President's message: IREM Boston is a second family to me

It is with great pride and honor that I assume the 2014 presidency of the Boston Chapter of Institute of Real Estate Management. I want to thank all our members for your continued support of our organization. The Institute has been the leader in instructing managers in highest quality of education and ethical practices in real estate management for 8 decades. As we close 2103 I want you to acknowledge the 80th anniversary of the IREM National Organization and the 75th anniversary of the Boston Chapter. Those who are active in IREM know what I mean when I say IREM has become a second family to me. The lifelong friendships and business connections made through IREM has improved our careers and business relations. The personal benefits and rewards of IREM are difficult to fully express in words. You could say I started in the real estate business as an emerging professional and have become a seasoned professional with the help of IREM. For this and many reasons we want to focus on both groups (seasoned and emerging professionals) as we evolve into the future of IREM. We have an exciting year planned in 2014 for our member's affiliates and friends and I ask for your help in making 2014 a great success for our industry. Although we are planning many new and exciting activities in 2014, we are maintaining many core activities that have made IREM a great success in the past. We will continue providing IREM's world class education- lead by our very own national secretary treasure Chris Mellon. IREM Boston is a chapter that is fortunate to offer its members with all the required CPM designation courses each year. This means our members do not have to travel out of the area to take needed courses. We will continue with successful events like the Gillette Stadium mainatence education. However, we are mixing up the venues a little in 2014. Don't miss national economist Elliot Eisenberg as the key note speaker at our annual economic breakfast to be held on January 16th in Stoneham. Also, National Leadership professional Steve Wiley, who has instructed leadership to many top 100 companies such as Apple, Kellogg and Black & Decker and has instructed many presidential appointees, is coming in June. We have four events planned for northern outreach in New Hampshire starting with our annual Ski trip at Loon Mountain in February, Anheuser Busch plant in Merrimac, NH state capital visit and a family day at Canobie Lake Park. In Massachusetts, we will continue to hold events in Quincy but will also branch out to metro west with a MEMA bunker tour, North Shore with our January economic breakfast and Boston with the JFK library as our venue for our annual awards event. We will also tour the Massachusetts state house accompanied by a social event at Cheers after the tour. Next year's holiday event is planned for F1 Boston. I am proud to announce we have launched a Professional Women's Committee that will be headed by Candice Thayer Morse. This committee will develop a professional woman of the year award and create activities and fund raisers to assist women who are starting in the industry such as a dress for success fund raiser. We have also launched a friend of IREM committee to better understand the needs and serve our friend members with Chris Cary as chairman. We are planning to improve our social media and web page with video and podcasts and create a professional news letter publication with the help from our friends Eric Wilson, Rick Kaplan and John Picard form NEREJ. I want to close by thanking all of our members once again for your continued support in 2014 and beyond. David Barrett is director of operations at Crowninshield Management Corp., and the 2014 president of IREM Boston.