Appraisal Institute 2012 Officers

Sara W. Stephens, MAI
PRESIDENT

Sara W. Stephens, MAI, is the 2012 president of the Appraisal Institute. She was the organization’s president-elect in 2011 and its vice president in 2010. She will serve as immediate past president in 2013. She serves this year as chair of the Appraisal Institute’s Executive Committee and chairs its policy-making Board of Directors.

Stephens has been active at the Appraisal Institute’s chapter, regional and national levels for more than 20 years. She served two terms as president of the Arkansas Chapter, is the chapter’s current Membership Admissions, Development and Retention Committee chair and has served as both chair and member of the Nominating Committee and chair of the Education Committee. She is also a member of the Board of Directors of the Arkansas Chapter of the Appraisal Institute. She attended the Leadership Development Advisory Council for four years and was chosen as a discussion leader. Her topic focused on the designation requirements of the Appraisal Institute.

Stephens is a director of the Appraisal Institute Relief Foundation. She has also been a member of the Admissions Designation Qualifications Committee, where she served as chair of the 2008 project team that formulated and implemented an alternative demonstration appraisal report format. Her committee service at the national level began as an Associate Member, where she was a representative to the Associate Guidance Committee.

Stephens graduated magna cum laude from the University of Arkansas at Little Rock with a degree in mathematics and English. She has a master’s degree from the University of Arkansas at Fayetteville, where she also completed some post-graduate work. She taught calculus, advanced trigonometry and algebra in the Little Rock Public School District and at the University of Arkansas at Little Rock.
She is the owner and principal of Richard A. Stephens and Associates, the oldest appraisal firm in Little Rock. Along with her business partner and husband, Richard A. Stephens, MAI, SRA, she maintains a practice offering a broad scope of services, specializing in eminent domain, litigation support and real estate tax appeal.

Stephens is one of eight members of the American Society of Real Estate Counselors in Arkansas, and the only woman invited to membership in Arkansas.

Richard L. (Rick) Borges II, MAI, SRA
PRESIDENT-ELECT

Richard L. (Rick) Borges II, MAI, SRA, is president-elect of the Appraisal Institute for 2012. The following year he will serve as president and in 2014 will become the Appraisal Institute’s immediate past president for one year. He also will serve on AI’s Executive Committee those three years and will be a member of the Board of Directors during that time as well.

Borges has been a member of the Appraisal Institute since 1978, a member of the National and Indiana Associations of Realtors and the Jackson County Board of Realtors since 1974 and the Columbus (Ind.) Board of Realtors since 1997.

Borges received the President’s Award from the Appraisal Institute in 2009, the Richard E. Nichols, MAI, SRA, Lifetime Achievement Award from the Hoosier State Chapter in 2008, the Edward L. White Achievement Award from the Hoosier State Chapter in 2000, the Dick Snyder Service Award from the Indiana Association of Realtors in 1984 and the Realtor of the Year Award from the Jackson County Board of Realtors in 1982.

He is an Indiana certified general appraiser, an Indiana real estate broker, an Indiana Level I and Level II assessor-appraiser, an Appraiser Qualifications Board-certified Uniform Standards of Professional Appraisal Practice instructor and an Indiana certified tax representative.

Borges is a partner with his wife, B. LaVonne Borges, SRA, in Borges & Borges Real Estate Advisors, a full-service real estate firm serving central and southern Indiana with counseling, brokerage, development and appraisal services since 1977. In addition, the Borges’ recently formed Cross-Continent Real Estate Mediation and Arbitration to assist parties in resolving valuation-related disputes.

Borges served three years as a member of the Appraisal Standards Board of The Appraisal Foundation. In addition, Borges has been a contributor and developer for several appraisal-related textbooks and seminars, including “Appraising Residential Properties,” fourth edition, published by the Appraisal Institute in 2007. He also developed the online education course, “General Demonstration Appraisal Report Writing Seminar.”

Borges has been a member of the Appraisal Institute faculty since 1987. He is currently an AI-approved instructor for more than 35 education courses or seminars, and teaches across the nation on a regular basis. In addition, he was an adjunct faculty member at Ivy Tech State College from 1994 to 1997.

Borges is a graduate of Indiana University with a bachelor’s degree in general studies and a graduate of Vincennes University, where he earned a highway technology certificate while employed by the Indiana Department of Transportation before entering the real estate field. He and his wife are the parents of daughters Shane Apolskis, Rikki Houghton and Elaine Reed and twin granddaughters Haley and Hunter Reed.

