, Bedford, N.H.; VP, Sandy Brown, CCIM, of Cale Commercial Realty Group, Inc.,North Andover, Mass.; treasurer, Jeanne Barreta, CCIM, of Briggs Capital RE, Norton, Mass.; and secretary, Arthur Jovellas, CCIM of Vestport, Inc., Medford, Mass. And, our sincere thanks to our outgoing president Peter Tilden, CCIM for his tremendous leadership this past year. Our speaker, John Kattar is responsible for leading Eastern Investment Advisors' (EIA) equity and fixed income investment teams and investment process. In addition, he focuses on developing EIA's institutional asset management business, and is an industry specialist in semiconductors and conglomerates. Before joining EIA in 2005, Kattar was managing partner at Ardent Asset Management, where he managed an absolute return fund and provided consulting services to asset managers. Prior to that, he was director of growth equities at Mellon Financial, where he headed up the institutional growth equities team at Mellon and was director of U.S. equities at The Boston Company. He has also held senior investment positions at Phoenix Investment Partners and Baring Asset Management. Kattar earned his master of business administration degree in Finance and Statistics from the University of Chicago and a master of science and bachelor of arts from the University of Massachusetts. He is a chartered financial analyst and a member of both the CFA Institute and the Boston Security Analysts Society. In addition to his professional responsibilities, he serves as vice chairman of the investment committee of the University of Massachusetts Foundation. Kattar spoke on state and local economic conditions, national economic trends and the impact of the global economy as they pertain to budget planning for 2008. Some of his key points were: Positive Outlook for Stocks * Strong earnings growth. * Inexpensive valuation. * Positive liquidity. * Extreme sentiment and momentum lows set during August sell-off. Cautious Outlook for Bonds * Fed has begun to ease to stimulate economy. * Flight-to-safety bond premium will disappear as stocks stabilize and rise. * Huge bond buying by foreign central banks showing signs of slowing or reversing. Again, thanks to all who attended and our new officers look forward to working for you in the upcoming year. Keep looking here or on our website, www.NewEnglandCCIM.com , for educational and networking opportunities throughout the year. Peter Tilden, CCIM, is the president of the New England CCIM chapter and is director of leasing for Aegean Capital, LLC, Peabody, Mass.