President's message: Be part of AREW's next generation

The past season was a huge success for AREW. The celebration of our 30th anniversary of "Three Decades of Breaking Ground" as a leading real estate association culminated in a sold-out 30th Anniversary Gala at the Mandarin Oriental Hotel and thrust our organization to the forefront of the industry. Serving as Gala co-chair was an outstanding opportunity for me to better understand the history of this venerable organization. Now, as AREW's new, 2008-09 president, I, along with other officers and the board, will be planning programs for the coming season that will take AREW another large step forward. A highlight of the Gala was a retrospective presentation of our thirty years. The first decade was defined by, "There is nothing more powerful than an idea whose time has come." It is near impossible, based on a real estate industry today where women can be found in every discipline, at every level, to imagine what it was like in 1978. Women real estate professionals back then were few and far between, rarely seen and heard. It was AREW that brought them together to network and armed them with education to enhance their career growth. By our second decade, women had joined the real estate industry and AREW in droves. We had achieved visibility and viability, using that leverage to greatly enhance the association's community involvement and charitable works. This second decade included surviving the 1987 stock market and savings and loan meltdowns, as well as a deep New York City real estate recession, making our descriptive phrase for that decade-"Heat that melts butter, tempers steel"-all the more apt. By our third decade, AREW was "up there" with regard to its size, importance and industry influence. Having achieved a firm foundation as a leading industry association, it was time to kick it up, not just a notch, but entire levels. We defined this decade with the theme, "A leader is one who knows the way, goes the way, and shows the way." And we did. We kicked off the millennium by naming the Top 100 "Women Real Estate Leaders for the 21st Century." The AREW Charitable Fund held a breakfast featuring Pulitzer Prize-winning journalist Anna Quindlen and raised $80,000 to benefit the programs of Women In Need, Inc. AREW's 25th Anniversary benchmarked a quarter century with a Gala at the St. Regis Hotel where 12 women were honored for outstanding achievement in real estate. In 2004, AREW named the Top 50 Women In Real Estate in the categories of Industry Pioneers, Current Leaders and Rising Stars.Then, for the first time in 28-year history, AREW and the Charitable Fund named a Man of the Year. Additionally, AREW's vitality earned it a place on the covers of two major real estate industry magazines for its role in winning recognition for women. Which brings us full circle to our next decade, the one that begins now. We are calling it "The Next Generation of AREW," a homage to encouraging and nurturing new leadership and projecting vision, innovation and progressiveness. The times are changing in our market, and AREW is prepared to meet them by continuing to provide educational programs and networking at the highest levels of industry experience; by a notable new vitality; increased focus on helping our members enhance their industry knowledge with current, valuable information, as well as hone their competitive skills; and by providing high-quality, one-on-one networking opportunities that are conducive to creating business relationships and that build business. These may be challenging times, but AREW has proven that we are more than up to meeting that challenge, keeping our fingers on the pulse of the industry, a leader in innovative and progressive programs and events. As we are poised to soar in our fourth decade, now, more than ever before, is the time for men and women real estate professionals to join us as members and sponsors and become a part of "The Next Generation of AREW." Jennifer McCool is the 2008-09 AREW president and vice president of Moynihan Station Venture, New York, N.Y.