We would like to extend our sincerest congratulations to Brandi Cole, the Community Manager of San Jose Apartments, for her recent acquisition of her CAM designation through our local apartment association, The Apartment Association of Greater Orlando.
The Certified Apartment Manager (CAM) designation, which is offered by the National Apartment Association and it’s affiliates, assist Community Managers with their financial management skills, ability to report financial performance, increase the community’s Net Operating Income and improve management of on-site staff. The CAM designation requires the below nine courses to be completed within a twelve month period totaling over 56 hours of material:
- Management of Residential Issues
- Legal Responsibilities
- Human Resource Management
- Fair Housing
- Marketing
- Property Maintenance for Managers
- Risk Management
- Financial Management
- Research, Analysis and Evaluation
In addition to successfully completing the above coursework you must have worked in the apartment industry for at least 12 months and pass a comprehensive four hour 190 question exam in order to obtain the CAM designation. Acquiring your CAM designation is no easy task!
As you can see, this achievement takes many hours of dedication and hard work. We applaud Brandi on her designation and her desire to further her knowledge in the apartment industry. Congratulations Brandi!!
The RAM Compliance division held a team meeting on June 25th and 26th at the Panama City Corporate office. The entire team including Wendi LeMense, Sonya Knight, Nikki Winecoff, Nadine Jean-Noel, Denise Medina, Eric Sangster, Kelsey Brites and the two newest RAM Specialists, Barbara Loughner and Yasi Otero, met for OneSite and Tax Credit Compliance training and some good old fashioned team building. Barbara, previously the manager at Magnolia Pointe Apartments in Panama City, FL is now a Compliance and OneSite Specialist, devoting half of her time to the Compliance Division and the other half assisting in the OneSite Division. We are happy to have her assistance. Yasi comes to us from Seminole Ridge Apartments in Orlando, FL where she worked as a Leasing Agent. She has a great deal of knowledge with Tax Credit Compliance and has hit the ground running. She is assisting Eric in the Orlando office and he is very happy to have her and so are we. It was a great opportunity to introduce Barbara and Yasi to the division and to give them some insight into just how everything works in our department.
Being spread out from Miami to Orlando to Charlotte, NC, we rarely have an opportunity to have the entire group together so we all enjoyed this opportunity to spend time together and train on OneSite and a variety of compliance topics and issues. As you are probably aware, maintaining compliance for our extensive portfolio of apartment communities, each with its own unique layered funding and regulation requirements, is not an easy task. There are many gray areas and each community has its own set of requirements. Nothing in this business is uniform. Fortunately, our Compliance Specialists are top notch and they have an excellent understanding of what is required to maintain compliance. They also provide outstanding support to the site staff and are here to assist them in any way possible.
Of course our team meeting wasn’t all work. We had a great time taking a sunset sailboat cruise, visiting our beautiful beaches and sampling the local fare eating at Spinnaker Beach Club, J. Michaels and Schooners. We all enjoyed our time together and everyone went home re-energized with a better understanding of OneSite and how it relates to Compliance, as well as how we can continue to support the on-site staff and assure that our communities stay in compliance.
February 12, 2014 – Regional Manager Meeting – Panama City Corporate Office
“Shoot for the moon! Even if you miss, you’ll land among the stars!” Les Brown
On Wednesday, February 12th a Regional Manager Meeting was held in the Panama City Corporate office. All regionals were in attendance as well as Regional Vice Presidents. They all arrived safe and sound Tuesday evening, despite weather issues, delayed flights and lost luggage! The joys of traveling – but these “stars” arrived with smiles on their faces and eager to work and play with their fellow RA comrades!
The meeting opened with a welcome from Kerri Toth and Denise Ost, followed by a discussion on miscellaneous topics.
Then came the “fun”, a team building game called “Saving Joey!” Everyone was divided into groups of two and each group was given a small clear plastic cup placed upside down with a gummy Life Saver under the cup. A gummy worm was lying across the cup, along with a swizzle stick and two paperclips. The cup represented the capsized boat, the life saver was the life jacket, the swizzed stick was the oar and last but not least the worm was Joey! Joey’s boat had capsized in the rough seas and his life jacket was trapped underneath his boat. His oar was his only means of movement to get back to land safe and sound, but it had fallen into the rough waters! Joey now sat perched on top of the capsized boat and he needed help. It was up to the teams to flip his boat over and get him back inside with his life jacket ON him and his oar lying across the top of the boat.
Sounds easy right? Well here is the catch! Read more
