About The Author: Part 1

Hello, I’m Terry Shores, author and editor of this blog.  Here I would like to add some perspective to the people, events, thoughts and motivation that went into making The CCIM Institute what it is today.  Since the Northern California Chapter was The Institute’s first, it is only fitting that NorCal CCIM be an integral part of the story.

When Chapter President Tony Rishell first asked me to collaborate on his “Legacy Project,” my initial reaction was “Who cares?”  “Is anyone interested in reading about a bunch of middle-aged white men sitting around in smoke-filled rooms talking about shaping the commercial real estate industry?”

Since you are here, I guess the answer is “yes.”

Tony can be very persuasive, and persistent.  As a seasoned baseball coach, he also knows how to use flattery to motivate his team.   “Terry, you are in a unique position to tell this story.  You have been around forever, you were trained as a journalist, and besides, you are retired.  What else are you going to do with all that free time?”

Slowly, I came around –and here I am. My only condition was that I be allowed some license to deviate from conventional journalistic norms.  I want to tell the story casually and informally.   I want to be able to interject my first-person perspective to the facts, even if it means going out on a tangent. Tony, wit

h his trademark enthusiasm, agreed –so here we are.

While I have been a prolific writer for over 50 years, I can’t remember a single time when I wrote about myself—except maybe for a rare job application. So this is going to be challenging. 

 

By the numbers. 

After 20 years, I retired as administrator of the Northern California Chapter at the end of 2023, but my association with The CCIM Institute goes back much further. After 15 years as a newspaper editor and radio and television DJ and reporter, I left the demanding media scene to spend more time with my young family.  I took a position as communications and governmental affairs director for the Reno Board of Realtors, and after two years, was promoted to Executive Director.  One of my responsibilities was to oversee staff support for the Northern Nevada Chapter of The CCIM Institute.

It was in Reno, in 1983, that I met Dewey Struble. He was president of the CCIM chapter and a tireless promoter of commercial real estate investment as a profession. He was soft-spoken and deliberate in speech and manner, with a dry sense of humor that took some getting used to (more about Dewey in future posts.) In those days the chapter would meet in a vacant office or retail space, listen to a speaker with a timely topic, and proceed to pitch their properties or buyers.  Often the space was new or being remodeled and I helped Dewey and his late wife Barbie spread plastic on the floors to limit the dust. Dewey and the Board of Realtors marketed the meetings which drew a small group of local commercial brokers as well as several residential brokers and agents who were interested in networking, or the program topic.

My time at the Reno/Sparks Board was productive and fulfilling. We built a reputation as a leader in technological innovation and member services.  Our MLS computer was state-of-the-art and we were one of the first Realtor boards to use electronic lockboxes.  I was active with the National Association of Realtors and served on committees that shaped policy for the Fair Housing Act and the Americans With Disabilities Act. Coming from a small state, we had close ties with our Senators and Congressmen, particularly Sen. Paul Laxalt, a close personal friend of President Reagan, and Rep. Harry Reid, who I met when he was campaigning for his first term in Congress.

My tenure in Reno ended in 1994 when I took a job as executive director of the Marin Association of Realtors based in San Rafael.  My family had been living in a remote mountainside log chalet a couple of miles from Graeagle, CA. in the middle of the Sierras. I commuted 50 miles to Reno, while my wife commuted 20 miles in the opposite direction to Quincy where she worked at the local college.  It was a unique, and often challenging, blend of career professionalism and back-woods homesteading. Suit and tie during the week, gloves and chainsaw over the weekend.

Our two sons prospered in that environment, but after a decade, it was time for a change. The winter of 1993 was unusually harsh with so much snow that I had to buy a Bobcat to plow the road to our house. A simple plow won’t work as the berms were over six feet high.  My youngest son was snowplower-in-chief, but his pending departure for college would leave the plowing to Pop.  It was time for a change. More succinctly, my wife decreed: “I’m getting off this f***ing mountain, with you or without you!” So, it was off to college for the boys, and back to the Bay Area for Mom and Pop.

To be continued…

Sometimes It Is Who You Know
Follow this space.

By Terry Shores
March 2024