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SCSU REAL ESTATE ALUMNI ASSOCIATION
NEWSLETTER
Volume 24, Issue 1 Spring 2016
Please join us for our upcoming events:
Happy Hour: We hope to see you for a summer happy hour at The Freehouse.
Happy Hour is Thursday, June 2nd at 4:00 pm. See you there!
Annual Golf Event: This year we will be golfing at Edinburgh
in Brooklyn Park. The event will be held on Monday, October 3rd. Please
watch for your invite to be emailed this summer.
Inside This Issue
who’s who: Brandon Doyle• 1,7, & 8
Board Member Contact • 2
2015 Winter Banquet• 2 & 3
Mooney’s Memos • 4
SCSU Headlines • 4
President’s Address • 5
Student President’s Address • 6
Supporting Future Huskies • 9
Movers and Shakers • 10
Stay Connected with us Online • 11
SCSU REAA NEWSLETTER•Spring 2016•Page 1
Let’s get to know Brandon
Doyle.
Brandon Doyle is a 2nd
generation real estate agent with
the Doyle Real Estate Team,
with RE/MAX Results, based in
Maple Grove, MN. He graduated
from the real estate program at
SCSU in December 2008 and is
currently enrolled in the University of St. Thomas Master
of Science in Real Estate program. In 2014, Brandon was
named an Inman Innovative Realtor of the year finalist, for
his use of aerial photography and neighborhood videos. He
has been featured in the Star Tribune twice for his
innovative real estate practices.
Brandon was one of the first real estate agents to utilize
digital showings for real estate, setting himself apart from
his less technology-oriented competition. Brandon is also
an innovator in the realm of data-driven business metrics
systems, having developed tracking formulas that
transform real estate business planning. He has presented
locally and nationally on his approach, and is eager to
share his knowledge of marketing and leveraging
technology in real estate to help others achieve their
business goals.
(Continued on page 7)
Who’s Who?: Brandon Doyle
2010 Board Members
President
Josh Arsenault,
Vice President
Jeremy Winter, Wells Fargo
Newsletter
Stacey Paulbeck, NorthMarq
Student Relations
Katie Serakos, Upland Real Estate
Ashley Moen, CB Richard Ellis
Alumni Banquet
Ashley Ferguson
Summer Event
Amanda Leathers
Dana Dose
Golf Event
Tony Rosell
Brad Prchal
Nick Ertz
Treasurer
Emily Becker
Scholarship
Jake Scheeler
Secretary
Ashley Moen
Web Master
Brett Hall
Membership
Jeremy Winter
Volunteer
Anne Donahue, CB Richard Ellis
Patty Loehr, Ryan Companies
Historian
Brent Adams, MMA Realty Capital
Commodore
Jesseka Doherty, Mid-America Real Estate
Floating Members:
Carl Awalt, Duke Realty
Stacy Houge, Marketplace Home Mortgage
www.scsurea.org
2016 BOARD MEMBERS
PRESIDENT
Mark Robinson, MidAmerica
VICE PRESIDENT
Dan Blonigen, City of Bloomington
SECRETARY
TREASURER
Jessica Lindquist, CBRE
NEWSLETTER
Brent Adams, TCF Bank
Liz Cody, Stuart Co.
STUDENT RELATIONS
Jake Scheller, JP Morgan Chase
Emily Culpepper, Ryan Companies
SOCIAL COMMITTEE
Eric Schaeffer, CBRE
Emily Culprpprt Ryan Companies
Charlie Hexum, MidAmerica
Chris Fehring, Edina Realty
SCHOLARSHIP
Jake Scheeler, JP Morgan Chase
SOCIAL MEDIA/WEB MASTER
Brandon Doyle, RE/MAX Results
COMMODORE
Jeff Horstmann, Horstmann Enterprises
FACULTY ADVISOR
Dr. Steve Mooney, St. Cloud State University
SCSU REAA NEWSLETTER•Spring 2016•Page 2
Get to know your SCSU REAA Board
The 2015 Winter Banquet was held at the shiny new Surly Brewery near Dinkytown,
Minneapolis. It featured a new spin on the annual event with a moderately successful
trivia game! As usual, the evening started with a social hour of Surly’s finest brews on
tap, followed by a sit down buffet style dinner and the trivia presentation hosted by Dr.
