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Foreign.
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Hi, everyone. I'm Mark Civitelli, podcast host and president and CEO at the Commercial Real Estate Development Association. You're listening to our podcast, Inside CRE featuring interviews with commercial real estate leaders who share industry and career insights. The Commercial Real Estate Development association is the development industry's leading source of for education, advocacy, and connections that drive your business forward. Inside CRE is brought to you by Majestic Realty. Today we're discussing one of the most significant milestones in our association's history, the transition from NAOP to the Commercial Real Estate Development Association. Joining me are two leaders who help guide this effort. Our 2026 chair, Celeste Tanner, and our chair elect, Clark Machamer. Welcome to the podcast at least. Celeste, welcome back. And Clark, welcome for the first time.
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C
Thanks. It's great to be here. I'm so happy to get to hang out with you guys for a little bit.
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B
Yeah. So with this whole name change discussion, we probably haven't seen each other all that much, so it's good to see old faces again. Yeah, well, you know, on that front, you know, both of you have spent years helping shape this association and watching the industry evolve. You know, when you compare the organization today to when you first became involved, what's the biggest change you've seen in either commercial real estate or our membership?
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C
Clark, you want to start with that one?
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A
Yeah, happy to. Thanks, Mark. Really excited with what we're embarking upon here with the brand change. I look back at real estate in general, and luckily for this organization, we're the leader in just about every state across the country. And I would say that the real estate industry has a whole level of sophistication that didn't exist before. And then also the demographics of the participants of whose practicing in real estate has changed. The average age of the real estate practitioner is things much younger than I've ever seen before. And because of the demographics and the sophistication, developers and folks that are practicing real estate are playing in a lot of different fields. It's not just I'm a multifamily guy or I'm an office guy. You know, the skill set that it takes to develop assets across the country is the same, and you're using those skills to develop in a lot of different avenues. So, you know, that's one reason why we have made this change is that, you know, people have a lot of skill sets and they're using them across all asset classes.
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C
Yeah, I. I completely agree. I mean, it's. It's amazing to think back. I mean, I've been a member of NAOP now a little over 20 years. And when I started in this industry in the very early 2000s and then fast forward to today and I just think about the diversification of the asset classes that we even talk about that we represent. And we can talk about office and industrial, but let's just talk about industrial and how you would track data on industrial. We had distribution, we had warehouse, now we have cold storage, data center, we have life sciences that really wasn't even tracked before that because it was so small. This channel, to your point, Clark, this huge diversification. But then there's also just the components of the knowledge and the evolution of our uses. I mean, I look at projects I did in 2003, 2005, and compare them to today, and we had a complete era of shift into a more hospitality driven development style. E commerce became a huge component and frankly influenced more than just industrial itself, but obviously retail and other asset classes, environmental style stewardship became a huge component of what we do. I mean, for an industry that feels like sometimes it's more of the same for people that aren't in it, I think we've actually experienced rapid change in growth and the organization as a whole has done a good job of keeping up with that pace.
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B
So with that rapid change in growth, it kind of leads us into a discussion here that perhaps you both can provide some insight on about why change. And for our listeners, just a little bit of background. The beginning of the conversation about whether we should change it is Clark and Celeste know all too well, because they were in that room stem from the development of the strategic plan we're currently operating under right now. And that called for us to examine the name change and look at, you know, our long term relevance to both the industry and our members. Now, NAOP's built tremendous recognition and credibility over nearly six decades. So this change was a monumental step and certainly wasn't made overnight. Overall, it was a little over a year that it took us from our first task force meeting to the board's final vote last June. You know, going through research, focus groups, interviews, surveys, just a variety of market research. Ultimately, Clark and Celeste, I think you'll both recall this. I think what we learned is that while the association has strong recognition within the industry, the name NAOP no longer really clearly communicated who we are or what our members do. Almost in essence that we had, for putting it in probably way too simplistic terms, move beyond the I and the oh and graduated to a lot more. So with all that in mind. Celeste, this is the tee up of tee ups for questions here. Was there a moment during that research process when it became clear that maintaining the status quo might not be the best path forward?