Ken P. Wilson, MAI, SRA
VICE PRESIDENT

Ken P. Wilson, MAI, SRA, of Plano, Texas, is the 2012 vice president of the Appraisal Institute. The following year he will serve as president-elect and in 2014 will become the Appraisal Institute’s president for one year, followed by a year as immediate past president. He also will serve those four years on the organization’s Executive Committee, comprised of the organization’s officers, and will be a member of the Board of Directors during that time as well.

Wilson has been involved in the real estate appraisal profession for more than 30 years. Following a 12-year career with two national appraisal firms, he started his own valuation and consultation firm, Wilson Realty Advisors, based in Dallas.

Wilson joined a predecessor organization of the Appraisal Institute in the early 1980s. He began a three-year term as chair of the North Texas Chapter’s Education Committee in 1995 and at the same time was elected to the chapter Board of Directors; he also served multiple years as a regional representative.

His chapter positions include: treasurer (1998), finance chair (1998), secretary (1999), vice president (2000) and president (2001). His national positions include roles as a member of the Client Services Committee (1998-2000), General Appraiser Council Admissions Committee (2001-03), national Board of Directors (2007-2010), Strategic Planning Committee (2008-09) and National Association of Realtors Project Team (2009). He also has served as Audit Committee chair (2009-10), Candidate Member Proposal Project Team chair (2010-11) and as trustee of the Appraisal Institute Education Trust (2011-13).

Wilson graduated from DePaul University with a Bachelor of Science degree, College of Commerce, with a concentration in real estate and finance. He has lived in the Dallas area for nearly 30 years; he and his wife of 25 years have one daughter, who attends college.

Joseph C. Magdziarz, MAI, SRA
IMMEDIATE PAST PRESIDENT

Joseph C. (Joe) Magdziarz, MAI, SRA, is the 2012 immediate past president of the Appraisal Institute. He continues to serve on the organization’s Executive Committee and on the Board of Directors.

Magdziarz has been an active member of the Appraisal Institute for more than four decades. He has served in a variety of capacities at all levels of the organization, including as vice president in 2009, as president-elect in 2010 and as president in 2011. At the regional level, Magdziarz has served two terms as regional vice chair and two terms as Region III chair. He has also been a regional representative for many years. On the national level, Magdziarz served three terms on the Appraisal Institute’s national Board of Directors. He has served as chair of the Education Committee for five years and has also chaired the national Audit, Instructor, Faculty and Publications committees. In addition, he has served on a number of project teams.

Magdziarz has been president of Appraisal Research Inc. in Rockford, Ill., for since the early 1970s. He resides in Rockford with Sandra, his wife of more than 40 years. Magdziarz has two sons, Joseph III and Steven, one daughter, Michelle, and seven grandchildren. Magdziarz is an approved Appraisal Institute instructor for more than two dozen courses in the Appraisal Institute’s qualifying education, continuing education and Uniform Standards of Professional Appraisal Practice curriculums. He has also participated in international assignments in Naples, Italy; Istanbul, Turkey; Mexico City, Mexico; Seoul, South Korea; and Beijing, Tianjin and Shanghai, China.

Frederick H. Grubbe, CAE
CHIEF EXECUTIVE OFFICER (non-voting)

Frederick H. Grubbe, CAE, has served as chief executive officer of the Appraisal Institute since June 1, 2007. He has more than two dozen years of experience in nonprofit and government-related organizations.

From 2001 to 2006, he served as president and chief executive officer of the National Fraternal Congress of America, an association for fraternal benefit societies, where he was responsible for overseeing business and membership operations. Previously, Grubbe served as chief operating officer for the Education Resource Group, an international management training company that trains agency managers in the life insurance and financial services industries. He also was CEO of the THINK FIRST Foundation, an international organization dedicated to preventing and creating awareness about brain and spinal cord injuries.

From 1993 to 1996, Grubbe served as director of strategic planning and special programs for the Million Dollar Round Table. And from 1989 to 1993, he served in the administration of President George H. W. Bush, with presidential appointments as deputy director of the U.S. Office of Consumer Affairs and deputy administrator of the National Highway Traffic Safety Administration, both of which followed two years as the U. S. Department of Transportation’s White House Liaison and special assistant to the Secretary of Transportation in Washington, DC.

Grubbe received an MBA from the Loyola University Chicago Graduate School of Business and holds an undergraduate degree in journalism from Northern Illinois University.
He sits on the Board of Directors of the Association Forum of Chicagoland and is a member of the American Society of Association Executives.

In his spare time, he is a professional jazz musician and has performed with jazz greats Louis Bellson and Dizzy Gillespie.