Steven Mooney, Jeff Horstmann and Mark Robinson.
The trivia game asked questions ranging from industry type to very serious SCSU related
topics. The audience was placed into strategic teams by table arrangement and asked to
give their best knowledgeable answer.
The evening proceeded with the alumni program lead by our outgoing 2015 President
Jeff Horstmann. Jeff spoke about the changes and improvements the board implemented
during 2015 and thanked the 2015 board members for their time and contribution to the
organization. In 2016, Jeff will assume the role of Commodore. Congratulations to all
this year’s award winners: Corporate Award – John Chau Appraisals, President’s Award
– Tony Rosell and Student Scholarship –Kyle Rafshol! Mark Robinson, who is the
association’s 2016 President, presented an introduction of the 2016 board members.
Mark highlighted his goals for the association in 2016 including continued improvement
of association events, alumni attendance along with the new silent auction held by the
student association in efforts to raise money for their spring trip. We continue to
encourage the involvement of students in industry events and the association’s goal to
raise an additional $10,000 to be added to the SCSU REAA Scholarship fund.
Thanks to all those alumni members who were able to attend and provide feedback to the
changes in the event this year. We hope all had an enjoyable time and are looking
forward to our 2016 SCSU REAA year. Please help our association stay strong by
encouraging fellow alumni to attend our events!
Charlie Hexum, Emily Culpepper, & Mitch Robertson – Winter Banquet Coordinators
Board Picture (left to right): Dan Blonigen, Jeff Horstmann, Mark Robinson, Jake Scheeler, Eric Sheaffer, Brent Adams, Emily Culpepper, Jessica Lindquist, Liz Cody
(not pictured: Brandon Doyle and Chris Fehring)
SCSU REAA NEWSLETTER•Spring 2016•Page 3
Corporate Award:
The 2015 Corporate Award was presented to Chau Appraisals. Chau Appraisals has
done an excellent job of hiring both alumni for full time careers as well as students
for summer internships. On top of helping alumni, they have sponsored a number of
alumni events, donated to the student scholarship fund, and John has participated in
multiple mentor banquets. Thank you, Chau Appraisals, for your continued support
and involvement with our organization and congratulations on receiving this year’s
Corporate Award!
President’s Award:
The 2015 President’s Award was presented to Tony Rosell of Roadrunner
Commercial. Tony, a 2001 program graduate, has served the association in many
different capacities through his career. Tony was on the board in from 2004 through
2010, and organized some of the highest attended golf events in the association’s
history. In addition to his board participation, Tony has been a familiar face at nearly
every alumni hosted event over the last decade, showing true commitment to the
organization. Congratulations, Tony, on receiving this year’s President’s Award!
-Mark Robinson
Scholarship Award:
Kyle Rafshol was selected to be this year’s scholarship recipient of $1,000 which
was awarded at the 2016 Winter Banquet held at the phenomenal Surly Brewing Co.
in Minneapolis. Kyle’s active participation in the student real estate association,
leadership in serving as REA President and spearheading the NAIOP University
Challenge, strong academic performance, and frequent presence at alumni
networking events has not gone unnoticed. His persistent pursuit of greatness in all
that he does will no doubt lead him to future professional and personal success.
Congratulations, Kyle!
-Jake Scheeler, REAA Scholarship Chair
Baseball Team Poised for Historic Finish
SCSU Students Honor Earth Day by Cleaning up Campus
SCSU Takes Third in Regional Cyber Defense Competition
For more information:
St. Cloud State University
SCSU University Chronicle
SCSU Events Calendar
SCSU REAA NEWSLETTER•Spring 2016•Page 4
Mooney’s Memos
Spring semester is drawing to a close. My last final is tomorrow and graduation is Friday. The
students are coming over to the house tomorrow for a little picnic, so things are winding down.
We had a great spring semester. The NAIOP team was outstanding and Kelly and I were very
proud of their work. The Winter Banquet was very fun at a very welcoming venue.