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C
You know, it's interesting. I think we did so much as leadership and staff to really evaluate this name change and that included research studies, focus groups, surveys, you know, and all this information. And, and I remember it being a real question at the beginning and then when we got the data back from those focus groups, for me the aha moment came in dual force at the same time. And the first one was listening to newer chapters that were recruiting members and saying, I, I cannot communicate to the next generation of leaders who we are. They don't understand what NAOP is, means or does and we have brand confusion and that's a major challenge. As Clark mentioned, we're, we're the most diverse we've ever been in our industry, in my opinion. And our median age keeps going down. We've got to be able to make sure that we are recruiting and retaining the best members because they are in fact the best new talent in the industry. And the other component that hit us in the same results was when we heard across the system that we could not communicate effectively to our public policy leaders who we were as well. We had worked really hard to establish these long standing relationships at the state and local level. But you know, as these community leaders turn over and re engage, we were spending as much time trying to clarify what NAOP meant and who we were rather than just getting to the heart of how we can collaborate together. And for me, those are two meaningful pitfalls that were the signs that we had to move forward and embrace the next evolution of our chapter and who we want to be. Clark, I don't know what your moment was.
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A
No, for me, ever since I got involved with NAOP going back similar to UCL west over 20 years ago and then more recently in the last five years at NAOP national and Executive Committee, there's always been talk like, do we change our name? Do we change our name? Do we change our name? And, and quite honestly, I'm glad it's done this year while your chair, Celeste and I can come up with a clean slate in 27 and not have to be bogged down in this. So credit to you for taking this on during your chair chairmanship here. So thank you very much on behalf of myself.
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C
Many hands make a light load.
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There we go. Hey Clark, I want to ask you this next question because you come from a unique position in that New Jersey is the first chapter that NAOP ever had. Your chapter is a very large, effective chapter. It's been in the battles and trenches in Trenton for decades now. With that in mind, what challenges perhaps did you see with the name NAOP when it came to introducing the association, the prospective members that you've discussed, policymakers, you know, media. I know you've talked to media as well, too. My guess is this has been a bit of a challenge from time to time.
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Yeah, I mean, you know, we can get hung up on a name, but at the end of the day, it's the heart. You know, what's the heartbeat of an organization. It's the people that are there. And, you know, specifically in New Jersey, we have great leadership, both at the staff level and the volunteer level. You know, so people are going to radiate and gravitate toward them and want to be involved with. With them. You know, that NAOP name just, it sort of was in the background and it really never described who we were. You know, our big issue in New Jersey is the legislature turns over every. Every couple years, and we go in and we have great relationships due to the team that's here at the state level. But it's, you know, who is naep? What do you stand for? And, you know, even a lot of our members couldn't even exactly say what we stood for. So what I really like about is that I like to say we're the Commercial Real Estate Development association, and it's pretty clear on what we do. And even if you're not involved in that, but looking to get involved, when you see that name, you're going to gravitate toward it, be it a member or be it an elected official looking for advice on policy, they're going to look to that organization that is doing, you know, real estate development. And I think that is going to make it a lot simpler for us. And I think we're going to really excel once this transition happens.
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B
Yeah. And I think anybody to your point about talking to policymakers will tell you if you're going to be speaking with them. Simple is better just because you have very limited time. And if you're spending it trying to describe who you are rather than your real purpose, that you're there for the, you know, for every real estate person, we real estate how we recognize how valuable real estate is, and giving away that much real estate time is a challenge.
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A
Right. And then, you know, we're, we're stewards of the dollars that we get from our Members, and we're not a Google who can go out and advertise, and everyone that know who's Google is, even though it means nothing, you know, we got to make sure that we're simple and to the point so that we're not spending unnecessary dollars on the marketing of who we are. Now that's done, and everyone's going to understand that.
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B
Celeste, to that point, you know, why make this change now? You know, if you're being asked whether press, legislator, some of our members, maybe a prospective member, what's your answer on why, why make this change now?
