I had worked for several companies as a property manager and had my CPM (Certified Property Manager) for many years. When the 2008 crash occurred several property managers were laid off to retain company cash flows and my position was eliminated. Everyone was holding tight to their jobs and the normal movement ground to a halt. So it was either starting my own or bowing out of an industry that I had known for years.

I would have to say most of my struggles have been employee-related. And what I mean by that is it has taken me years to realize that our industry in particular is really good about recycling poor employees. I've learned that not every employee understands or has your best interest in mind. I've spent more time trying to coach and beg for people to buy into my vision instead of cutting my losses early on. It had a profound effect both financially and reputation-wise. I've learned that going out of our industry and coaching new people has been hard but necessary. Given the right tools and empowerment has produced a team that tries every day to Win On Wonderful (WOW), which is our team mantra.

Served as a member of the National IREM Ethics Inquiry board 2019 - Present
Served as Chair of the National IREM Ethics Inquiry board 2018
Served as Vice-Chair of the National Ethics Inquiry board 2017
Served as National RVP for Region #12 for IREM 2015-2017
Served as local IREM President Chapter #29 2013 - 2014
Served as the Chair of the National Membership Committee of IREM 2010
Served as the Vice-Chair of the National Membership Committee of IREM 2009
Serviced as 2nd Member at Large of the local IREM chapter 2009
Attained the CPM® designation 2008
National Governing Councilor for IREM 2006 to 2016
National Membership Committee 2006 to 2011
National JPM® committee 2008
VP of Communication for the local IREM chapter 2008
VP of Education for the local IREM chapter 2007
Received CPM® candidate of the year 2007
Program Committee Chair for the local IREM chapter 2006
Received CPM® candidate of the year 2006
AMO® committee chair for the local IREM chapter 2005
ARM® committee chair for the local IREM chapter 2002 to 2004
Received Presidents award for the local IREM chapter 2004 and 2005
Received ACE award for manager of the year 2002
Attained the ARM® accreditation 2000

I would have to say the proudest moment has been being able to take my years of experience in a profession that I have put my heart and soul into and pass on that inspiration to others. I have always said this industry is not for the faint at heart. You will work hard. You will have many sleepless nights. We work hard so that investors can sleep at night knowing that they are in the best hands possible. We work hard side by side with our investors our clients and our industry providers to produce the best results possible. When I interview candidates I have always said, this is an industry that you love or hate. If you love it you will be in it for the rest of your life. If the stress of moving in multiple directions and wearing different job hats is not your cup of tea, you will run for the hills in six months or less. I am proud of starting this company on my living room floor with a 9-year-old computer, a broken printer, a pen, and my two feet. Meeting after meeting and building relationships. People that put their trust in a new company that would go to the local Postal Annex to fax items (back when that was necessary) or uses a neighbors scanner to have it emailed to me where I could save a document and send it off without a hitch. As the company grew one property at a time, half of the fees collected would go back towards items needed to develop the office. One month it may be a new smartphone. The next month a file cabinet and the list grew from there. My family went several years in complete poverty while building this company from scratch. I am thankful every day they had the ability to see my future vision and where I was going with it all.

I am very fortunate to have built the company around technology. I implemented all laptops and smartphones vs. hard computers. Our phone systems are also in the cloud. This has come in very useful especially today. I am now able to keep people working from home in the midst of very uncertain times. For the longest time, I refused to even have a fax number assuming a scanner should be sufficient enough. But unfortunately, there were several companies that would only receive documents with this antiquated way of communication forcing me to get a fax line. There are still companies that are working with this and I'm truly hoping they get on board soon. We have tried over the years to get our residents to pay online and remove the need for paper processing, but there are still thoughts that wish to hand-deliver payments and receive paper receipts vs. electronic confirmations. I think this is something that will still take some time.

I believe it's exceptionally important. We have several residents that have moved within the Fortress portfolio that have been very satisfied with our service and although they will verbally tell us how happy they are, when asked to online review their experience it doesn't happen often. But unfortunately in our line of work residents who are not so great on their units or have underlying issues are the first to pipe up with negative reviews.

This has been a huge balancing act as personally, you want to post pictures of the conditions people have left their unit in. Or defend yourself from the 1/2 hour tongue lashing you just received from something very minor. But you can't in an effort to protect their privacy. So you take it and respond the best way you can asking for them to contact you directly to resolve the complaints. In the days of reviews/social media rants, it is easy for people to exaggerate the situation. Many of the properties we took on were in troubled neighborhoods and troubled assets that we inherited and it takes time to unravel the chaos you are handed. Do I think the reviews and receiving good ones is important, yes? But when I look at other companies that play the middle between the investment side and the resident side it makes me feel better that they also get the same treatment.

The thing that makes us different is our flexibility. Treating each property as though it were our own. Responding to clients in a very quick manner. I personally as well as many of my team have worked late evenings, and weekends knowing that not everyone is available during normal business hours.