Welcome
CMLS Conference
Ann Bailey
President, Pranix, Inc.
The New World of Real Estate ~ Friday, October 12, 9:15 - 10:30 am
Principles of Change and What's Next ~ Friday, October 12, 2:15 - 3:00 pm
Ann Bailey has led thousands of executives in the real estate industry to take dramatic steps to re-engineer their businesses and integrate technology that results in efficient and profitable changes. Ann's dynamic career includes more than fifteen years of consulting for leading brokerage firms, information systems companies, real estate associations and MLS's covering technology, strategic planning, mergers and acquisitions, business development opportunities, organizational assessments and seminars. Ranging from working one-on-one with top CEOs to leading strategy sessions with entire companies, Ann has proven experience in delivering insightful answers to critical issues facing businesses today. Ann has been an executive with a large Internet company and holds a B.S. degree, an MBA and is the owner of Pranix.
Matt Bester
Attorney, Department of Justice (DOJ)
THE DOJ Speaks ~ Thursday, October 11, 9:45 - 10:30 am
Panel Discussion ~ Thursday, October 11, 1:15 - 2:30 pm
Matthew Bester is a Trial Attorney at the Department of Justice, Antitrust Division. He investigates possible criminal and civil violations of the antitrust laws in the real estate, media and health care industries. He is a co author of the joint DOJ-FTC real estate report on competition in the real estate brokerage industry, issued in the spring of this year, and leads the Division's real estate competition advocacy program. Before joining the Justice Department, Matt worked at a Washington, D.C. law firm where he was a member of a trial team to win a $1 billion jury verdict in an antitrust case and a member of another team to win a $1 billion settlement in another.
Sean Gates
Deputy Asst. Director, Federal Trade Commision (FTC)
THE FTC Speaks ~ Friday, October 12, 8:45 - 9:15 am
SEAN GATES is a Deputy Assistant Director in the Anticompetitive Practices Division of the Federal Trade Commission. Sean served as lead trial counsel for the Commission's actions in the real estate industry: Realcomp II, Ltd., FTC Dkt. No. 9320 and MiRealSource, Inc., FTC Dkt. No. 9321, which challenged MLS rules that discriminated against certain listing types used by brokers providing discounted services to consumers. Sean was also a contributor to the FTC and DoJ joint report, Competition in the Real Estate Industry (April 2007).
Sean also served as counsel in both of the Commission's trials concerning antitrust, intellectual property, and standard setting: Complaint Counsel in In the Matter of Union Oil Company of California, FTC Dkt. No. 9305 and Respondent's Counsel in In the Matter of Rambus Inc., FTC Dkt. No. 9302. He has also litigated antitrust cases in various industries, including the computer, movie, music, cellular telephone, and chemical industries. In addition, he has litigated and tried patent cases in the pharmaceutical, computer, and nuclear power industries.
Sean clerked for Judges J. Clifford Wallace and Pamela Rymer on United States Court of Appeal for the Ninth Circuit. He received his Juris Doctor, summa cum laude, from the University of California, Hastings College of Law. He also has a Bachelor of Science degree in Mechanical Engineering from the University of California at Berkeley.
Jonathan Hill
VP of Business Stategies, MRIS
Progressive Times Call for Progressive Steps ~
Friday, October 12, 11:00 - 12:15 pm
Jonathan Hill is the Vice President of Business Strategies and oversees Business Development for MRIS. Jonathan is in charge of the MRIS Product Management Group, Customer Compliance, Corporate Communications and Contract Administration. His division focuses on creating strategic business plans and alliances, coordinating strategies, and implementing and executing key business activities supporting MRIS's Vision in communications, customer and corporate compliance and operations of public relations. The group is also responsible for identifying, securing and managing partnerships with outside companies whose contributions will further our Vision.
Tom Hurdelbrink
Executive Vice President, NWMLS
Panel Discussion: Principles of Change ~ Friday, October 12, 1:15 - 2:15pm
Tom Hurdelbrink is the Executive Vice President of the Northwest Multiple Listing Service (NWMLS) in Washington State and will succeed the incomparable Jack Johnson as the President and CEO in January 2008.
