The Greater Chattanooga Association of Realtors has hired a new chief executive officer. Carol Seal will assume the responsibilities Francie Ryder will leave behind on January 1, 2013, when she retires after many years of dedicated service.
Seal says she’s looking forward to working with the real estate community in Chattanooga.
“The Chattanooga Association is not broken, so I’m not coming in to fix anything but to continue the excellent work Francie has been doing. I have a tremendous amount of respect for her,” Seal says.
Seal does have a few items on her to-do list – including engaging the commercial Realtors in Chattanooga, moving forward with GCAR’s data sharing endeavors and continuing the Association’s participation in the Pinnacle Program, a program offered through the National Association of Realtors that helps local associations increase their value to their members and establish community partnerships.
Job one, however, will involve getting to know her members. “I tend to do a lot of listening and learning, so I’d love to meet as many of the managing brokers as I can so I can hear their thoughts about what’s going on in Chattanooga,” she says.
A Georgia native, Seal earned a degree in English literature at Rhodes College in Memphis and then went to work for Towery Publishing, which published materials for Chambers of Commerce across the U.S. She was working as the company’s marketing director when it shut down in 2002.
Seal comes to GCAR from the Memphis Area Association of Realtors, where she served as the industry practices and procedures director. The position involved enforcing the code of ethics and handling Realtor and consumer complaints. “I was the rules girl. I kept people out of trouble,” she says.
In addition to attending state and national meetings to stay current with trends and initiatives in real estate, Seal has completed the Realtor Certified Executive program.
Ryder says she’s thrilled the Board of Directors for GCAR chose Seal to be the Association’s new CEO. “Carol comes to us with a wealth of knowledge regarding the real estate industry and the operations of the Realtor organization at all levels. She will be a great asset in keeping the Greater Chattanooga Association of Realtors on track and moving forward to meet the needs of our members and the communities they serve.”
Although Seal is new to GCAR, she’s lived in the Chattanooga area for just over a year. She and her husband, a retired Navy submarine commander, married last summer and then moved to Signal Mountain, where he grew up. Seal continued to work for the Memphis Area Association after the move, telecommuting from their home on the mountain and driving across state once a month for meetings.
“When you marry a nuclear engineer, you can’t be choosy about where you live,” Seal says, laughing.
Having said that, she’s happy to have made the Scenic City area home. “We enjoy the four seasons and taking advantage of everything Chattanooga has to offer, from outdoor concerts, to farmers’ markets, to restaurants. I’m a foodie at heart, so I love the food truck scene here,” she says.
In her spare time, Seal likes to cook, read books and coax her two teenage stepdaughters, who live in Memphis, to visit as often as possible. She also takes care of her two dogs – a golden retriever and a Maltese-Shitzu. “We have a big guy and a little guy, and the little guy thinks he’s a big guy,” she says.
Seal’s first day at GCAR will be November 5, when she begins shadowing Ryder.