John Mello, Appraisal Institute

This is the final article that I submit as 2016 president of the Massachusetts and Rhode Island Chapter of the Appraisal Institute. At such times of transition, custom or habit may lead concluding observations to tend toward paeans for accomplishments and/or lamentations for the unattained. Instinct and education, and perhaps decent regard for the reader, lead my focus elsewhere, however. My interest leads me to direct the reader toward considerations of the Appraisal Institute as a remarkable professional organization.

The Appraisal Institute in many respects operates as a multi-national corporation. It provides valuation education programs, publications and maintains associations with valuation organizations throughout the world. A not-for-profit, it operates nationally and regionally much like a corporation. Local chapters’ operations are similar to small businesses. The fundamental contrasting difference between the Institute and its commercial near-homologues, however, is that much of its labor and activities are based on volunteerism and professionalism. After a fifteen-year first career in international finance, the following twenty-five years of my association with the Appraisal Institute have taught, indeed inspired, me to understand this difference as a profound distinction.

The 85 year old Appraisal Institute stands out as the leading resource for appraisal education and publication in the ever-changing, progressing appraisal profession. It has approximately twenty thousand designated and affiliate professionals who are located in over sixty countries throughout the world. Internationally, it is associated with graduate level appraisal education programs in Germany and Hong Kong as well as maintaining associations with valuation organizations IVSC, UPAV, TEGoVA, among numerous other international initiatives. It also is associated with graduate level appraisal education and professional designation programs at ten universities in the United States. The quality and rigor of its designations, qualifying and continuing education programs are the hallmark of the appraisal profession. Nationally, it has ten regions that encompass of 84 chapters. The Massachusetts and Rhode Island Chapter has 435 appraisal professionals in all of the Institute’s categories.

The chapter, at the grass roots level, is the heart and soul of the organization whose vitality and engagement ensure the overall organization’s strength and growth. It is at the chapter level where volunteerism and professionalism are most essential. Chapter educational, professional and social offerings bring together local and regional appraisers and students to learn together, to network and to enhance or nurture relationships that can last a lifetime. Working together as volunteers to ensure a strong and responsive chapter reflects a unique commitment to professionalism that imparts a special sense of contribution. As professionals, all of us are called to fulfill the leadership principle that obligates us, according to our respective means, to leave the appraisal profession better than we found it. Fulfilling our roles of appraisal professionalism in our society and economy, and thereby creating constructive and trustworthy consequences, entails a modulation of self-interest. Responding to the call to serve the appraisal profession at the chapter level affords each of us with the opportunity to practice and advance the virtue of civility. To paraphrase Teddy Roosevelt, ‘those in the arena deserve credit.’ So I renew that call to all Appraisal Institute professionals to serve at the chapter level, to adhere to and advance the Appraisal Institute’s standards of quality and to pursue and/or uphold its professional designations.

In concluding these observations, there is the daunting impossibility of thanking the many people who have made the Appraisal Institute and its Massachusetts and Rhode Island Chapter possible and stronger. Of note are current and past chapter officers, directors, committee chairs, instructors and so many others who have volunteered in so many different ways to give this chapter its distinctive quality within the Appraisal Institute. Above all, the distinguished work and accomplishment of the chapter’s executive director have ensured its remarkable energy, cohesion and foresight. Professionals assembled as a chapter, we are called to recognize its past which has made possible its present, to act responsibly and affirmative in its present and in so doing to build its future.

The Massachusetts and Rhode Island Chapter of the Appraisal Institute expresses its appreciation for the continued support that has been provided by the following sponsor organizations: Joseph J. Blake & Associates, Inc. and CB Richard Ellis/ New England (platinum sponsors) and Cushman & Wakefield and Vision Government Solutions (silver sponsors).

John Mello, SRA, is the 2016 president of the MA/RI chapter of the Appraisal Institute.