My son, Ian, was in Nepal not long ago and a young child was trying out her English on him. She asked "Why are you?"  Surely she didn't intend to ask such a wonderful question but I thought it deserved an answer. 

Like so many of us, I didn't find my life's work -- it found me.  After graduating from Ohio State in 1973, I set out to become a commercial real estate appraiser in Columbus. As the rookie in a firm with five commercial appraisers, whenever the occasional residential assignment came in they said "Let Brad do it".

The employee relocation industry was just beginning to take off and employers were in urgent need of appraisers who could accurately predict what their employee's homes would sell for.  As it turned out, I had a knack for this type of work and really enjoyed the challenge.  Within three years, we had enough relocation work to support a full time appraiser. So much for my career in commercial appraising.

In 1976  I was offered a new job as a commercial loan analyst in my hometown of Cleveland. It doubled my overall compensation and, as a young man impatient to improve his economic situation, I jumped at the opportunity.  What I learned from that was: 1) never take a job because of the money and 2) you can sometimes turn a "career blunder" into an advantage.  The job turned out to be unsatisfying but that pushed me into opening up my own appraisal firm as a side business, "just in case" things with the new employer didn't work out. 

And, they didn't. Two years later (1978) my employer moved to Cincinnati and I stayed behind, taking a full-time job as a residential appraiser with Broadview Savings while keeping and growing my side business.  Two years after that, interest rates had skyrocketed to 18%, Broadview was in deep financial trouble, and there was very little work for their appraiser staff.  A month before Ian was born, I was forced to leave a steady paycheck with full health benefits and either sink or swim with my little "side business", which offered neither. 

Over the next several years, Charnas Appraisal grew quickly, as did our reputation for dedication to quality and accuracy.  Numerous awards for service excellence followed and, in 1993, I was asked to serve on the Appraiser Advisory Council for the world's largest employee relocation company. That, in turn, led to other opportunities to grow professionally and personally.  I joined Relocation Appraisers and Consultants (RAC) and eventually became its President.  I also began serving on a Worlwide ERC committee which led to being invited to serve on their Board of Directors. In 2006 I became the first appraiser to ever be elected President of Worldwide ERC, a truly global orgainzation with over 13,000 members in 65 countries.

Friends and family often ask why I donate so much of my time, energy and knowledge to these organizations and there are two answers.  The altruistic (and very real) fact is that I want to give back to the profession that has afforded me a wonderful career.  I think each of us has that obligation. But I have also found that if you pick the right organizations to become involved with, what you receive back in terms of personal and professional growth is priceless.

Today, Charnas Appraisal has seven experienced appraisers located across our eleven-county service area, each with strong local knowledge of their portion of our market area.  In recent years, many things have changed and our traditional sources of business have been severely challenged. Yet the lessons of my early "career blunder" were well-learned: If you look hard enough, you can find opportunities hiding behind those challenges. Despite the many recent changes in our world, one thing has never changed - our relentless commitment to on-time delivery of quality valuation services prepared by dedicated, trusted professionals.

-- Brad Charnas