We have a new President and CEO of Coldwell Banker Real Estate home office in the United States. His name is Budge Huskey known as Budge and pronounced ‘Buudge’. He has taken over from Jim Gillespie, whose remarkable 37 years of outstanding leadership and service to the brand is now being recognised in a newly created role.Jim has been rewarded as one of America’s most admired CEO’s by career bliss.com. We all wish Jim all the best and congratulate him as he moves into an advisory capacity.Why is this important to Bermuda? Because it demonstrates the importance of strong leadership and the impact that one individual can have on their chosen industry.Although we are affiliated with the global brand of Coldwell Banker we are locally owned and operated and feel strongly that real estate in Bermuda remains a solid investment.For the first time since the middle 90s we enter the New Year (2013) with incredible optimism based on a solid foundation of local housing indicators and an impressive year-over-year performance of real estate in the US; which our market typically emulates. Here are some great accomplishments which I feel very proud to be a part of:Ÿ Coldwell Banker led the industry in the RealTrends top 200Ÿ Coldwell Banker sales professionals dominated the RealTrends/Wall Street Journal top 1000 agents yet again in the metric — that means the most sales volumeŸ Coldwell Banker Previews International recorded more than 75 million in luxury sales … every single day of the yearŸ A milestone was reached of 50,000 videos online at www.coldwellbanker.comŸ Coldwell Banker University’s learning platform was ranked by Training Magazine as #1 among all real estate companiesBudge Huskey believes that one should ALWAYS outperform the market in any business climate and this proved true in 2012 and his expectation for 2013 is the same.He quotes — these are all of your accomplishments and occurs because of the spirit found in this network. Each of you have played your individual role in reshaping the early recovery of the real estate industry. Progress has truly been made one sale at a time, many of them with incredible difficultly, but you are the ones who saw them through. For this ... you have my deepest respect and gratitude.These wonderful words from, I think, an incredible leader encourages positive vibes and leadership in this industry which I have been for almost 27 years.I have not met Mr Budge Huskey personally, but he certainly sounds very relaxed and he dresses accordingly.Following are a little history from this amazing new CEO which is worth sharing because it shows how much he is like you and me … and that means we are all capable of being great leaders.Budge was raised in a Real Estate family. His father had a company for over 60 years so one of his first jobs was emptying the trash and putting up signs. After college he started selling with his father, and did so for 14 years. His father’s entrepreneurial spirit, work ethic, and genuine concern for his people and customers ultimately shaped the person he became. He then went out on his own as a branch manager for CB in Orlando. He knew that staying with Coldwell Banker he would find the most professional and trained in the business. It clearly proved to be the right choice.By 2004 Budge was the President of the Coldwell Banker NRT companies in Florida and in 2007 he became the Executive Vice President of the Southern Region for NRT.....overseeing a wonderfully talented team with almost 10 billion dollars of annual sales volume.Then one day came the call from the then CEO Jim Gillespie and the rest is history.I believe that when the market picks up in the United States, that the big wave will come over the Atlantic Ocean to Bermuda. I also believe that Bermudians now have an enormous amount of confidence in Bermuda and its future and it has reflected in real estate.In recent weeks, there has been a lot of optimism that the local economy will start to improve.Following positive growth in North America and stabilisation in some of the European markets, we in Bermuda have seen improvements the market. The changes in non-Bermudian license fee along with the PRC’s license fee has made a significant improvement as well.No matter what the objective, whether you are buying or selling a home; or looking at a home improvement product. Find a person with great leadership skills to help you out and you are sure to be a success!Coldwell Banker Bermuda Realty’s Fiona Hatfield can be contacted at fhatfield@brcl.bm or 247-1813.