Kate and I are actually starting a very busy summer after graduation. We are not teaching
summer classes for the first time ever. We thought that might give us a little down time, but
that was a mistake. We start out by leaving for China next Monday and we will get back the
following Sunday. We will be spending 5 days at Burntside Lodge in Ely over Memorial Day
weekend. Soon after that we are off to
Tacoma to visit Tim and his family, Ali his
wonderful wife, Jacob 3 and Leah 1. Then
it is down to Huntsville to visit Aaron and
his family over the 4th of July. Kate may be
teaching a class in Finland for three weeks
at the end of July and beginning of August.
Then the students from Binhai arrive in St.
Cloud on August 13th to begin their two year
Finance major at SCSU. I think that is
almost everything so it should be a fun
packed time.
I hope all is going well with you and yours and I hope you all have a great summer both
professionally and personally. Take care, drop me an email when you get a chance. While
busy, I would always accept an invitation to play a round of golf with you or in a tournament.
Steve
SCSU REAA NEWSLETTER•Spring 2016•Page 5
Alumni President Address
Fellow alumni,
Spring is in the air (off and on) and the SCSU Real Estate Alumni Association is off to another great
year. As your 2016 President I wanted to go over our past successes as well as what we intend to
accomplish in the remainder of the year.
First I want to thank our board for hosting a great winter banquet this past March at Surly Brewery.
This year we created a unique trivia competition, with each table competing for prizes by answering
5 rounds of industry trivia spanning all real estate categories. With great engagement and
enthusiasm from the attendees, I suspect this is an event format that we will perfect and use a few
more times in coming years. Thanks again to Dan Blonigen, Emily Culpepper, Jessica Lindquist,
Charlie Hexum, and Eric Sheaffer for putting this program together.
We have two more great events yet to come in 2016. We have a happy hour scheduled for June 2nd
at Freehouse in the north loop of Minneapolis. The really exciting part though is the FREE BEER
for dues paying alumni, who will receive two free drink tickets at the happy hour. We’re also in the
beginning stages of planning our 2016 golf event, which will happen in October at Edinburgh. I’ll
look forward to seeing many of you at both events!
One area of the organization the board has been looking to improve is how to use the association as
a better venue for fellow alumni to connect and do business together as well as help each other, the
students, and recent graduates. On top of providing more engaging events with higher attendance,
we also want to make sure that the website, the database of alumni on our website, and how we
communicate with alumni is the best and most effective it can be. To that end, we have given the
website a bit of a face lift, updated the database to be more user friendly and provide more data—
including a profile, and converted all future correspondence to be done through an e-mail service
connected directly to the database. I highly encourage you to visit the website and update your
profile if you haven’t yet so that you’ll be easier to find by other alumni and students. A HUGE
thank you to our new Social Media / Website Chair, Brandon Doyle, who has spearheaded all of
these improvements—we could not have done any of this without him.
Lastly, I want to invite you, the alumni reading this, to get involved with the organization as best as
you can. This could simply be attending more alumni events (did I mention free beer in June?),
taking a position on the board (see me for details), or sending us feedback on any way you think the
association could improve--be it our events, involvement, the website, or anything else. As the
saying goes, “you get what you put in”.
Thank you for all of your support and I’ll look forward to seeing you at an event or two in 2016!
Mark Robinson
SCSU Real Estate Alumni President
Spring semester has been a good one for the REA as we have been busy with a
variety of events in addition to our meetings, speakers, and socials. The first
thing that I would like to touch on is this year’s NAIOP university challenge.
This year our team was comprised of Drew Rafshol, Jeremy Grittner, Kyle
Soderman, Justin Puetz, Brittany Schmoll, and myself. The site that we were
proposing to develop was the south tower site at the former Pentagon Park, now
known as The Link. Over ten weeks we worked collaboratively to construct a
development proposal and financial analysis for the highest and best use of the
subject site. Ultimately, through the use of an in–depth market analysis,
evaluating a substantial amount of relevant articles and market reports, countless
meetings, emails and calls with alumni, and many hours meeting and
deliberating as a team, we concluded that the construction of a 300,000 SF class
A medical office tower, a 250 key mixed-use hotel, structured parking, and 4
acres of green space was the highest and best use of the site.
