Bill Wright kind of fell into commercial real estate when he realized banking wasn’t going to satisfy his entrepreneurial spirit.

After graduating from Simpson College, the Denison native began his career at Midland Savings Bank on Des Moines’ east side but quickly realized being a banker wasn’t what he wanted. So at 22 years old, Wright began networking. His college roommate worked with someone who was good friends with Kevin Crowley, who at the time owned commercial brokerage firm Crowley Mandelbaum.

Crowley Mandelbaum was looking for someone to build databases for office, retail and industrial properties. Wright said he didn’t know much about commercial real estate but had done a marketing plan for a condominium complex as part of a college internship. He was also pretty good at programming, had some computer skills, and was proficient at Microsoft Access and Excel programs, so he applied and got the job.

“That was in July 1992 and I immediately went into building databases,” Wright said. “No one else was doing it and today you’d look at that and laugh because it was rudimentary, so back then it was cutting-edge.”

Jump ahead almost 33 years and Wright has been named the 2025 Iowa State University Ivy College of Business Commercial Real Estate Professional of the Year. The award recognizes an outstanding CRE professional from Central Iowa for their professional accomplishments and community engagement.

In addition to his professional achievements, Wright has been active in the community, serving on numerous boards, such as the Iowa Center for Economic Success, the Iowa Commercial Real Estate Association, Norwalk United Methodist Church and the YMCA of Greater Des Moines, among others.

“Throughout his 32-plus years in the brokerage industry, there is no person more dedicated, thoughtful and skilled than Bill — both in his profession and within the community at large,” wrote Kyle Gamble, president and chief operating officer at Hubbell Realty Co., in his letter recommending Wright for the award.

Adam Kaduce, president of R&R Real Estate Advisors, said that in addition to excelling in his own career, Wright “has tirelessly shared his knowledge and insights” through mentorship, “setting an unparalleled standard for the profession.”

“Bill’s impact extends beyond numbers and accolades; his collaborative spirit and leadership style have earned him the respect and admiration of colleagues, clients and competitors alike, including mine,” Kaduce wrote in his letter of recommendation.

Mary Hunter, the CEO of Goodwill of Central Iowa, nominated Wright for the award, saying “there is no size of deal Bill works on that he doesn’t treat with the same level of urgency.”

“From a small, local business to multiple Fortune 500 companies, Bill’s impact can be seen on nearly every major metro street and corridor one drives,” she wrote.

Wright said he’s honored to be recognized by his peers.

“It’s validation for me that what I did and how I try to conduct business is appreciated by the community,” he said. “Nobody’s perfect, but it’s validation that I probably made some good decisions along the way in terms of how to conduct business. Real estate doesn’t always have the greatest reputation, but it’s validation that I tried to do things the right way.”

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AT A GLANCE
Age: 54
Family: Married to Mary Beth for 32 years; three children, Grant, Jackson and Kennedi; one grandchild with another on the way
Education: Degree in management, Simpson College
Activities: Bicycling, playing tennis, walking and spending time with family
Contact: Bill.Wright2@cbre.com

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The Business Record sat down with Wright after he learned he would be receiving the award to learn more about his career, his philosophy, the importance of giving back and what it has meant to him to become a grandfather.

This Q&A has been edited and condensed for clarity.

How has the commercial brokerage industry changed since you got your start?
It’s still extremely competitive, but how it’s changed is certainly the addition of information and ease to get information. But the biggest change is the speed of delivery. When I started at Crowley Mandelbaum you’d come back from lunch, and you’d have a pile of phone messages and you’d have that carbon copy. You’d be faxing things out, and I’d call and say, “I’m selling you a building,” and I’d come to your office, review everything and sign everything together. Now it’s Docusign, everything is electronically transferred. The speed of delivery for me is maybe the biggest change. The speed at which we transact is just infinitely faster. It doesn’t even feel like it’s the same business. There is also so much more accountability in the brokerage business than there may have been historically. You have to provide a value add. You’re more than just negotiating a lease.

How important is being a mentor to you to train the next generation of brokers?
You hear all these stories of the old days of brokerage where you’d show up and guys my age and older, they’d hand you a phone book and say, “Go for it.” That does not work in today’s world. Our business is involved in a lot of teaming, it’s more sophisticated. For a young person to get in the business you have to have a little bit of a push, a little head start. If you get that, you have a much better chance at long-term success. I’ve hired a lot of young people and I was always a firm believer in not a lot of classroom work. I tried to lead by example. When they had a question, I was going to be in the room not as a broker competitor. I was there as an adviser, as someone they could trust and understand from my perspective how to look at a situation. Giving back is something I wanted to be the foundation of what I do. I want the people I’m around to benefit from any wisdom I can provide. As someone who is almost 55 and seeing what these young people can do in terms of how they work around technology and the kinds of talent they have is just amazing. It is far in excess of me writing a database in Microsoft Access in 1992. But I do believe in the wisdom that there are certain times when you need to call your client and not send them an email. You need to deliver bad news quickly. These are some of the foundations of things that I’ve tried to put into my career and I can still help people through that process.

