Tell me about the Leadership Network.

The Leadership Network is the greatest group of people I think I’ve ever been associated with. It’s a group that has been around for quite a few years. I’ve been a member since about 2005 and I’ve gotten involved with it because it was a good opportunity to network with people in the area. I’ve been in real estate since 2004, and in 2005, I joined and got involved in the group. It’s been a great organization for networking and meeting new people and getting an idea of what is going on in the area. We try to bring in interesting business people for speakers or speakers on topics that are in the news or that type of thing for our own information. You really have a chance to meet with people you might not otherwise meet, and we really work hard on getting some good speakers and attracting people to go to the meetings.

Who are some of the speakers you have had?

Over the years, and I’ve actually been in charge of lining up the speakers too, we’ve had John Pappajohn, J. Barry Griswell, the leaders of the area that we try to as much as possible bring in. We also look at other possibilities that we try to bring in, whoever is of interest, and each year, a new person takes over lining up the programs. This year, it’s Abi Fangman, who has done an outstanding job already of putting together our speakers. We’re looking at that as a great opportunity to have more people, and hopefully try to increase our membership.

What does the job of president of the board entail?

It’s really trying to be a team. Some of the past presidents are still actively involved in our group. This year and last year, Marlena Bandurski was president of the group and she’s going to still be actively involved and has been for the last four or five years. She’s done great work as well. Everybody has been kind of taking a turn as they kind of progress through the ranks, and this is my first chance to do that. So I’m looking forward to the next year and trying to help line up the speakers as well. We work as a team on doing that.

What interested you in becoming the president?

It’s an opportunity to do some things where I can be more actively involved in the community. We’ve got around 30 to 35 members. We have a relatively small group, and I’d like to see if I can get 50 or 60 members. We’re going to do things this year to try to get a little more involvement in the community, and we’re also going to update our website and things like that to try to increase our membership.

What is the institute going to do to get more involved?

We’ve always done it as a group. Every year, we’ve given a scholarship for one student at AIB College of Business. This year, we also gave a scholarship through the Dollars for Scholars program for a high school student. Those are a couple of things that we’re trying to do. And we’re trying to encourage young people to get more involved in leadership roles.

Tell me about your professional background.

I for many years sold medical equipment. I sold digital imaging systems for cytogenetics and various pathology research applications. The drawback was that I had to travel a lot at that time. Because of all the travel, I was never home. That’s how I got into real estate. I haven’t been on a plane in a few years. I would travel and be gone every week from my family.

What do you do outside work?

My daughter just graduated from the University of Iowa about a year ago, and she’s working at Principal Financial Group Inc. We’ve been doing things like going to baseball games at the Iowa Cubs, and we try to participate in local attractions as much as we can. As a Realtor, oftentimes I’m working on weekends and evenings too, so it’s a little bit of a change. At least I’m not out of town for a whole week.