Prior to joining NWMLS Tom was Staff Vice President of Operations for Real Estate Business Services, Inc., a wholly owned subsidiary of the California Association of REALTORS (C.A.R.) for five years. In that role Tom oversaw product development, promotion, and support for the core services of education & training, transactional products, and standard forms. He also assisted the management teams responsible for other services including the ZipForm/WINForms electronic forms software and the RELAY transaction management software.
Tom's professional background has been concentrated in real estate association management. Those experiences include legislative research analyst for the National Association of REALTORS, EVP of the Lorain County (OH) Assoc. of REALTORS, CEO of Northern Ohio Regional MLS, and VP of MLS Relations for Realtor.com.
Chang-Tai Hsieh
Assoc. Professor, University of California
Economics of Real Estate ~ Thursday, October 11, 11:00 - 11:45 am
Panel Discussion ~ Thursday, October 11, 1:15 - 2:30 pm
Chang-Tai Hsieh received his PhD from Berkeley in 1998 and joined Berkeley's faculty in 2003 as an associate professor. He is currently a visiting scholar at the Federal Reserve Bank in San Francisco. He also serves as associate editor of the Journal of Economic Literature, co-director of the Microeconomics of Growth Network at the World Bank, Faculty Research Fellow at NBER, and Senior Fellow at the Bureau for Research in Economic Analysis of Development.
Professor Hsieh was assistant professor at Princeton University from 1998 to 2003. He received a Smith-Richardson Foundation Research Fellowship in 2002 and an Alfred P. Sloan Foundation Research Fellowship in 2004.
Christopher Osborn
Attorney, Foster Pepper PLLC
Panel Discussion: Principles of Change ~
Friday, October 12, 1:15 - 2:15pm
Mr. Osborn's practice concentrates in real estate transactions and dispute resolution, with emphasis on the representation of multiple listing services and real estate brokerages as well as buyers, sellers and developers of real property. Mr. Osborn is counsel to the Northwest Multiple Listing Service and the Commercial Brokers Association and represents numerous commercial and residential brokerages. He is the principal author of the most commonly used residential and commercial real estate transaction forms in the state. Mr. Osborn is an accomplished mediator of commercial and real estate disputes.
Tom Phillips
President & CEO, Trend
Progressive Times Call for Progressive Steps ~
Friday, October 12, 11:00 - 12:15 pm
Tom Phillips joined TREND in August 2000 as Vice President of Product Marketing and Support, and his leadership within the TREND organization became quickly evident and he was promoted to Chief Operating Officer in 2006. In June 2007, Tom was promoted to President & CEO of TREND. Prior to joining TREND Tom has been in the REALTOR Association/MLS business since 1991 having previously, served as the Executive Vice President for the Burlington County Board of REALTORS in New Jersey where he helped facilitate a merger with the Camden County Board of REALTORS in 1997. He served as the CEO of the merged association until joining TREND in 2000. Tom graduated from the University of Illinois with a bachelor's degree in landscape architecture. He is a Certified Association Executive and a REALTOR Association Certified Executive.
TREND develops, integrates and supports MLS and Public Records products to a network of over 33,000 real estate professionals primarily located in Delaware; Southern New Jersey; and Southeastern Pennsylvania. TREND's MLS and Public Records systems offer customized and streamlined access to more than 1.8 million active and off-market listing records and over 4.3 million public records. TREND members facilitate the sale of approximately 100,000 properties a year.
Andy Rapattoni
CEO, Rapattoni Corporation
Panel Discussion: Principles of Change ~
Friday, October 12, 1:15 - 2:15pm
Andy Rapattoni is president, CEO and founder of Rapattoni Corporation, a leading software and technology provider to the real estate industry. The company's Internet-based Rapattoni MLS multiple listing systems are used by more than 100 MLS organizations across the country, representing approximately 300,000 agents. The Rapattoni Magic association management software serves 250+ local real estate associations, representing more than 90% of the nation's Realtors. Twenty-three state real estate associations also use the Magic association management software.
Mr. Rapattoni provides management and marketing leadership to the company, focusing on its growth and positioning. A true industry veteran and visionary, Mr. Rapattoni founded Rapattoni Corporation in 1970, and prior to that spent four years as a commercial real estate broker and two years with Realtron Corporation, the first MLS vendor in the nation to utilize computers to deliver MLS services. With a college background in engineering, he was a pioneer in the use of computers for business applications, and has over 40 years of experience providing services to the real estate industry.