What traits do you look for in a young broker?
No. 1 is hard work. This is not an 8-to-5 job. We’re on all the time. Honesty and integrity. At 22 or 25 you’re not able to say, “This is my foundation.” We all get molded. You don’t have to have a lot of real estate knowledge, but you have to be willing to work and be accountable for mistakes you make. I’ve been doing it for 33 years, and I still make mistakes, but I own up to them immediately. This is an extremely complex business and there are things you’re not going to think of, but hard work and honesty, that would be No. 1 and No. 2.

How do you balance your desire to give back to that 24/7 demand of the job?
The truth is I’m learning all the time. It’s a lot better than it was. I’m learning. It’s still progressing. They’re not going to see my name in the dictionary next to a picture of a balanced lifestyle. I know I sacrificed some things to have some success. Physical fitness, I feel better than I have in many, many years, but for many years I ignored that. I was never that guy to go out and have beers with the buddies. I never had the time. I wouldn’t say I sacrificed my friendships but I definitely didn’t devote as much time. Now, I’m trying with my friends to just be there and be present.

Knowing what you do today, what would you tell the 22-year-old version of yourself?
There’s not much because I am truly blessed, but my mind doesn’t go to the success, it goes to the mistakes I’ve made along the way. I made mistakes on the management end, primarily trying to do it all to make sure that we were performing at a high level and instead of empowering those around me, I would do things to make sure the clients were happy. But I was actually hurting the person next to me, my teammate, because I wasn’t empowering them to learn from their own mistakes and change patterns. I would fix something and my teammate would go, “Well, OK, you fixed it, but I didn’t realize there was a problem and you didn’t empower me.” We all try to learn from mistakes but I made a couple of those where I wanted everything to go well and by not giving a little more rope to the people who were working for me I did more harm to them. Sure, the client ended up happy, but I did more harm and that’s not mentorship. Mentorship is not taking rope away from people. It’s to educate them and give them more rope so they can end up being in my role. So I’d say to my 22-year-old self who wasn’t mature enough to know that, that when you get into a management role make sure everyone around you is empowered.

How do you see the current state of the commercial market in Central Iowa? Have we reached that “new normal” following the pandemic?
Here in Iowa, things got going pretty quickly relative to other areas of the country. With compressed interest rates the investment activity immediately picked up. The industrial market started going great. Retail is where people were unsure, but now retail is considered one of the darlings of the investor capital market. Industrial activity was hot and investment activity was good because interest rates were low. Certainly the segment that was impacted the most was office and we’re still at some really high levels of vacancy in Des Moines. But frankly, a lot of that has to do with the Wells Fargo pullback, what they did downtown and out west. If you took Wells Fargo out of that, I think Des Moines would be in a relatively healthy spot. I think this is the new normal and it feels quite similar to where we were before, other than some more office opportunities than historically Des Moines has had.

How did the high interest rates of the past two years and inflation affect the market?
In my opinion, a lot of the basic fundamentals have not changed in the past year and a half. Market expansion is created by new construction. In Des Moines, we’re very fortunate to have a lot of companies that have built new buildings, but it’s expensive to build new buildings, so that speculative portion of the marketplace has really slowed. All those input costs have slowed new construction, which deters market expansion.

What role does your faith play in your career?
Very often when I’m faced with a situation, I look at myself and ask what is the right thing to do with God as my guiding post. It’s hard to do. There’s money involved. There’s client relationships involved, and you try to make the right decision and let that be one of your guiding principles. I’ve done that and I’m proud of that. I don’t wear it on my sleeve, but when it comes to my own decisions and the person I want to be — there’s no right or wrong answer. But at 22 or 25, paint a picture of who you want to be and how you want to be seen, and for me being a man of Christian faith was an important part of that. I wanted that guidepost in my life. Sometimes it’s hard and we don’t always meet expectations, but I feel like, by and large, I’ve hit that goal.

You’re a new grandfather with a 5-month-old grandson and another grandchild due in June. What does that mean to you to become a grandfather?
I always wanted to be part of a big family. My dad grew up in Long Island, New York. My mom grew up in Chicago. I was never geographically close to my grandparents. Mary Beth and I about five years ago picked five destinations in the U.S. where we might retire to and we traveled to those destinations. We came back. They were all lovely but she and I looked at each other and said why would we ever leave where our kids are at. I’ve been blessed with three kids. I’ve been that dad that’s been like, when you’re ready for kids, I’m all in on it. I just wanted to share my life with that generation. So to me it’s meant just absolute joy. I look forward to babysitting. I can’t wait to go to their ball games. I can’t wait to take them to the park. I just can’t wait for those moments.

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Previous CRE Professional of the Year recipients include Justin Lossner, senior managing director at JLL; Kris Saddoris, vice president of development at Hubbell Realty Co.; Gerry Neugent of Knapp Properties; Rick Tollakson of Hubbell Realty Co.; Richard Hurd of Hurd Real Estate Services; Jake Christensen of Christensen Development; Jennifer Cooper of Bankers Trust Co.; Kevin Crowley of NAI Iowa Realty Commercial; Mark Rupprecht of R&R Realty Group; and Brad Schoenfelder of Ryan Cos. US Inc.