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C
Yeah, I mean, there's a couple of components here, but I mean, if we just look back to our economic impact study that we conducted this year, you know, at three and a half trillion dollars of economic impact, commercial real estate's over 10% of the US GDP. And if you add in residential and infrastructure construction, we're hitting 17% of GDP and 20% of the jobs in the United States. But when you start to look behind those numbers, it is broken down into a wide array of expertise, investment and value. And that just inherently creates confusion if you don't have clear and concise messaging about who you are and what you represent. The truth of the matter is we're coming up on the 250th anniversary of our country. And, you know, commercial real estate, especially in the last hundred years, has literally built this nation, every last component of it. And when we look to our impact in the next hundred years, we can't be bogged down with confusing names and mixed messaging and everything else. We just need to clearly and efficiently communicate to our communities, our members, our policy leaders, who we are so we can quickly move into what we can actually accomplish together. And this name change accomplishes that goal.
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B
Yeah. You know, one thing I think we all hear about change is, you know, not only do are people scared of change, but they also think that if something's changing, then everything's changing. And I want to discuss, you know, what's staying the same, so why we will become the Commercial Real Estate Development Association. Our mission isn't changing. You know, we're still dedicated to advancing commercial real estate development and supporting the professionals who create those built environment spaces, Celeste, that you were just talking about. You know, in many ways, this is maybe a clearer expression of who we've already become. But with that, though, you know, knowing that there's a deep history, you know, 59 years as an association, how do both of you feel that this new name honors the association's History or legacy?
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I think it's what it's become. I mean, I said the earlier, it's a tribute to the folks that have been involved with NAOP over the last 50 years to create an organization that is the beacon for folks that want to be involved in the real estate industry. And I look back, I was involved in another not for profit who did a brand name change. And it was tough at first from people's perspective of fundraising and awareness. But we did the rebrand and if anything, we moved to that next level because we were tied down with specifics of who we served with that old name. And by going to a new name, we weren't tied down with that name and binding us to something that really wasn't what we represented anymore. So I think it's a real tribute to everyone who's been involved with the organization over the last 50 years to say we've evolved to this spot where, you know, we are the organization.
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C
Yeah, I, I completely agree and I, I, I think of it as like our, our history and legacy has a very strong foundation and we're building on top of that. You know, we're going to reinforce a bit. But if, if we recall, our name is already in our, our new name is already in our old name.
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B
Yep, that's true.
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C
We're in aop, the Commercial Real Estate Development Association. We're just dropping a few letters in that and elevating what it is we actually do and who we represent. And so I, I think we literally are lifting up what we have been and opening up the potential for what we can continue to grow and become and, and who we represent across North America.
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B
Yeah. So talking a little bit about what we bend, Celeste, I want to ask you a follow up question here. You know, are there some either core values of the organization or strengths that you believe remain the same regardless of the name?
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C
Well, yeah, I mean, again, our foundational principles are unchanged here. I think it just, this change gives us an opportunity to expand them. Anytime I look to join NAP or recruit other, you know, myself or recruited other members to join, it was really about the three legs of the staff stool. Right. It was networking, education and public policy. And those are our three core tenets. And all three of them, for the stool to sit and balance, all three of those need to remain equally important. And what we're able to do with this change is just be more effective and frankly, open doors to more opportunities to add value where we may have been a little limited before. I mean, Clark, I love your example of the other nonprofit you were in, even though the organization itself didn't change. Right. I'm sure there was just some, some baggage. Right. There was just perception and other things. People knew this name and they had an immediate conception of who they were. And with that refresh, all of a sudden, a new opportunity can open that really adds value, whether that's in new research that's being conducted, new relationships that are being built at the public policy level, which we're already doing with energy and other areas, and obviously new networking opportunities. As we continue to grow and diversify our member base, I think it's actually a really exciting time to grow what we already have established as a strong set of principles.
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B
Yeah, thanks, Austin. You know, let's talk for a minute about the name itself. Now. We talked a little bit about why change what's also staying the same. But with the change particularly, there's one word that seems to have really grabbed the attention of a lot of people. And of course, that word is development. You know, so, Clark, we go to you first on this one. What do you believe the word development communicates? That was so important to ultimately include it in the name.
