Jetrader - September/October 2013 - 43

International Appraisers’ Program

Dealing with

Elephants
New Certiﬁed Appraisers
Phil Seymour, Chairman,
International Appraisers’ Program

The expression “the elephant in the room” is based on not wanting
to deal with the obvious issues but to talk instead about the pleasant
things. The International Appraisers’ Program (IAP) has been going
through a period of change, and what started two years ago was
the attempt to identify the elephants and deal with them. Before
I go too far into developing a ridiculous story about elephants, my
point is that we have started identifying and dealing with various issues. It has been a productive year so far in relation to the
appraisers’ program, but there is also signiﬁcant workload ahead.
Firstly, congratulations (ra, ra, woop, woop) to those who passed
the rigorous examination process this year to become Certiﬁed
Appraisers. In no particular order, (well okay, ladies ﬁrst then!):
Alice Gondry, senior analyst, IBA, Leatherhead, England; John
Edwards, vice president product support, Willis Lease, Novato,
California, USA; Dave Houlihan, director, sales and leasing, Orix,
Dublin, Ireland; and Hugh McTeague, investor marketing manager,
Airbus, Toulouse, France.
I cannot over-emphasize how proud they should be, and
those who go through the two days of examinations at the
ISTAT Americas conference (and who usually have to re-take
some elements the following year) will know exactly what they
have achieved.
A criticism the program faces is that we are not a training
organization, and as you can see from the small sample above,
appraisers come from a broad spectrum of our industry.
Gondry, coming from an “appraisal ﬁrm” like IBA, probably
has an advantage because it is her day job to analyze, create
and develop appraisals.
Edwards and Houlihan have a leasing perspective. Perhaps they
have seen plenty of other company appraisals but are dealing with
a combination of day-to-day client issues and some element of
strategic development of sales as part of their day job.

Alice Gondry

John Edwards

Dave Houlihan

Hugh McTeague

For McTeague and his manufacturer experience, production of
appraisals is perhaps not a priority but understanding how they
work and how Airbus can work with appraisers is crucial for both
the OEM and the rest of us in the appraisal industry.
So, my continuing message is that “It could be you” who
should join our program. If you need any advice, contact me at
phil.seymour@ibagroup.com or Jack Feir, program administrator,
at jackfeir@aol.com.
That brings me back to dealing with elephants—“Appraiser
Training!”
We are not an organization structured to train. It is assumed
that candidates have the experience to come along to the examination rooms, complete the 12 hours of written exams and walk
away certiﬁed. It is almost impossible to create “all new” questions every year, so providing previous examination papers is not
really an option—something that most of us have experienced
in our education processes.
Individuals come from their day jobs and have varying
approaches to the context of the questions. Many of the questions are clearly objective, perhaps asking candidates to explain
an abbreviation (such as FAA), but some questions require
Jetrader • September/October 2013 43

Jetrader - September/October 2013

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