RESO sold out its Spring Tech Summit in Denver last week three times, organizers said. Demand by industry tech and business leaders wanting to attend within the last two weeks forced the nonprofit to re-open registration twice until it pushed to capacity. The Real Estate Standards Organization filled the main ballroom to the brim, with just short of 300 people, at the hip Curtis Hotel in downtown Denver.
Art Carter, RESO Chair and head of the largest MLS in the nation CRMLS, noted how 
far the organization had come in the last five years. One of the most vital breakthroughs: the number of women attending RESO – and presenting on stage.
Two other big highlights were the announcement of the two winners of its Innovation Competition and the honoring of more two dozen of RESO members and leaders for “thousands of volunteer hours” to create, implement and advocate for real estate industry standards.
Innovation winners
Shawn Whitaker of MLS Data Tools based in Boise, Idaho and Robert Humphreys of Predicted Property based in British Columbia, Canada, were the Innovation winners. They were flown in to present their breakthrough ideas that leverage artificial intelligence and automation at the summit, built on top of a standardized RESO data set that was provided to them by Austin Board of REALTORS®, CoreLogic, and RESO.
Predicted Property, founded by Robert Humphries, collects micro insights from predictive speech analytics enhanced by artificial intelligence to give agents intelligence on properties and improve their ability to close sales. Tapping into the RESO provided data feed, he discovered that standardized data can be used to surface actionable data points about properties that match clients’ interests. The result is a more efficient and cost-effective lead generation tool for agents.
MLS Data Tools, created by Shawn Whitaker, developed software that solves for the tremendous amount of technical labor that is required to aggregate MLS data nationwide using automation. Its white label software and tools can significantly decrease the amount of time startups, brokers, and agents would spend aggregating RESO standardized data that powers industry solutions.
RESO Volunteers honored
Summit host Jeremy Crawford, CEO of RESO, honored 19 individual members, eight 
Chairs of RESO Workgroups and a key committee, as well as four RESO leaders for their outstanding personal contributions with 2018 Spring Tech Summit Awards. Crawford noted that collectively these individuals contributed “thousands of annual volunteer hours to RESO Workgroups, and RESO’s mission, which is moving us closer to RESO’s vision of a streamlined real estate industry.”
Crawford honored the following 2017 RESO leadership:
• Art Carter, CRMLS, Chair (Greater Los Angeles, CA): Recognized for outstanding leadership and dedication
• Alon Chaver, HomeServices of America, Vice Chair (San Francisco, CA): Recognized for outstanding leadership and dedication
• Richard Renton, Triad MLS, Treasurer (Greensboro/Winston-Salem, NC): Recognized for outstanding dedication and service
• Michael Wurzer, FBS creators of Flexmls, Secretary (Fargo, ND: Recognized for outstanding dedication and service
Crawford honored the chairs of seven RESO Workgroups and the RESO Technical Committee:
• Rob Larson, CRMLS (Greater Los Angeles, CA): Recognized in appreciation for outstanding service as Data Dictionary Workgroup Chair
• Paul Stusiak, Falcon Technologies (Vancouver, BC): Recognized in appreciation for outstanding service as RETS 1x Workgroup Chair and Transport Web API Workgroup Co-Chair.
• Mark Bessett, CRMLS (Phoenix, AZ): Recognized in appreciation for outstanding service as the Universal Property Identifier (or you can use UPI but that might not be understood) Workgroup Chair
• Greg Moore, RMLS (Portland, OR): Recognized in appreciation for outstanding service as the R&D Workgroup Chair
• Chris Lambrou, MetroMLS (Greater Milwaukee Area, WI): Recognized in appreciation for outstanding service as the Internet Tracking Workgroup Chair
• Scott Petronis, eXp Realty (Albany, NY): Recognized in appreciation for outstanding service as the Transport Web API Workgroup Chair / Co-Chair
• Rick Trevino, Metrolist (Sacramento, CA): Recognized in appreciation for outstanding service as the Payloads Chair
• Chad Curry, CRTLabs at the National Association of REALTORS® (Chicago, IL): Recognized in appreciation for outstanding service as the Technical Committee Chair
Crawford recognized 18 individual RESO members for 2017 contributions:
• Shaun York, Homes.com (Tallahassee. FL): Recognized for outstanding personal contributions to the Internet Tracking Workgroup
• John Thummel, Black Knight (Kansas City, MO): Recognized for outstanding personal contributions to the Internet Tracking Workgroup
• Cal Heldenbrand, FBS (Fargo, ND): Recognized for outstanding personal contributions to the Internet Tracking Workgroup
• Trent Gardner, ListTrac (San Diego, CA): Recognized for outstanding personal contributions to the Internet Tracking Workgroup
• John Breault, MLS PIN (Boston, MA): Recognized for outstanding personal contributions to the Research & Development Workgroup
• Sam Westelman, Coldwell Banker (Hanover, NH): Recognized for outstanding personal contributions to the Research & Development Workgroup
• Cass Herrin, Moxi Works (Seattle, WA): Recognized for outstanding personal contributions to the Research & Development and Payloads Workgroups
• Lori Coburn, Metrolist (Sacramento, CA): Recognized for outstanding personal contributions to the Payloads Workgroup
• Tim Kramer, FBS (Fargo, ND): Recognized for outstanding personal contributions to the Universal Property Identification (UPI) Workgroup
• Jonathan Mabe, Zillow Group (Seattle, WA): Recognized for outstanding personal contributions to the Universal Property Identification (UPI) Workgroup
• Matt Casey, CRS Data (Knoxville, TN): Recognized for outstanding personal contributions to the Universal Property Identification (UPI) Workgroup
• Josh Darnell, kurotek (San Francisco, CA): Recognized for outstanding personal contributions to the Transport Web API Workgroup
• Darrell Sher, Upstream (San Francisco, CA): Recognized for outstanding personal contributions to the Transport Web API Workgroup
• Sergio Del Rio, Templates 4 Business (Vancouver, BC): Recognized for outstanding personal contributions to the Transport Web API Workgroup
• Patrick Williamson, My Florida Regional MLS (Maitland, FL): Recognized for outstanding personal contributions to the Data Dictionary Workgroup
• Melissa King, My Florida Regional MLS (Maitland, FL): Recognized for outstanding personal contributions to the Data Dictionary Workgroup
• Gayle Ludemann, MRED (Chicago, IL): Recognized for outstanding personal contributions to the Data Dictionary Workgroup
• Ashish Antal, MLSListings (Sunnyvale, CA): Recognized for outstanding personal contributions to the Transport Web API Workgroup
• Paul Hethmon, CoreLogic (Knoxville, TN): Recognized for outstanding personal contributions to the Transport Web API and Research & Development Workgroups
“Those who can do, and those who can do more volunteer,” said Crawford. “Volunteers are the roots of what keeps RESO strong and growing. These are exceptional individuals who collective efforts are shaping real estate data standards for the future. We hope that when others see the huge impact their contributions are having on our industry, they’ll join in and become more involved in our Workgroups,” he added.
RESO Workgroups are open to all members, meet monthly typically via conference calls and in person at twice-yearly RESO conferences. The RESO Fall Conference is in Milwaukee, Oct. 16-18, 2018. Details about each Workgroup and how to join can be found online at https://www.reso.org/committees-and-workgroups.