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A
You know, that's, you know, development is a unique skill set. And the people that work within the development community bring a lot of different skill sets to the table. And it's all encompassing. You know, development starts with land sellers and brokers and engineers and architects, civil engineers, environmental engineers, capital debt. You know, everyone involved in the real estate sphere somehow touches development. So it's. Well, you may hear, well, you're only doing development. You're not existing assets or sales or something like that. Development is probably the most all encompassing element of the real estate world. And also I think, you know, with development, you want to be on the cutting edge. And I think people want to be involved with the organizations that have people that are looking to build something new, the next best thing. That's where people are going to gravitate forward. And then also in the development doesn't mean we're ignoring the past. You know, redevelopment is a word that's used often and you can be restoring projects and that's equally, you know, development type project. So while you may think it gets pretty specific, my view it's the most all encompassing word within the real estate industry.
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C
Yeah, and I think you raise a great point there, Clark, which is, you know, of everything we touch, developers as you know, the quarterbacks of these projects, it is also that, that looking forward, right, we're, we're the champion that has to identify what's happening five years in the future, seven years in the future. And really appreciating how you can lead a community forward and develop. Starts to take both the noun and the verb state in that regard. And I think that is exactly who our members are and what we do.
- [19:31]
B
Yeah. For Clark and I, Celeste, I just want to say thanks. With someone like yourself who's very schooled with the English language, we got both the development and the verb side of that there, Clark. So now we, we can use that in multiple ways. Yeah.
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C
Anytime I want to make up a grammar rule, just come see me.
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A
I just teed up and someone else can explain it a lot better than I can.
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B
Well, Celeste, we were talking a little bit about the future, so let me follow up on that real quick. How do you think this rebrand positions us for the future?
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C
Oh, I, it's, it's what I'm most excited about. I mean, I'm sure over the course of the last six months or so, everyone has heard me get on my soapbox and talk about how finally, finally, as an organization in which I mean the development industry as a whole, not just the Commercial Real Estate Development association, we as an industry have to start embracing the technological advancement that's happening in this country. And we need to do it in a way that makes us smarter, better and more efficient. That's just one component, but it's something that shows a massive look forward into the future. Again, our name now allows us to envelop and wrap around the 22,000 members we have now. The huge increase that I expect us to see in that member base in the years to come and establish all the best practices, best resources, best ideas and bring them forward first so that we can build better communities for the people who live where we also live and work and play. So I feel like we are eliminating noise and confusion and we are unlocking real potential to be able to move forward into this next chapter for all of North America.
- [21:21]
B
Yeah. Clark, you know, you're the incoming chair, so I want to ask you the same question because perhaps maybe this, you know, bleeds into what you're thinking about next year as you will be the first full year chair of Commercial Real Estate Development Association. Since Celeste gets the last of NAOP and the first of Commercial Real Estate Development association, we'll give you the honor of the first full year. But is there anything, you know, you're thinking about future wise?
- [21:49]
A
You know, for me, I. Hopefully it, it really starts to bring the organization as a whole even Closer together. You know, NAOP in future, the Commercial Real Estate Development Association. We're really unique in that we have a strong national presence and then have incredible chapters across the country. And you know, each chapter is a little different, you know, and that's what makes it really special, this organization. So if an organization is focused on things other than traditionally the industrial and office world, they can now embrace the national organization even more. So I'm really excited about what this can do to start to bring national and local chapters together as best we can.
- [22:33]
C
Yeah, I think that's such a great point. And you know, in the time that I've spent in conversations with chapters to date and when we talk about the upcoming name change and rebrand, one of the things that I'm most excited to hear are several chapters that are approaching this opportunity to say we, we have not been able to capture these members in our market and now we feel like we're going to have the opportunity to really grow and maybe multifamily developers in our market didn't think NAOP applied to them, but the Commercial Real Estate Development association absolutely does. The data center developers that are out there and the enterprise users are coming in now and understand why it's so important to engage with us at a public policy level. Our name is going to be able to help reach out to them and help build that base and now all of us be able to share that knowledge. And to your point, Clark, being able to tie that local strength back to our national resources and strength, I think it just continues to establish our dominance within the industry.
