| The Massachusetts Association of Realtors has selected its four annual award winners for 2015. The winners were honored at the association’s professional awards reception, held in conjunction with the association’s 2015 Conference and Tradeshow at the Hilton DoubleTree in Danvers, on Sept. 28 and 29.
Banker & Tradesman congratulates Eileen Jonah-Daly, Sandra Berkenbush, Robert Nahigian and Kevin Sears on these well-deserved honors.
Realtor of the Year
Eileen Jonah-Daly, a Realtor at Annmarie Jonah Reaaltors in Lynn, is the Massachusetts Realtor of the Year for 2015.
The state’s Realtor of the Year is selected annually from among the nominees of the 15 local associations of Realtor and more than 20,100 Realtors in Massachusetts. Judging for the award is based on service to the local community, business accomplishments and service to the Realtor organization on the local, state and national levels.
Jonah-Daly is the 2015 president of the North Shore Association of Realtors (NSAR). She serves on the NSAR Finance and Budget and Orientation committees and was a member of the NSAR board of directors from 2011 to 2013.
At the state level, Jonah-Daly serves on the board of directors and is a member of Government Affairs, FPC and Forms committees.
On the national level, she is the Federal Political Coordinator for Rep. Seth Moulton.
Jonah-Daly has been a Realtor since 2005.
Good Neighbor Award
MAR’s 2015 Good Neighbor award winner Sandra Berkenbush with MAR President Corinne Fitzgerald.
Sandra Berkenbush of Stone Ridge Properties in Newburyport was named MAR’s 2015 Good Neighbor Award winner for her work on behalf of The Cruise, an annual dinner cruise on the Merrimack River that raises money for cancer research. The Good Neighbor Award recognizes Realtors for their community activism.
In 1991, Berkenbush’s 11-year-old daughter was being treated for osteosarcoma at the Dana Farber/Boston Children’s Cancer and Blood Disorders Center. She was so thankful for her daughter’s recovery that in 1994 she launched The Cruise to raise money for the Claudia Adams Barr Program in Innovative Basic Cancer Research at Dana-Farber Cancer Institute. The Barr program supports cornerstone science research in its earliest stages, providing researchers with critical resources to test their leading-edge ideas. This past spring, Dana-Farber recognized Berkenbush with a Dana-Farber Marathon Challenge Lifetime Achievement award for her work with The Cruise and contributing $250,000 to the Barr program.
Real Estate Educator of the Year
Robert Nihigian, MAR’s 2015 Real Estate Educator of the Year award winner, with Annie Blatz, president-elect of MAR.
Robert Nahigian, state-approved continuing education instructor and commercial broker/owner of Auburndale Realty Co. in Newton, was named 2015 Massachusetts Real Estate Educator of the Year.
Besides being a full-time commercial real estate corporate broker and real estate counselor, Nahigian writes, designs and teaches real estate courses and programs for state and local Realtor associations across the country. On the national level, in 2012 Nahigian became faculty of CoreNet Global, the Association for Real Estate Directors of the Fortune 1000. He was also appointed a visiting assistant professor for Realtor University’s master’s program.
Nahigian has been appointed to the National Association of Realtor’s Commercial Speaker’s Bureau. He is also a senior instructor with the Society of Industrial and Office Realtors.
At the state level, Nahigian serves on the Massachusetts Real Estate Licensing Board’s Education Subcommittee to develop specific commercial real estate courses for CE licensees state-wide. He has exclusively developed and revised over 30 commercial courses for Massachusetts licensees and recently developed a CE-approved course on supply chain real estate decision-making.
This the second time he has received this award; the first was in 2011.
Distinguished Service Award
Kevin Sears (left) receives the Milton H. Shaw Distinguished Service Award from Gill Woods, past president of MAR.
Kevin Sears, a broker and partner of Sears Real Estate in Springfield, was the recipient of MAR’s Milton H. Shaw Distinguished Service Award for 2015.
First awarded in 1984, the Milton H. Shaw Distinguished Service Award is presented annually to one MAR member or staff executive who has demonstrated outstanding leadership abilities and volunteered countless hours of personal time to serve on state association committees and participate in MAR activities.
A Realtor since 1994, Sears served as MAR president in 2010 and secretary-treasurer in 2008. Sears was also chairman of the Government Affairs Committee in 2007, the chairman of the Finance Committee in 2008 and has been a MAR director for 10 years. Sears served two consecutive one-year terms as chairman of the state Association’s Realtor Political Action Committee (RPAC) from 2005 to 2006. He currently serves on the RPAC board of trustees. In 2006, he was named the Massachusetts Realtor of the Year.
On the national level, Sears has served the Realtor organization as a federal political coordinator to Bay State Rep. Richard Neal (D-Springfield). He served as a trustee of the Realtor Political Action Committee of the National Association of Realtors (NAR), served as a member of NAR’s board of directors in 2008 and 2009, and participated in NAR’s home build to support Habitat for Humanity’s Operation Home Delivery, an initiative to construct new homes for hurricane victims on the Gulf Coast. He also served on NAR’s Realtor Political Involvement Committee from 2003-2008. Sears graduated as a member of NAR’s 2007/2008 inaugural Leadership Academy class.
On the local level, he was a director and chairman of the Government Affairs Committee for the Realtor Association of the Pioneer Valley (RAPV) in 2006 and has been a member of the committee since 1994. A past president of his local association, he also is a former treasurer and secretary of the RAPV, and a past chairman of its Finance and Strategic Planning committees. Additionally, he was a member and former chairman of the RAPV’s Communications Technology Task Force, and has served on the association’s RPAC sub-committee since 1994.
