Robert L. Ward, CCIM, has been active in the real estate industry for over 40 years and has been an invaluable asset to the CCIM Institute though his many contributions to its education program.

Bob began his career in residential sales and moved into commercial/investment brokerage. His career experience includes managing the full-service commercial-investment brokerage division for a large real estate company; heading the income property sales department of Merrill Lynch Commercial Services in Orlando; and becoming a partner in a shopping center development company, which developed approximately 15 centers ranging in size from 60,000 sq. ft. to 180,000 sq. ft. during his tenure.

Using his work experience, Bob became a CCIM Institute instructor in 1972, teaching both of the two investment courses available at that time. Since then, as the program expanded, he has taught almost every course offered.

Bob is a past President of the CCIM Institute and served as a senior instructor in the CCIM Education Program.  In 1986, Bob was the recipient of the first Instructor of the Year award from the CCIM Institute, and in 1988, he was also honored as the recipient of the Victor L. Lyon Award for outstanding contributions to the CCIM program, and the J.W. Levine Distinguished Service Award. Most recently he received the Exceptional Contribution Award for his participation in the development of the education program’s software.

Bob has co-authored two textbooks, Investment Real Estate & Taxation and Analyzing Real Estate Opportunities, which are used by various universities in their real estate programs.

Bob is also the past President of the Orlando Area Board of Realtors® and a past recipient of that Board's Realtor® of the Year award. He currently owns his own company, Ward Consulting Services LLC in Oviedo, FL, which specializes in income property brokerage, where he is involved in brokerage and consulting.

Though Bob has had a passion for education since beginning his CCIM Institute career, the senior instructor and former Institute president never thought he would become such an integral part of the Institute’s education department. Ward has been through four or five major rewrites of both individual courses and the entire curriculum, including the current redesign and rewrite, he says.

While the CCIM courses have been his main focus, he also has set his sights on implementing an education program that goes beyond the designation curriculum.

“The idea of creating post-designation educational opportunities really appealed to me,” Ward says. Early on, he formulated ideas for a non-designation program designed for industry professionals — both designees and non-designees — to further their education.

In 2007, the Institute’s non-designation education program was born. Honoring Ward’s dedication and overall hard work with the education department, the new program appropriately was named The Robert L. Ward Center for Real Estate Studies.

The classes differ from the normal CCIM track, Ward says. The center’s mission is to provide the best commercial and investment real estate education and services and offer a competitive edge to those who take advantage of them. While the designation course instructors focus on key principles of the designation program, the Ward Center presents other industry-related topics such as leasing strategies, advanced market analysis, and cost segregation, Ward explains.

The Ward Center also currently offers two-day workshops on effective negotiation strategies. The intensive, two-day workshop provides critical strategies for effective negotiations, including advanced negotiation theories, stakeholder interest analysis, tactics for presenting offers, strategies for client acceptance, understanding risks and consequences, methods for presenting counteroffers, and closing techniques, among other topics. The workshop incorporates practical applications of the interest-based negotiation model through interactive role plays and a commercial real estate case study.

“The specialized classes offer material appealing to different groups, [and they are] classes that aren’t offered in the designation curriculum,” he says. Most classes are open to anyone, but some designee-only classes will be offered to provide networking opportunities.

Currently, Ward occasionally teaches for the Institute as well as for various other commercial real estate organizations. In the future, he hopes to serve on the Ward Center’s advisory board. As for his involvement with the Institute, he plans to work on the designation curriculum redesign and rewrite project, which is scheduled to be fully implemented by mid-2010, and will continue to “hang around as long as the Institute will have me.”