celebrating 10 Years

HAREB at 10
Donald S. Sheets

Cynthia asked me for my greatest HAREB moment. I made the mistake of actually thinking about it.

One moment? After ten years? That seemed a rather unreasonable assignment.

I started revisiting the speakers, meetings, personalities, places, traditions, and assortment of characters who have passed through our orbit. Before long, I had a substantial collection of memories yet no convincing answer to Cynthia's question.

What became clear was that my greatest HAREB moment wasn't a moment at all. It was the accumulation of many moments. And, as it turns out, there's quite a story in that.

I remember the early meetings: a small collection of Harvard alumni, drawn together by a shared interest in real estate, ambition, and a healthy measure of experimentation. We agreed to figure things out as we went.

Oh, and I remember the extraordinarily loud doors in Loeb Hall, seemingly engineered to announce every late arrival with the subtlety of an explosion. Elizabeth Mack's bold yet sensible footwear. Scott McClain's blazer, with its Harvard-crest lining revealed when someone knew to ask. These personalities became part of the fabric of our gatherings, often in ways that had nothing to do with the formal agenda.

Not necessarily the details you'd expect in a Harvard anniversary retrospective.  They stay with you because they make a collection of professional acquaintances feel like something more human.

Of course, we also hosted extraordinary thought leaders. Some challenged our assumptions and most introduced perspectives well outside our corners of the real estate world. More often than not, we’d hear something that stayed with us long after forgetting the title of the presentation. I think about the intellectual range of those conversations, and the privilege of hearing from people generous enough to share not just their expertise but their judgment.

I remember just as much about what happened around those presentations: conversations before meetings began, exchanges that continued afterward, the unexpected introduction, the dinner that ran long. Especially, the people you found yourself seeking out at the next gathering.  Not because you needed anything from them; instead, because you genuinely wanted to see them.

Somewhere along the way, attendance became less about the agenda and more about the people. That's a rather meaningful transition.

Then there were the traditions, some shared and others personal. I developed one of my own around JP Licks. Every Thursday evening after the reception, I make my way there for two scoops. Part indulgence, part ritual, and always an opportunity to retrace familiar steps.  It’s become a pocket of time to reflect on the evening's conversations and appreciate returning to Harvard.

I think, too, of Bruce Batkin and his perpetual curiosity.  Such memories probably wouldn't survive the scrutiny of an official institutional history, but they're indispensable to the experience of having been there. I suspect everyone who has spent time with HAREB has their own collection, some profound and others wonderfully ridiculous.

Both matter. Institutions preserve the formal record—the dates, speakers, leadership, and milestones—but people preserve something different. They remember how it felt.

That human dimension extends to another part of HAREB particularly meaningful to me: our engagement with students. I've long believed that those of us fortunate enough to have established careers should remember the people who made time for us when we were younger. Not because they were obligated to or stood to benefit, but because someone recognized potential, offered perspective, made an introduction, or simply listened.

HAREB has created opportunities for those exchanges to happen naturally, and the benefit isn't necessarily one-directional. Students bring curiosity, ambition, and perspectives that challenge our comfortable assumptions. They remind us what it feels like to be at the beginning of something. 

Then came March 2020. The familiar rhythms disappeared, gatherings stopped, and the world contracted into computer screens, uncertain timelines, and a vocabulary none of us had wanted to acquire. It would have been easy for an organization built around bringing people together to lose its momentum.

And yet, people kept showing up.  Not always in the same room or in the same way, but the relationships endured. That period revealed something important about what HAREB had become: a professional organization can convene meetings; however, a community has reasons to remain connected even when meetings aren't possible.

Over the decade, our organization evolved. Some of us changed jobs, cities, or our minds about things we'd once regarded as settled. And the real estate world gave us plenty of reasons to reconsider our assumptions.

What strikes me is the continuity beneath all that change. People continued to make the trip, made introductions without keeping score, offered advice, opened doors, supported students, and contributed their time to an undertaking with no obvious return on investment. They also simply enjoyed one another's company. 

There's a Harvard connection I find especially relevant here. Robert Waldinger, who directs the Harvard Study of Adult Development, has spent years helping explain something that sounds almost embarrassingly simple: the quality of our relationships matters enormously to the quality of our lives. Not just professionally, but personally.

The research is far more sophisticated than that observation, of course, but its central insight resonates with my HAREB experience. We spend considerable time building careers, developing expertise, accumulating accomplishments, and pursuing whatever objectives seem important at a particular moment. Those pursuits have their place, but when we look backward, the experiences carrying the greatest emotional weight often involve other people: a conversation, a kindness, a friendship, an unexpected connection.

Someone who showed up.

Which brings me back to Cynthia's question. My greatest HAREB moment? I still can't identify one, and I no longer think that's a failure to answer.

Quite the opposite.

If, after ten years, the most meaningful thing I can point to is an accumulation of relationships, shared experiences, laughter, intellectual curiosity, and genuine affection for the people involved, I'd suggest that's a pretty good outcome. Perhaps even better than the one we imagined when this all began.

We set out to build a professional network. Somewhere along the way, we built something that feels a good deal more like a community. And communities aren't created by mission statements, organizational charts, or even impressive programming. They're created by people who participate, contribute, and care.

People who keep showing up.

Ten years later, I'm grateful to have been among them and can’t wait to see what’s to come.