Guniz Celen, CRE®, Receives 2017 Landauer/White Award
Guniz Celen, CRE, chief executive officer and chairperson, Celen Corporate Property Valuation & Counseling Inc., Istanbul, Turkey, is the 2017 recipient of The Counselors of Real Estate® James D. Landauer/John R. White Award–the highest honor conferred by the organization.
The award honors a real estate practitioner who has furthered the ideals of The Counselors of Real Estate—integrity, competence, community, trust, and service—and is viewed by peers as a real estate leader who has had a major impact on their community and/or, in the case of Ms. Celen, the world. Ms. Celen was recognized as a “trailblazer” and “change agent” in the global real estate industry, who is also dedicated to improving young lives through education.
In presenting the award, 2017 CRE chair of the board Scott Muldavin noted Ms. Celen’s impressive record of business achievement as a developer and valuation expert, and described her as a groundbreaker in Turkey, where, prior to her efforts, there was no understanding of the concept of property valuation. Ms. Celen immersed herself in the study of Appraisal, becoming her country’s first designated expert in the field (MAI) and worked with government officials to establish the regulations necessary to bring credibility and acceptance of real property valuation to the country and its business leaders. “She basically established the modern real estate sector in Turkey as we know it today” said colleague, Ersun Bayraktaroglu, a partner at PwC.
Ms. Celen serves as the Chair for the European Chapter of The Counselors of Real Estate. She has been a member of the Counselors since 2002.
Learn more about the Landauer/White Award.
John Hentschel, CRE®, Receives 2017 CRE Committee Service Award
John J. Hentschel, CRE®, president, Hentschel Real Estate Services LLC, Abingdon, Maryland, has received the 2017 Committee Service Award from The Counselors of Real Estate®. The honor, endowed in 1996 by CRE President, George M. Lovejoy, recognizes exemplary volunteer service to the CRE organization. The announcement was made in Montreal during The Counselor organization’s annual fall convention.
Mr. Hentschel, former head of the department of real estate for the city of Baltimore, has spent hundreds of hours volunteering his time and expertise to further the diverse goals of The Counselors of Real Estate, focusing much of his time on leading and participating in pro-bono team projects for The Counselors’ public service initiative, the CRE Consulting Corps. He has also expanded recognition of the organization’s thought leadership through his editorial guidance on CRE publications.
As a contributor to and editor of The Counselors’ peer-reviewed journal, Real Estate Issues (REI), Mr. Hentschel has pursued — and achieved — increased visibility for the publication which highlights Counselors’ outstanding thought leadership and property expertise. Throughout his more than 20 years as a Counselor of Real Estate, Mr. Hentschel has served a variety of positions on numerous committees, including budget and finance, communications, the Real Estate Issues Editorial Board, and the Consulting Corps Steering Committee. He is currently a trustee of The Counselors of Real Estate Foundation and The Counselors’ Board of Directors. He served as a local CRE chapter officer for several years and as a member of the organization’s five-member Leadership Team in 2015.
Mr. Hentschel received the James Felt Creative Counseling Award in 2011 for his work with USAID’s Municipal Economic Growth Activity (MEGA) in the Republic of Serbia – an initiative that in part helped local governments foster economic growth and employment by redeveloping and reusing well-located surplus military properties.