Hale & Hearty Night
Houston's top real estate agents and government bigwigs gather to celebrate an innovator
The A-list of American realty showed up at Houston Country Club Friday night to honor Bob Hale, president and CEO of the Houston Association of Realtors.
The Realtors were celebrating 25 years of Hale’s leadership at HAR, which is the second largest realty association in the country with over 25,000 members, slightly behind only the Long Island Board of Realtors.
Under Hale’s leadership, HAR was the first real estate organization to post online the listings of homes for sale.
With a passed microphone, Bob and his wife, Susie, were toasted and roasted by many, including Curt Beardsley of Realtor.com, Amy Bernstein of Bernstein Realty, Rob Cook of Berkshire Hathaway Anderson Properties, Shad Bogany of Better Homes and Gardens Gary Greene, Bill Jones of Heritage Texas Properties, Malcolm Morris of Stewart Title, Kelley Parker of Cushman and Wakefield, Wayne Stroman of Stroman Realty and other real estate people from around the nation.
In the 1990s, under Hale’s leadership, HAR was the first major real estate organization in the nation to post online the listings of homes for sale. The practice is now an industry standard in most places, but at the time it was innovative and controversial. Hale has announced no plans to ever retire from HAR and the huge crowd at the gala seems pretty happy with the way things are.
Dana Kervin, HAR’s director of governmental affairs, had Hale’s gala well in hand. U.S. Rep. Gene Green was in from Washington, D.C. and Harris County Judge Ed Emmett headed the local delegation. On the big ballroom screen, sending along congrats messages to Hale via video were U.S. Sen. John Cornyn, Gov. Rick Perry, State Sen. John Whitmire, Mayor Annise Parker and others.
An impressive roster of CEOs and founders of the world’s biggest realty organizations sent along video congrats, including Mark Willis of Keller Williams International, Errol Samuelson of Move Inc., Dale Stinson of the National Association of Realtors, Dave Liniger of RE/MAX, Alex Perriello of Realogy, Peter Flint of Trulia and Spencer Rascoff of Zillow.
Gala attendees traveled from nine different states to salute Hale at Houston Country Club, which is looking very green and lush from recent rain.
Other VIPs at the gala included HAR chair Danny Frank, Heritage Texas Properties president Robin Mueck and her husband Jerry, David Cook of Cushman and Wakefield, Stewart Morris of Stewart Title, former HAR chair Jim Peters, Heritage Texas Properties Lynn Zarr of New Braunfels, Carlos Bujosa of Transwestern, Vickie Fullerton of Re/Max, and realty veteran Sam Feldt, who was president of the organization in 1968.
