Senior Leadership Northeast Minutes from June 16, 2009

The June 16, 2009 meeting of Senior Leadership Northeast was convened at the Colleyville Chamber of Commerce building at 9:00 AM by Chairman Ed Havran.

 There were sixteen (16) individuals present representing six (6) Northeast Tarrant County cities.

 Minutes were approved as reported on the website.     

 It was announced that this is the fifth (5^th) anniversary of the R&R program at DFW Airport.

 Bryan Berry, former NBC5 Pros Who Know and now with 1^st Home Realty spoke about his recent experience at an expo at the Great Hall in China promoting relocation to the US and showcasing US properties.  He described several types of Chinese investors: 

1. About 18% of the investors want their child educated in the US.  They don’t want their in a dormitory, so they buy real estate for their child to live in because it’s cheap.  

2.  

3. They want to  deal like we do,  but they don’t know how to buy.  They are a cash buyer and want honesty.  There is a lot of interest but not a lot of buyers yet because they just don’t know how.  Many of them come over for three months to get their children entered into college.

Some investors come over to run or manage a company. 

He stated that foreign immigrants, including the Chinese, have invested the majority of dollars to rebuild New Orleans, not the US.

 Bryan is working on several major things: 

1. He has the exclusive rights for Texas for 5 years for a magazine for high net worth individuals in Europe and China ($500 million and above).  He is looking for exclusive properties.
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3. A group of real estate investors approached him about being the CEO for 1^st Home Realty’s 20 offices in Asia.  Through this connection he stated he will be the gateway for information about Texas and the US.
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5. He is raising $300,000 to have an EB5 regional center for DFW.  He stated that this will create jobs and revenue opportunities to keep DFW strong.  (1000 EB5 citizens at $1 million a piece, $500,000 for rural)

John Hayes, the military and veterans liaison for Congressman Marchant spoke about their strong outreach efforts.  They have the only office in Texas strictly for veterans. 

He works with people on appeals (claims) usually 15-16 at any given time. 

We also have a County Veterans Service Office (See marchhouse.gov). 

This fall, they will be hosting events and cook-outs to honor Purple Heart recipients.  Nov. 8

He’s also working on the WW II Veteran Oral History Project (will do Korea after)

They interview each veteran for 1 ½ hours.  We have 19 million living in the US but we are losing 1500 WW II veterans per day.  Some of the interesting stories he’s heard in our district include:  one liberated one of the death camps, one was on the battleships in Pearl Harbor, one lady was at Camp Lejune.  Most don’t tell their story. 

He also  talked about the Airborne Angels who send care packages to platoons and the Fisher House in Dallas (like a Ronald McDonald House for veterans)

Mitzi Long from Representative Truitt’s office gave an update and mentioned the upcoming special session.  Representative Truitt will be speaking at our next meeting.

 Other discussion included Obama speaking to the AMA.

 Meeting was adjourned at 10:28 am.

 Respectfully submitted,

 

Rebecca Barksdale