In 1972, Alan Whitson began his real estate career in Honolulu after leaving the US Navy's nuclear submarine program. Whitson's experience includes over 40 million square feet of facilities around the world in the areas of Asset Management, Corporate Facilities, Construction, Real Estate Development, Commercial Real Estate Brokerage, and Real Estate Consulting.
Whitson is President of Corporate Realty, Design & Management Institute; which designs and delivers continuing education programs in the area of design, construction, and operation of high performance and sustainable buildings for AIA, ASID, ASHE, ASHRAE, BOMI, CoreNet, IFMA, IIDA and USGBC. In addition to live and web based educational programs, CRD&MI offers custom training, and management consulting services to the Fortune 1,000.
The scope of Whitson's career gives him a keen insight into the real estate needs of today's corporation, and a unique understanding of the architectural, construction, and real estate industries. He has held positions with: First Commercial Real Estate, Newport Beach; The Muller Company, Newport Beach; Bank of America's Corporate Real Estate Division; Storek & Storek Architecture, San Francisco; The Shorenstein Company, San Francisco; Environmental Design Engineering, Seattle, San Francisco and Honolulu.
Whitson holds the professional designation of Real Property Administrator (RPA) from the Building Owners and Managers Institute. In 2009, he was made an Honorary Fellow of Institute of Green Professionals. Whitson has actively participated in a number of committees, task forces, and professional associations to further the art of high performance buildings and corporate sustainability including:
- Initial member of the group that became the International Facility Managers Association
- BOMA International's Energy & Environment Committee
- The New Buildings Institute's Technical Review Committee for Advanced Buildings: Energy Benchmark for High Performance Buildings a standard used in the LEED NC Rating system
- Center for Corporate Sustainability - Board Member
- Advisory Board for Journal of Sustainable Real Estate - University of San Diego
- Chair of the Model Green Lease Task Force, which recently released the Model Green Lease
- OSCRE Green Lease Advisory Board
- Certified Real Estate License Instructor - California, Texas
- ASTM Task Force on Building Energy Performance Assessment & Disclosure Standard
- Advisory Board Member of IFMA Health Care Institute
A popular author and speaker, Whitson was pegged as the "Green Building Guru Who Paints a Profit-Making Picture" by one of the world's leading organizations of industrial manufacturers. Since 1980, he has written over 100 articles, including his column, Turning Green into Gold® that appears in OfficeInsights, a national online newsletter.