Mapps, Rocha, Terry, Smith, Morse and Melikian, along with Lou Palandrani, provided career advice to Cal students.

BERKELEY, CA—​​With the commercial real estate industry constantly clamoring for new blood, one organization is going to the source to attract young professionals. The Northern California Chapter of the Society of Industrial & Office Realtors/SIOR in collaboration with the SIOR Foundation recently hosted a career development event at Cheit Hall at the Haas School of Business at the University of California, Berkeley.

The event is a continuation of an SIOR-sponsored educational partnership with Cal's Fisher Center for Real Estate and Urban Economics, and specifically with Cal's undergraduate real estate club. The career development night was the third event organized and sponsored on behalf of Cal's undergraduate real estate club.

Seven industry experts and approximately 30 undergraduate Cal students from various degree programs spent nearly 90 minutes in conversation, broken up into 15 to 20 minute segments or roundtable talks with one expert at a time. The students are interested pursuing in careers in commercial real estate development, construction, architecture, brokerage and related fields.

The industry experts were:

Patrick Kennedy, principal, Panoramic Interests

Roscoe Mapps, director of government relations, San Francisco Giants; he is also involved with the Mission Rock Development in San Francisco

Sylvia Melikian, portfolio manager, MacFarlane Partners

Nancy Morse, senior managing director, Newmark Knight Frank

Lou Palandrani, senior vice president, Clark Construction

Virginia Rocha, senior property manager of facilities, UCSF Mt. Zion

Derek Smith, principal, Marinship Development

Jim Terry, principal, Ware Malcomb

Cal's undergraduate real estate club 2018-2019 co-presidents Benzi Blatman and Tad Tobar organized the student involvement, with assistance by SIOR Foundation trustee Gary Marsh and Kim Pipkin of Pipkin Marsh Advisors.

“Students told us how surprised they were to learn so much about our industry in such a brief period of time,” Marsh tells GlobeSt.com. “The keys to the success of the evening were the small group conversations, the networking before and after the round tables concluded, and of course the experience and expertise of the industry professionals that were generous with their time in spending an evening at Cal with the undergraduate real estate club.”

The undergraduate real estate club has different focus groups, including brokerage services, investment, development, architecture and corporate services. The club provides a variety of resources, workshops and outlets to not only develop members professionally, but to build lasting relationships and foster community. The real estate program at the Haas School of Business was recently ranked second in the country by US News & World Report.

The SIOR Foundation promotes and funds programs that advance the real estate profession through educational scholarships and other financial grants, critical research projects, publishing and development of real estate curricula for higher education. The charitable giving supports students enrolled in college undergraduate and graduate real estate studies in pursuit of degrees associated with commercial real estate.

Established in 1962 as the Society of Industrial Realtors educational fund, the organization's original purpose was to publish the industry's first graduate-level textbook on industrial real estate, GlobeSt.com learns. When the society was expanded to SIOR in 1985, the fund officially became the Society of Industrial Realtors educational fund.

Since then, the fund has promoted and funded programs that advance the real estate profession through educational scholarships, critical research projects, publishing and development of real estate curricula for higher education, and professional development for practitioners. Because of the Society of Industrial Realtors educational fund, deserving students who could not otherwise have studied on the college level have graduated in real estate-related fields, bringing new energy and excitement to the community. Many others, experienced practitioners in the field, have found their lives enriched by the experiences and opportunities afforded them through the Foundation's support.

In 2006, the Society of Industrial Realtors educational fund broadened its scope to provide future support to SIOR members and communities. At that time, it also adopted a new mission and changed its name to the SIOR Foundation. The Foundation celebrate​d its ​55th anniversary in 20​17 and continues to develop and promote educational initiatives, as well as working to ​enhance and expand the commercial real estate community in a variety of ways.

Future plans envision an endowment sufficient enough to attract the brightest minds to the community by offering full scholarships at every college with an accredited real estate program, to create endowed real estate chairs at accredited universities, build an SIOR Foundation research department, create the industry standard for ethics and accountability, and increase funds for research and community programs.