Brandeis University graduate Paris Hodges addresses organizers and fellow participants during a ceremony to mark completion of the CREST internship program.

They roamed construction sites at Boston’s newest office towers, trekked down Newbury Street filling out retail tenant maps and retrieved data on submarkets used in client briefings.

For 16 minority students from area colleges, it was an eye-opening introduction to commercial real estate, an industry overlooked by many students considering career options even during a historic development boom. The 10-week diversity internship program, Commercial Real Estate Success Training (CREST), gave them a foot in the door at some of the region’s best-known developers, brokerages and construction firms.

“You might say, ‘16 kids? How does that move the dial?” asked Kirk Sykes, a former chairman of the Boston Fed and a developer and architect. “It moves the dial because culturally it gives these students exposure to this industry, but it gives the industry exposure to kids of color who are quite capable. One can’t exist without the other. If you can change the culture in these organizations so people don’t call their nephew when filling entry-level positions, that’s the only way it changes.”

While there are no formal surveys of minority participation in the region’s thriving commercial real estate industry, there’s widespread acknowledgement that it remains an overwhelmingly white male domain.

“The industry has recently recognized that we have a problem,” said Kathy MacNeil of Millennium Partners. “Enough talk. It’s time to do something about that.”

Commercial real estate, particularly among smaller firms, includes many family-run firms, she noted. That’s perpetuated a cycle of non-inclusion of people of color. By contrast, only two of this year’s CREST interns have parents in the industry. So outreach to colleges and high schools is critical in broadening the talent pool, organizers said.

Big Firms Take The Lead

CREST is giving students exposure to jobs in the lucrative brokerage and development fields. NAIOP Massachusetts, the Needham-based commercial development organization, partnered with Urban Land Institute-Boston and the Commercial Brokers Association this year to recruit participating companies.

A who’s-who of industry heavyweights responded, including Boston Properties, Suffolk Construction and brokerage JLL. More than 130 students who met the program’s requirements – including a 3.0 or higher grade point average – applied from six area colleges.

David Begelfer, CEO of NAIOP Massachusetts, said the program could expand next year.

“To have 16 students is nice, but the only way we could get involved in this program is if we could feel it was scalable,” he said. “We’re looking to add substantially more companies and work with trade groups and vendors and encourage them to get involved.”

The program kicked off with a two-day “boot camp” and talks by industry leaders before students fanned out to their assigned companies.

Benjamin Marks, a UMass-Boston economics major, overcame his fear of heights to work with Skanska USA at its Seaport District offices and chart progress on construction of the 121 Seaport office tower the company is building next door. He said he’s already committed to a career in the industry.

Paris Hodges, a recent Brandeis University graduate, worked at CBRE/New England assisting its retail brokerage team. Some days were spent surveying storefronts on Beacon Hill and Back Bay to update tenant maps. Hodges worked with brokers assisting clients in retail space searches.

There was also time to attend NAIOP events and its summer Boston Harbor cruise.

“The opportunities are endless and so are the networking opportunities,” Hodges said. “Another thing that was really valuable was making connections with the other CREST interns and having friends at other schools who are on the same path.”

At a ceremony marking the program’s completion, Sykes noted that he wished he’d known more about the industry while attending Cornell University as an undergraduate. He credited Boston-based Stull & Lee, a minority-owned architectural firm, with giving him his first opportunity and enabling him to launch his own company three years later.

“You guys are making history. It’s important to recognize that,” he said.

Hotel Career Academy As Model

The CREST program has roots in CV Properties’ development of the Aloft and Element hotels in South Boston. CEO Richard Galvin partnered with Milton Benjamin, the founder and president of diversity consultants KAGE Growth Strategies, and UMass-Boston on a minority career academy that paved a path to hospitality and construction careers for many of 57 participating students.

An earlier model was launched at The Wharton School in 1980. The three-week LEAD program exposed high-performing high school students to careers in investment banking through guest lectures and visits to industry leaders.

“The key word is ‘quality,’” said Ric Ramsey, who ran the LEAD program from 2002 to 2012. “There are industries that have figured out that you need to go downstream (to schools), exposing them to who we are and what we do.”

Goldman Sachs, in particular, recruited high school juniors for internships and benefited during the Great Recession, Ramsey said.

“People were asking, ‘How is Goldman Sachs getting all the best interns?’ It had a lot to do with the fact that they started with grade 11,” he said.

Ramsey now is CEO of NEXUS Summer Programs, which recruits college-bound teens for two-week summer internships in digital media, entrepreneurship and commercial real estate. Industry associations pay the $60,000 fee for a two-week program including university housing and meals. NEXUS partnered with the national NAIOP organization on this summer’s program for 28 high school students, held at Georgia State University. Few of the participants had an accurate perception of the industry before, Ramsey said, with Wall Street and tech jobs stealing the limelight.

“We recruited under the umbrella that this is entrepreneurship,” he said. “That’s the only way we could get high school students to listen: that this is building the next city.” Approximately 60 percent of the group plans to pursue commercial real estate in college.