Although we are proud of our proposal and presented it with the confidence we
believed necessary to win this year’s university challenge, unfortunately we
failed to make the final round of presentations. I would like to thank all the
alumni that took the time to meet, talk, email, and review our work along the
way. I can truly say that without all of you we would not be able to compete at
the level that is necessary to be successful in this competition.
In addition to the NAIOP project, we had both a spring tour, our annual spring trip, and the alumni banquet. For this year’s
spring tour, we visited KW Commercial, Cushman&Wakefield/Northmarq, Diversified Real Estate, and Vanquish AP which
was both informative and enjoyable to see different shops within the Minneapolis area.
For this year’s spring trip, ten of us from the REA ventured out to Denver, CO. We were greeted with beautiful weather,
gratifying office visits, a Rockies game, and even a trip to Colorado Springs to check out Pikes Peak. I believe that I can speak
for the group when I say that this trip was the highlight of spring semester, and would like to thank all that contributed with
referrals and contributions to the silent auction that we held at this year’s alumni banquet.
For our final meeting of the year, we took the chance to reflect on all the events, socials, tours, and all other things we did as a
group in hopes of being able to achieve continuous improvement in the REA for years to come. Finally, we held elections to for
the coming year and I would like to congratulate the following board members to their elected positions for Fall 2016;
President – Jeremy Grittner, Vice President – Kyle Soderman, Treasurer – Ryan Connolly, Secretary – Paige Morton, and
Social Chair – Jordan Campbell.
Overall it’s been a wonderful spring semester for the REA and we are excited for what is to come in the following years. Thank
you all again for your continuous support and contributions to our mission here on campus.
Best,
Kyle Rafshol
Student President
SCSU REAA NEWSLETTER•Spring 2016•Page 6
Students at Winter Banquet
SCSU REAA NEWSLETTER•Spring 2016 •Page 7
Who’s Who?: Brandon Doyle (Continued from page 1)
What made you decide to get into real estate?
I grew up around real estate; my father, who is now my business partner, has been a residential real estate agent for
the past 18 years. At the time, I decided I didn’t want to be doing open houses on weekends or showing homes in the
evenings. I was still interested in how deals got done and all that goes into the broad topic of real estate.
Describe your experience at SCSU.
After arriving at St. Cloud State, I started almost as a junior with only a few credits shy of completing my generals.
Coincidentally, I was living next door to Mark Robinson in the dorms. We quickly determined we were both in the
real estate program. I eventually moved in with him when he bought a house up there. While I was attending school I
got involved as a member in the Student Real Estate Alumni Association. The networking events were very impactful.
The mentorship banquets were always very beneficial to me, too. After graduation, I’ve returned several years to pay
it forward for students.
Fun fact about Brandon.
I was Blizzard, the Husky Hockey mascot, for all the games the entire time I
was there. I started midway through my first year and continued it until 2009.
So, if anybody was ever at a hockey game between those dates, it was me.
I graduated from SCSU in December 2008, probably the worst time to
graduate in the real estate program. At that time, I kind of regretted not doing
an internship in college. There just weren’t many job postings in the real
estate industry. Several entry level positions required years of experience, a
bit of a catch 22 if you ask me. Those of us whom had recently graduated
were competing with other experienced people who had been laid off for
fewer jobs in real estate industry. I ended up spending three years in the hotel
industry before deciding to get my real estate license.
What is it like working in residential real estate sales?
Unlike what you see on Million Dollar Listing and Love it or List it, the reality is that selling residential real estate
is hard work. 50% of licensed agents won’t sell a single home this year, and about 85% of newly licensed agents don’t
make it past two years. The barriers to entry are low, and the attrition rate is very high. When I got into the business, I
was determined to be successful so I spent a lot of time studying what top agents were doing, as you may know suc-
cess leaves clues. I determined there really is no right or wrong way to succeed, though there was a common theme of
hard work, dedication, and consistency across the board with those whom had already made it.
(Continued on page 8)
(continued from page 7)
Tell us about your book that was just published.
