Back when I wrote that Rebecca Jensen had taken the CEO position at MRED, LLC. I failed to mention that they had already announced an interim President and CEO, Joseph Szurgyi. Joseph has been with UtahRealEstate.com since 2007 and most recently served as their Director of Operations.
But the search for a replacement CEO is underway.
Rebecca steps in to a very different gig at MRED. At UtahRealEstate.com she basically ran a software company (due to their proprietery MLS system). At MRED they have a MLS vendor, dynaconnections. Since dynaconections is a relatively smaller player I think it will be a great match for Rebecca. They always rank very high on customer satisfaction surveys.
It got me thinking if UtahRealEstate.com will stay on the path with hosting their own “home-grown” MLS system. Then, this morning, I received the final job description from UtahRealEstate.com for the search of a new CEO, and it states,
“UtahRealEstate.com considers itself a technology company and provides MLS services; and it is not mandatory that the CEO be a programmer or have extensive programming experience.”
So that seems to confirm that they do want to stay independent of an MLS vendor. Certainly their are great examples of this happening successfully out there, TheMLS/CLAW, RMLS, MLSPIN and IRES, come to mind.
The bigger takeaway for me is that this is not just another MLS Exec gig. And whomever takes over Rebecca’s position has some tough Anne Klein’s to fill.
Thanks for the shout out about IRES, Greg – and congrats to Rebecca and MRED on new chapters in 2015!
Thanks for the kind words, Greg & Lauren!
I’m excited for this next chapter, but will miss many things in Utah, including the software development aspect of the job. It’s nice to be able to wander to the back of the office (affectionately named “The Cave”) and be actively involved with the creation of new technologies that we know Utah Realtors’ will love. I don’t think that aspect of the company will change anytime soon because it’s been incredibly effective.
I’ve had a chance recently to use dynaConnections’ system, with great success (just signed the contract for my new Illinois home today, in fact). Many MRED subscribers have told me how much they like their system and their up-time stats are impressive. I look forward to peaking under the hood, I’m sure I’ll learn a lot!