BA Economics, 1967

Senior Vice President, Trammel Crow Company in Seattle, Washington

A senior vice president for the commercial real estate firm Trammel Crow Co. in Seattle, Jim Norman has been honored with the Central Washington University alumni association's distinguished alumnus award for the School of Business and Economics on Friday, October 23, as part of the homecoming festivities.

This past year, the Dallas-based Trammel Crow merged with the Norman Company, which Norman had founded 18 years ago and serves as president. "We started with commercial leasing of high rise buildings on behalf of developers," Norman says. "Over a period of time, we grew into a full-service commercial real estate company. We managed upwards of four million square feet of high rise office buildings. We did some management of retail shopping centers, and we represented clients in the acquisition and disposition of commercial real estate."

Norman found a love for real estate while a student in college. "I had a mentor during college, a rancher name John Burkheimer, who was a very successful real estate developer," Norman points out. "He took a strong interest in what I was trying to do and oriented me toward real estate. What appealed to me most was that you had to know a lot about a variety of disciplines - like construction, interior design, finance, law and management - to be successful."

Norman serves on the following boards: Central Washington University Foundation, Northwest Industry Partnership of the Fred Hutchinson Cancer Research Center, Nature Conservancy of Washington, Downtown Seattle Association, Washington Athletic Club, Urban Land Institute, and Center for Interdisciplinary Study of Real Estate at the University of Washington. He also is a member of Alpha Lambda and the Pacific Real Estate Institute.