Mindset, Metrics & Methods isn’t a get rich quick in real estate book, it’s actually quite opposite. There are a lot of
those out there. Ours is more focused on marketing strategies you can practice over the next year and a year from
now. It helps agents answers questions like where is my marketing money going and where is my business coming
from? Then provides strategies for tracking all sales with source of leads and then paired against goals. If you have
done what you said you were going to do, you will likely have more successes. However, you are not guaranteed this
at all. It’s a slow but steady growing approach.
Do you have any parting advice for our readers?
I’m a huge advocate of lifelong learning. After graduation, I’ve read several books, news articles, attended conven-
tions, and gone beyond required continuing education minimums. The world is constantly changing and you don’t
want to be left behind. Another thing I believe; you will never get anywhere in life without hard work and the support
of other people. I would have never written this book if it wasn’t for the people who supported me financially through
Kickstarter or with their words of encouragement. My business depends on referrals, we do this by putting people first
and concentrating on helping others. As much as business can be a numbers game, having a transactional mindset is
very shortsighted, it is better to focus on building a network of people whom know, like, and trust you. Remember a
relationship lasts a lifetime and its worth much more than a short term gain. That’s why it is always important to do
the right thing, even if it is at your detriment, in the long run it will be worth it.
Brent Adams—Who’s Who
Who’s Who?: Brandon Doyle
SCSU REAA NEWSLETTER•Spring 2016 •Page 8
Be sure to check out Brandon’s book!
SCSU REAA NEWSLETTER•Spring 2016•Page 9
The Alumni Association purchased a set of
bean bag boards to be used at alumni ac-
tivities, student recruitment events and
golf hole sponsorships throughout the year.
The boards will be available to any dues
paying member. Contact the Alumni Board
for reservations.
Dan Blonigan
HELP SUPPORT THE FUTURE OF REAL ESTATE...
MAKE A DONATION TO THE SCSU REAA SCHOLARSHIP FUND
In order to spread the opportunities for scholarships around a bit more, we are proud to announce that we will now also be
awarding a $500 scholarship to a deserving recipient at the Mentor Banquet held in the fall of each year. We are also proud of
the fact that we were finally able to increase the Winter Banquet award to $1,000 as was the original intent when the fund was
created. The awarding of multiple annual scholarships is only possible with the continuing generous scholarship contributions
made by our amazing alumni group. Thank you all for the support, and keep the donations coming!
Donating is simple. Just follow the link below to make a donation via PayPal:
DONATE NOW
Donations can also be made via check and sent by mail to the following address:
SCSU Real Estate Alumni Association
7455 France Ave S
PMB 274
Edina, MN 55435
We’ve made it through—now we have the opportunity to give something back to the program that helped prepare us to become
the successful real estate specialists that we are today!
THANK YOU FOR THE CONTINUED SUPPORT!
SCSU REAA NEWSLETTER•Spring 2016•Page 10
Let us know!
Update your contact information
online at www.scsurea.org.
Jon Hicks—Principal Appraiser, City of Minneapolis
Jessica Lindquist—Real Estate Manager at CBRE
We want to extend a warm welcome to our newest alumni members,
congratulations on all of your hard work!
Justin Puetz
Haley Hendrickson
Drew Rafshol
Kyle Rafshol
SCSU REAA members are on the move!
To be featured in the next issue’s Movers and Shakers section, please click here.
Now that we've made some updates to our Alumni Website and Database, it is the perfect time to make sure you are
connected.
To verify you are connected follow the steps below:
1) Go to scsureaa.org/login and Log In
2) If you cannot Log In or you Forgot Your Password, select "Forgot Password" and you will receive an email to re-
set your password information.
3) However, If you cannot Log In or get the following message "We can't find an account registered with that address
or username",
simply go to http://www.scsureaa.org/register/ and register!
4) Once registered you will receive an activation email. Click on activation link once and you are good to go!
*If you no longer have access to your previous email address, feel free to email
SCSU REAA NEWSLETTER•Spring 2016•Page 11
We have updated our Alumni Database! Are you connected?We have updated our Alumni Database! Are you connected?We have updated our Alumni Database! Are you connected?