President's Message - December 2009

As part of our mission to promote and support the advancement of women in commercial real estate, we are proud to announce CREW Chicago’s 2009 scholarship recipients: Stephanie Matko, Lauren Thomas, and Natalia Todorov.
Stephanie Matko is a graduate student at DePaul University pursuing an MBA and currently works at Grubb and Ellis.  Lauren Thomas, LEED accredited, is a graduate student at the School of the Art Institute of Chicago.  Her work experience includes, Getty's Chicago, De Stefano + Partners, LG Development and Studio IDE.   Natalia Todorov is a graduate student at Northwestern University pursuing an MBA.  She previously worked at Prudential Mortgage Capital Company.  Congratulations Stephanie, Lauren and Natalia.  We look forward to watching your careers and are happy to be part of that effort.

Thanks to all of you who attended CREW Chicago’s 2009 Last Call for Fall, our annual fundraiser benefiting the CREW Foundation, a 501(c)(3) organization which supports programs such as CREW Careers and the CREW Chicago Scholarship fund.  Nicole Pecoulas, the 2009 Last Call for Fall Committee Chair, states: over the prior six years, with the support of corporate sponsors, contributors and individuals, Last Call for Fall has been attended by more than 875 real estate professionals who helped raise more than $140,000 to support CREW Foundation and CREW Chicago."

Many thanks to Nicole, Marilyn Brooks, Teresa Mancuso and the 23 CREW Chicago members who made this event so special and the scholarship committee chaired by Jeanne Stewart and Anne Garr for all their hard work.

Our CREW Careers™  event took place on October 17th this year at the DLA Piper offices. Girls from Off the Street Club and Walter Payton High School joined over 40 CREW volunteers to spend the day learning about real estate careers.  Thanks to co-chairs Amy Mahone, Karen Stocker and to Portia Morrison, Deborah Krohn, Linda Menich and Jane Blomquist for hanging in there and making this happen.

The Member Services committee is still looking for Ambassadors.  For each of the monthly programs, typically held at lunch, 12-15 CREW members will serve as Ambassadors.  Each Ambassador will mix and mingle during the networking period prior to the lunch, welcoming new members and introducing them to others present at the luncheon.  Additionally, each Ambassador will serve as a host facilitator at one of the lunch tables - to ensure that the conversation gets rolling and everyone is introduced.  The overall goal is to reach out and welcome members and ensure that friendly, fruitful connections are made among all CREW members. 
 
We'd like to have a pool of 50-75 CREW members who are willing to be Ambassadors at some time during the coming year.  We are currently working with our webmaster so you can sign up at your discretion to be an Ambassador at a particular lunch.  Depending on the number of volunteers, you may be an Ambassador only once or twice during the year.  Thank you for participating in this outreach opportunity and demonstrating the power of CREW Chicago!

Early this year, CREW Network developed a “Membership Playbook” to gather best practices and provide guidelines for membership procedures and categories.  We are forming a taskforce to review the guidelines around associate and vendor memberships and make recommendations on how this could apply to CREW Chicago.  I will be heading this taskforce and if you’re interested in participating, please contact me or Debbie Gidley.

Finally, I’d like to say this has been a wonderful and rewarding two years.  I could not have done this alone and I thank all of you for making my role easier by providing such an excellent infrastructure.  Who knew the economic climate would change so rapidly and for all of you who have reached out to our impacted members, you should be applauded.  It has been an honor and a privilege to be your CREW Chicago President.  My best to all for a safe and happy holiday season.  We certainly look forward to starting over next year!

In the meantime, if you have any ideas or suggestions for CREW Chicago, e-mail me at This e-mail address is being protected from spambots. You need JavaScript enabled to view it . I am always interested to hear what you have to say.

Best regards,

Cindy Wozny-Carl
CREW Chicago President