Commercial Investment Real Estate November/December 2017 | Page 73
What’s
the secret? In its
50 years, how did the CCIM Institute grow into a
13,000-member-strong organization and become
the leader in commercial real estate education?
It takes seasoned professionals who are dedicated
to teaching the courses and working to develop new
content, as well as continually bringing the courses
up-to-date. It takes an openness to embracing new
technology and new techniques. It takes the ability
to adapt to an ever-changing market.
Hundreds of thousands of students have taken
CCIM courses, which prepared them to be successful
in their business. “CCIM training has educated all
types of commercial real estate professionals, includ-
ing brokers, developers, investors, attorneys, institu-
tional reps, lenders, and appraisers, during our first
50 years,” says Ralph Varnum, CCIM, 1985 Institute
president and founding principal of Varnum Arm-
strong Deeter LLC, in Overland Park, Kan. “This
training advanced the entire industry together by
using a common language and common ways to look
at commercial real estate as an investment.”
Walmart, Ernst & Young, PwC, Bank of Amer-
ica, NAI Global, Transwestern, and the U.S. Navy
are among the large organizations that have sent
commercial real estate professionals to CCIM
courses. CCIMs work at TIAA, the U.S. Depart-
ment of State, and United Technologies Corp.
Adapting to Change
While the commercial real estate industry has
embraced the versatility of roles for its practitio-
ners, adaptability to changing business environ-
ments is critical. The profession is fairly new.
“In the first 25 years after World War II, the U.S.
experienced a tremendous expansion in its popula-
tion and the need for all types of real estate to meet
the pent-up demand,” Varnum says. “By the end of
the 1960s, tremendous new opportunities to develop
and own real estate were created, and more and more
COMMERCIAL INVESTMENT REAL ESTATE / NOV.17
investors were taking advantage of the chance to own
commercial and residential investment real estate.”
Those new opportunities brought a need for
education. “In the late 1960s, a commercial real
estate affiliate of the National Association of Real-
tors — then called the Commercial Division of the
Realtors National Marketing Institute — decided
to address the opportunities and the confusion in
the commercial real estate field,”
Varnum says.
Those first courses, says
Jim H. Dunn, CCIM, CPM,
president of Keystone Realty
Services in Nashville, Tenn.,
“brought us out of the dark ages
into the current time when we
were teaching topics such as the
gross rent multiplier. CCIM
courses taught how to analyze a
property and what information
you needed, and where and how
to get it. Our consultant from the
educational field, Steve Messner
at the University of Connecti-
cut, Bob Ward, CCIM, and Vic
Lyon, CCIM, and some others
were instrumental in applying
the internal rate of return and the
time value of money to real estate
analysis.”
With universities offering
their own real estate education,
why CCIM? “Although I had
a CPA certificate and had good
financial and technical knowledge, I wanted to bet-
ter understand the language of the real estate bro-
kerage side, which I had heard the CCIM program
had the capability to do,” says Ronald L. Myles,
CCIM, CPA, GRI, a broker in Denver, a former
CCIM instructor, and 1986 Institute president.
“IN THE FIRST
25 YEARS AFTER
WORLD WAR II,
THE U.S.
EXPERIENCED
A TREMENDOUS
EXPANSION
IN ITS POPULATION
AND THE NEED
FOR ALL TYPES
OF REAL ESTATE
TO MEET THE
PENT-UP DEMAND.”
— Ralph Varnum, CCIM
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