MRED Blog

We’re excited to announce five new members on our Board of Managers. Chad Gilbert, Ruth “Drussy” Hernandez, David Naso, and Royal Hartwig were each individually selected for Board seats through election by their peers. The existing Board also added Luigui Corral by unanimous vote to fill a vacated seat during its most recent meeting.

The election took place as part of our unique initiative that allows brokerages to own their MLS. MRED brokerages that become a Preferred Unit Owner have the opportunity to run for and elect 13 of the 15 voting seats on the MRED Board of Managers, attend and vote at PUO meetings, and co-create MRED’s annual Strategic Plan.

MRED PUOs are broken down into three categories based on brokerages’ number of transactions in a year. Category 1 consists of the top 10 brokerages in MRED’s coverage area based on that transaction data, with Category 2 being brokerages ranked 11-160, and Category 3 covering the remaining firms. This allows every MRED firm to be represented on the Board, no matter its size or location.

• Want more information about becoming a PUO? Click here!

Gilbert was elected as a Category 1 representative, Hernandez and Naso are from Category 2, and Hartwig will represent Category 3.

We’d also like to thank the outgoing members of the Board: Jeff Gregory, John Murray, Tom Poulos, and Molly Ryan for their years of dedicated service.

The following new Board Members will take their seats at the start of 2019:

Chad Gilbert – Co-Owner of REMAX Suburban and Precision Title Company

Chad has successfully led RE/MAX Suburban for more than 3 years after a successful sales leadership career in the public and private sector for over 15 years. RE/MAX Suburban is the largest RE/MAX company in Illinois and one of the largest in the United States. His focus continues to be on the strategic growth of the company and support for the Realtors. He received the prestigious Broker Owner of the Year award in 2017 from RE/MAX, LLC. In 2017, Chad purchased Precision Title Company to continue to expand its service offerings.

Ruth “Drussy” Hernandez – Managing Broker, Compass

Hernandez has been a participating representative at MRED as a Preferred Unit Owner since 2010 and a past member of the Board of Managers. She is also a current Board of Director member of the Chicago Association of Realtors as well as a participant in other committees within the association. Hernandez has more than 30 combined years of real estate experience.

David Naso – Managing Broker, Keller Williams Lincoln Park

Naso has served the membership of the Chicago Association of Realtors in various roles during the last 6 years, having served on Professional Standards and Forms and Contracts committees, and has been a Director for the Association since 2015. He manages an office of 190 agents, overseeing compliance of MLS data and acting as the liaison for his agents’ MRED matters. Naso has been selling real estate for nearly a decade.

Royal Hartwig – Managing Broker / Owner, The Royal Family Real Estate

Royal has 14 years of real estate experience, starting his career with Coldwell Banker, where he was named rookie of the year and soon became his office’s top agent. In 2015, Royal opened up his own real estate brokerage called The Royal Family Real Estate. Royal and many agents in his office rank in the top 1% of Realtors in terms of number of home sales per year. He is also a member of The Schaumburg / Hoffman Estates Rotary Club and serves on the club’s Foundation Board.

Luigui Corral – Managing Broker Owner, RE/MAX American Dream

Corral is a real estate industry veteran, serving as a Broker Owner at RE/MAX, Wheeling for nearly 12 years. Currently, Corral is the Managing Broker Owner at RE/MAX American Dream in Round Lake Beach. He’s been named as one of the top 250 Latino Agents in the United States for 6 consecutive years and was President of the Chicago Chapter of the National Association of Hispanic Real Estate Professionals® (NAHREP) for 2 years.