Chip Roach
Chairman, Board of Directors, Trend MLS
Panel Discussion: Principles of Change ~
Friday, October 12, 1:15 - 2:15pm
Chip followed his father and uncle into their business, called Roach Brothers Realtors, 40 years ago after graduating from the University of Notre Dame. He sold homes in the area for 10 years. His grandfather was also a real estate broker in West Philadelphia in the early 1900's.
The firm now has over 3,200 sales associates in 60 offices in three states surrounding Philadelphia. It is currently ranked as the 5th largest residential brokerage in the USA and accomplished over 65,000 transactions last year in brokerage, mortgage, title and homeowners insurance.
His industry positions have included officerships in four major referral networks and service on the board of a major relocation management firm. Chip was recently elected to the Hall of Leaders of the Employee Relocation Council...fewer than 40 of their 12,000 members have been so honored.
Chip is currently Chairman of the Board of the 3 state regional MLS (TReND - 30,000 members), the Vice Chair of the Employee Relocation Council's Coalition and a Board member of the PA Realtors as well as the National Association of Realtors. He served in 2005 as the NAR liaison to large firms and serves NAR in currently as a Trustee for its PAC.
As a community activist, Chip has served as Chair of the Board of Rosemont College, the local Chamber of Commerce, "A Better Philadelphia" and is currently a Trustee of the firm's charitable foundation, Fox & Roach/Trident Charities as well as AchieveAbility, Inc. in West Philadelphia. He is involved nationally as a Board member of the Employee Relocation Council Charities. He has been married to his wife, Nancy, for 43 years. Chip has a son and a daughter in the business with him; his other son is a furniture maker/developer in Steamboat Springs, Colorado. There are five grandchildren brightening his life. At the end of 2003, his decades long stake in the ownership of the company was liquidated in a buyout of his interests by several of the partners in the firm. He continues to serve the firm to enable its continued growth. He is also involved in a family charity - Charley & Peggy Roach Charities - honoring his parents.
Steven Sawyer
Assoc. Professor, Penn State
Change in the Information and Computer Age ~
Thursday, October 11, 9:00 - 9:45 am
Panel Discussion ~
Thursday, October 11, 1:15 - 2:30 pm
Prior to joining Penn State, Sawyer was a faculty member and Ph.D. program director in the School of Information Studies at Syracuse University where he was named Professor of the Year in 1997. He has published more than 60 works including papers in a range of journals such as Communications of the ACM, Information Technology & People,The Information Society, The IBM Systems Journal, and the Journal of Information Technology and in a number of international conferences and workshops.
Sawyer conducts research on social and organizational informatics: studying how people work together and how they use information and communication technologies. His most recent research programs include: Investigating how software development can be improved through attending to the social aspects of working together; studying how people adapt to working with large-scale information systems implementations (such as enterprise resource packages); and understanding the changes to organizations (and organizational work) due to the increased distribution of computing. Corning, IBM, Sonoco, Xerox, the Lattanze Foundation, and the National Science Foundation have supported his research. Sawyer teaches information systems analysis and design, project management, and implementation; information-technology-enabled organizational change; social informatics; and field-based research methods.
Michael Vaska
Attorney, Foster Pepper, PLLC
Panel Discussion ~
Thursday, October 11, 1:15 - 2:30 pm
Presenting the Principles of Change ~
Thursday, October 11, 2:30 - 3:15 pm
Implementing Change ~
Friday, October 12, 3:00 - 3:30 pm
Mike Vaska's practice focuses on strategic counseling to businesses and governments facing complex litigation and other significant legal issues. He has represented business and municipal clients in major litigation in courts around the country, and provided counseling on how to successfully address many legal issues of first impression. He has also been a leader on a variety of statewide and regional civic projects and campaigns.
Mike has extensive antitrust experience in civil and criminal antitrust investigations and major civil antitrust lawsuits. He counsels clients on mergers and acquisitions, pricing, distribution and joint venture issues.
Mike has represented clients on First Amendment and other constitutional claims, newspapers and local governments on public disclosure issues, health care providers and insurers, and businesses on a variety of complex commercial disputes.