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B
Well, here inside the beltway we often get charged with, you got to put your money where your mouth is. Every politician can say a whole lot of stuff, but they don't necessarily back it up. So let's talk about how as a DC based organization, we are going to back up some of these changes we've talked about. You know, we've got a lot in the pipeline as I think you're both well aware. You know, we've got a. I think our members could expect to see a broader range of content addressing some of the issues and asset classes that you've talked about today in addition to emerging technologies, infrastructure challenges, evolving market sectors. You know, one of the first things we've done now is under the Commercial Real Estate Development association brand is to launch our new online course of AI in commercial real estate and published a new research project focused on energy grade constraints. I think both examples of how we're expanding the conversation around all of development rather than just the industrial and office focused. That has largely been our history for the past 59 years. Celeste, what do you think? I mean, outside of, you know, me being able to harp on a couple of quick things that we're doing right away, what opportunities do you think this name change creates that may have been difficult under the NAOP brand?
- [25:07]
C
Well, I mean, again, I think what I'm really excited about is the opportunity for us to have better brand recognition. You know, you touched on the way we're expanding our research, our knowledge, the ability to provide that outreach. I'm equally interested in, frankly, the PR efforts that we're engaging in to help communicate the new brand, but also start to shift the public perception of commercial real estate. That that is not just a hope and a wish. I mean, this is a mandate that we need to accomplish. And doing that as the Commercial Real Estate Development association is going to open more doors, as one example, just a new recruitment and retention of talent. I mean, when, when I look at, you know, the future leaders in our country, none of them really understand commercial real estate. There, there's still not this trickle down access at high school level, for example, that really dominates education and students walk out of high school and, you know, half of them are like, I know what development is and I'm really interested in it and want to do it. If they know what it is at all, it was from a next door post and they hate it. Right?
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B
Yep. So.
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C
Right. You've got to be able to come in and communicate that clearly and frankly build the brand message of no again, did you walk down the sidewalk to get to school today? Did you go to a coffee shop after? Did you go hang out with your friends at a movie theater? If you. That's what the current generation does. All those things were for develop, you know, from development and be able to embrace that. It's not just about making us look good or feel good about ourselves. It's about being able to grow the industry and partner with the members of our community. I don't think we could really be effective as NAOP doing that because there was just too much confusion to the general public about who we were and what we did. And I'm excited to start embracing who we are and what we want to be going forward.
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B
Yeah, and Clark, I want to circle back to something you said because I think this is an interesting point that you raised. You talked earlier about how the demographics of the organization have changed, particularly that the organization has become noticeably younger and that explaining what NAOP is, what we do who we are. So more challenging. With that in mind, how do you view this change to attract the next generation of industry leaders so beyond even the folks that are just getting in here now?
- [27:48]
A
Well, I think our industry is not our father's and grandfather's industry. Going back a generation or two, it was two guys smoking a cigar with a Cadillac cutting a deal. Today it's 20 and 30 year olds with iPads and new technology and AI, studying demographic changes, supply chains, drayage cost. It really is advanced in a really impressive way. And while real estate's never cutting edge on a technology perspective, it's come a long way in the time that I've been here. I think what it does is we talked about earlier. To me, development is the most exciting part of the real estate industry. And that's what people want to see. They want to go see something new, see new buildings. I was fortunate yesterday to actually host almost 50 interns at one of our buildings here in northern New Jersey. Brokerage shop organized that and we were happy to host them in one of our buildings and just to see those, you know, late teens and early 20s faces and the curiosity that they had. But when I started talking about development, they knew it was building something new. They may not know what a heck a developer does, but that was really exciting to them to come to a new building and see the tenant fitting the space out of what it could be and beautiful renderings that really caught their eye. So hopefully with us saying development in our name, it's going to attract the best and brightest to, you know, not to our industry, but to our organization. There's a lot of competing real estate industries out there and I think of all of them, we're going to be one. When you're looking through where do I want to spend my time and where do I invest, you know, my dollars? We should be at the top of that list. And that's really exciting.
