Real Estate Diversity: Calling Danica Patrick

Do You Reflect Your Clients? ... "Nationally, the $5 trillion commercial real estate industry has about 100,000 professionals. Of those, fewer than 1 percent are minorities, and that small percentage includes women." Is this correct?

It is according to Bennie Dixon, president of the Real Estate Executive Council, a group formed in Chicago two years ago to recruit minorities to the industry, (Atlanta Journal Constitution, Commercial Real Estate Pioneers, June 12, 2005).

But Dixon believes that "the industry, particularly the larger firms, may be changing. Many firms are recruiting minorities and trying to mirror Fortune 500 America, largely because their big clients are starting to demand it."

However, real estate has a long way to go compared to other professional service industries: "Of the 1.7 million accountants in the country, about 9 percent are African-American. Of the nearly 1 million American lawyers, blacks make up about 5 percent."

Of course, there are some phenomenally successful women real estate executives, and CREW (Commercial Real Estate Women) is a vibrant national organization. But they represent a small minority.

That's why it was fun to see Danica Patrick's electrifying performance in this year's Indianapolis 500. TV ratings went up 60% from the previous year. Apparently we like diversity in our entertainment.

Even NASCAR (and I'm a big NASCAR fan) has launched its own Drive for Diversity, recruiting women and minority drivers and pit crews. Imagine the excitement of a future NASCAR with women drivers.

Imagine diversity at Daytona. "The scale. The sensation. The concentration and compression of all that ambition and emotion and showmanship. The Super Bowl is an afternoon on a morphine drip by comparison." (Jeff MacGregor, Sunday Money: Speed! Lust! Madness! Death!)

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-- Peter Pike