(Was first published on Mar. 4th, 2010)

Let’s get introduced. In my last posting, I told you what this blog would be. Today I tell you who I am, why I think what I think, and what shaped my perspective.

Maybe I should have started telling you that. But I wanted to get the ground rules out first.

So who am I?

I started in the assessment side of our profession. I learned that lots of sales were good. That limited resources meant lots of analytic tools were necessary. We had limited staff-lots of properties to value. Tools like regression analysis were second nature to us. I obtained my assessment designation and then decided the $$ was better on the private side.

I went into the fee side and started accumulating a lot of designations. Call that a personality flaw. But the big thing that began to concern me was how little of what I learned about data analysis and advanced statistical techniques such as regression-were actually present on the private side of our partition. I wrote an article many years ago that talked about that. I used the phrase “the partitioning of the appraisal world-view”. I always liked the way that sounded. I also thought it was true. Assessment practitioners thought that fee appraisers were overpaid, pompous and too focused on the individual property-missing the bigger picture of the market. Private side appraisers thought that assessors could not see the trees for the forest.

I think both sides were right-to an extent. I’ve always been a bit of the kumbaya type-can’t we just all get along and work together to make the appraisal/assessment world a better place? Dream on Linné.

While there might always be a divide, I truly believe that the tools and techniques and perspectives that we all have can make the difference between surviving and prospering.

So, why should you listen to me? Because I think a lot about what could be, about what is possible, about making the appraisal world a better place.

For starters: I am passionate about the appraisal profession. I am concerned about its future and the direction that future could take. Ultimately, I want to help define that direction, and make sure that appraisers prosper and remain the “trusted advisors” the unbiased experts whose opinion matters and whose counsel is respected. OK, OK, I hear the scoffing already. But I sincerely do not believe I am naïve.

I’m also a supporter of the concept of “bridging the gap”-taking what is possible on the mass appraisal assessment side and helping to re-invent the fee side. I’ve preached the message for a decade or more.

I’ve written books, articles; given presentations, lectured and now I’m blogging.

I think there is a fork in the road ahead (think Walt Whitman-the road Not taken), and I think we have some decisions to make. We can’t make those decisions without thoroughly identifying the problem. Ultimately, our profession has to decide what we want to be and what we are going to offer our clients.

If we don’t-someone else will.