Local AI Chapter golf tournament today. I'm unloading my gear from the car and the pool cart pulls up to pick me up and deliver several to the club house. Inside the pool cart is Grayson Moss!
Everyone in Houston's appraisal profession knows Grayson. Started appraising in the mid 1940's. Served in darn near every capacity in the local, regional, and national AI. Several years national chairman of the ethics committee, probably his strongest of many strengths. Grayson is now 82.
I told the pool driver that I wasn't worthy to ride in such esteemed company, and we all laughed. Up at the club I learned that Grayson was a late addition and was added to my foursome. What luck! They had him in single cart since the foursome had been paired, but I wouldn't have any of that. I added his clubs to my cart bumped SBH (Senior Bright Horse) to the cart by himself. SBH was the MC for the event anyway and needed to return to the clubhouse for the awards ceremony later in the day.
I met Grayson in the 1980's when I was taking my AI classes. Click below to read on . . .
He was in his last years of active national committee work. Later, he would visit my offices when I was a one man operation. I had leased an office to an MAI, and Grayson used that fellow as a sub contractor to do the detail work of some large and complicated lease analysis of the Galleria in Houston, a Gerald Hines property. It was an annual assignment and took a couple of months work on their part, but Grayson would always have time to chat and drink a glass of water....no coffee for that guy!
Grayson has been retired for four years now...but what a time we had talking about the growth of the city of Houston and the things we each did in those times...He had a hand in appraising half the buildings in downtown Houston, had a lock on the Galleria Project for 30 plus years, and had many stories to share. Again. But hearing them is like hearing the first time.
Tales such as the seven year appraisal project that he completed for the Hines Interests at the end of that fellow's storied career. Grayson headed a team of appraisers, he hired different experts to handle different developments and techniques...and it took $20 million dollars of consulting fees to complete all of the portfolio that was included. Grayson joked that the assignment was his retirement 401K, and I'm sure it was!
Each story that Grayson shared with me, I asked him to repeat to the three BH (Bright Horses) who are young members of my team and who made up that foursome, then fivesome for the day. Hopefully they'll appreciate what a rare experience they had. I'll be sure to reinforce it in the coming days,
We didn't win the scramble, came in tied for fourth, out of the money. But the time spent with one of legends of our profession was priceless!
Never miss those opportunities.
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