- [29:43]
B
So, Celeste, what do you think our members should be watching for in the next year as this identity comes to life and we take the last six months of your term and bleed it into the first few months of Clark's as the Commercial Real Estate Development Association?
- [29:59]
C
Well, I think you'll see a real launch come January when Clark takes the helm. I think he's going to take it to skyrocket. But prior to that, I think you're really going to start seeing and have already seen a lot of engagement nationally, both in communication to the chapters and the support to the chapters, but also in again launching this Brand at a national level. It's not just the chapters alone that are managing this transition, but, you know, we are taking this opportunity to, again, across North America, say, we are, in fact, the Commercial Real Estate Development Association. And whether you're a member or not, you will know who we are and what we do. And that that's going to, I think, make a big splash here over the next six months in particular, and really start to frankly generate question and start to get people to ask and reach out and work with our local chapters to engage that opportunity with them. So I'm really excited about that. And going forward, I think we, you know, as corporate, I really want to make sure our next strategic plan is capturing that momentum. And again, we're not just trying to shift public perception, but we're also focusing on how we can help engage in that outreach and continue to grow that member base so that we're partnering with the local chapters and saying, hey, you may be underrepresented here. Here's some opportunities for us to communicate at a national level and at a continental level with these companies, the value that we bring. And again, I just think that constant recognition is going to ramp up here over the next six months and start a whole new round of conversations that we didn't even really have the opportunity to see before.
- [31:49]
B
Yeah. Well, you know, I thank you both for those insights, and I'm going to wrap it up with kind of a big, broad question at the end here, you know, because while our names changed, the mission remains clear. We are still advancing commercial real estate development and supporting the professionals who shape that built environment. So this new identity not only reflects who we are today, but where we're headed. And with that, where we're headed in mind, I'd like to hear from each of you. Clark, I'll ask you to go first, if you don't mind. Five years from now, you've been involved in the discussion since this began. You're going to be one of the critical leaders who's going to drive this transition. But five years from now, what do you hope people will say about the decision to change the Commercial Real Estate Development Association?
- [32:41]
A
Why don't we do it sooner? That's. That's gonna. That means we'll be successful. No, I. I think it's, you know, five years down the road. I don't think we're going to be looking back. I mean, let's be honest, I had a lot of affection for the name NAOP and so did a lot of other members. You know, fortunately, There were more members that wanted to move to a new name than stick with the old one. But I think, I hope what people really take back is that nothing's really changed with who we are. And if anything, we're in a much better spot. The industry's in a much better spot. We're successful in trying to communicate. And this is a big piece of what Celeste has been working on this year and through the rest of the year, is trying to get people to understand who the Commercial Real Estate Development association is and the benefits that we bring.
- [33:31]
C
Yeah, I don't think I could explain that any better. And, Clark, you're spot on. If in five years we're talking about this, then we weren't successful. In five years, we will be the Commercial Real Estate Development association, and that's going to be the demonstration of that success. What is unchanged is having people, you know, you at the helm, Mark Clark coming in, you know, the committed leadership and engagement that really helps to continue to drive the chapter forward. What we are not is stagnant, and we will not be. So I'm, I'm really excited, actually, to see what the next 12 months brings, but definitely five years down the road, I think we'll look even better and beyond where we are today.
- [34:18]
B
Well, Seinfeld once said to Costanza, go out on a high note. And I think that that's the perfect way to end that. Clark, Celeste, I want to thank you both for joining us today and providing the insights not only into what brought this change into being, but more importantly, what it's going to do for us in the future. So thank you so much. It was great to hear from both of you, and we look forward to serving everyone as the Commercial Real Estate Development Association. Thanks for listening to Inside and CRE with your host, Mark Zolatelli. Special thanks to our podcast sponsor, Majestic Realty. If you enjoyed this episode and you'd like to help support the podcast, please share it with others and be sure to subscribe. To learn more about the Commercial Real Estate Development association and join a network of over 20,000 commercial real estate professionals, visit www.credaglobal.org.