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Richard D. Whitney, CCIM, SIOR, CPM, GC, is the CEO of Whitney Commercial Real Estate Services which provides the services of buying, selling, leasing, managing and renovating and providing ground-up construction for both user and investment properties . Richard followed his parents into real estate and construction as a second generation Realtor and General Contractor first licensed to in real estate in 1974 and in construction in 1979.

His credentials include: CCIM - Certified Commercial Investment Member of the National Association of Realtors, SIOR - Society of Office and Industrial Realtors, CPM - Certified Property Manager, and GC - North Carolina Licensed General Contractor. His is the only firm in Western North Carolina and one of just 500 in the World recognized by the Institute of Real Estate Management (IREM) as an Accredited Management Organization (AMO).

From 1993 to 2001, Richard served as a commercial Realtor and property manager for the largest real estate firm in Western North Carolina, where he; a) closed the largest sale in the 25 year history of the 250 agent firm, then b) broke his own record and, c) later set a one-year transaction volume record that still stands. While there he served as the only outsourced leasing agent and property manager in the entire 58,000,000 SF office portfolio of Highwoods Properties (NYSE: HIW). Highwoods was at that time owner of the largest office portfolio east of the Mississippi River. In 2000 he brokered the sale of Highwoods' 185,000000 SF Asheville office portfolio and its surplus land, and Whitney CRE continues to lease and manage that portfolio.

From 1987 to 1993, he worked with Lee Arnold & Associates (Now Colliers International) in Clearwater, FL where he was a Beach Commercial Specialist selling and leasing properties along the barrier islands between Clearwater Beach and St. Petersburg Beach. It was there where Richard was also taught commercial property management by a CPM of 28 years as well as an on-staff CPA, and where he managed properties for Hancock Realty Investors, New England Mutual, Weyerhauser Lumber's Pension Fund, Service Merchandise and others.

From 1974 to 1987, Richard worked as a second-generation Realtor at his family’s real estate firms - Whitney Realty, on Clearwater Beach, FL and Whitney Homes & Real Estate, in Woodland Park, Colorado. During that period he sold beachfront condominiums, waterfront homes as well as mom & pop motels, and built homes.

Richard currently lives in Asheville with his wife, Cheri, to whom he has been married since 1984.

Their oldest child, Cara, is a graduate of Covenant College, is married and has one child and is an executive at the Corporate Office of Unum Insurance in Chattanooga, TN.

Their son, Conroy, is a graduate of Georgia Tech and trained as a coder. After many promotions at the online employment agency CarreerBuilders in Atlanta, GA and at the invention firm Quirky.com in NYC, and after a subsequent year in the village of Machu Picchu in Peru, we are proud to have him working with us at Whitney CRE sharing his gifts in technology by automating and improving our website and internal systems.

Their youngest child, Colleen, is a graduate of UNC Chapel Hill. She is an RN in the Emergency Department at the Wake Forest University Baptist Medical Center in Winston-Salem, NC. Colleen is engaged to be married.

Richard is a lover of anything to do with water. He and Cheri became PADI Certified for scuba diving in 2012 and plan vacations around opportunities to dive. They both absolutely love it. He loves his 1966 mahogany Century ski boat, and their time together at the nearby and most beautiful Lake James. He enjoys swimming and jogging for aerobic exercise and has been a water skier and surfer since his early youth on Clearwater Beach, FL.