Next week, the annual Fair Value Conference will be in San Francisco. As president of the San Francisco/Nevada Chapter of the American Society of Appraisers, I’m especially excited about this. It’s a great opportunity not only for local Business Valuation appraisers, but also for the NorCal ASA Chapter in general.
Of course, here at the Northern California/Nevada Chapter, we don’t wait around for appraiser educational events to come to us; a big benefit of being a member of the ASA local chapter is the opportunity to participate in a really amazing variety of professional development seminars, conferences, classes and presentations. This past year in particular has been a gold mine of continuing education.
For appraisers in general, we’ve continued to offer annual USPAP seminars, both the 15-hr full review and the 7-hr update; we’ve also provided seminars on appraisal report writing and reviewing, including a program specifically addressing the issues of appraisals for financial reporting.
Many of the chapter’s mini-seminars in 2013 focused on personal property: a presentation on post-war and contemporary art at Bonham’s Auction House, an afternoon on Paper Conservation at Zukor Art Conservation, and a behind-the-scenes tour and discussion of Rembrandt’s hidden treasures at the De Young Museum.
Specialized seminars for equipment and machinery equipment appraisers included a day of CARB regulations and equipment appraisals, a tour and explanation of brewery equipment at Anchor Brewing, and an on-site at SFO on appraising airplanes, which was a big hit! You can see photos of our tour on the NCV Google+ site. Another offering for our equipment and machinery valuation specialists was an update on the ASA class ME215, Appraisals for Financial Reporting.
The Business Valuation discipline, whose members comprise a large percentage of our local appraisal chapter membership, presented a panel discussion on the legendary Happy Burger multi-disciplinary valuation, which included real estate, business valuation, equipment appraisals, and some personal property as well. A variety of valuation experts in those areas presented and discussed the scenario and took questions from the audience regarding points of interest. This was so successful that plans are afoot for a expanded version in the near future! And although the local chapter can’t take credit for the ASA Fair Value Conference to take place next week in San Francisco, we are pleased to welcome ASA’s Business Valuation Committee to town and expect that our local BV members will take advantage of all the conference has to offer.
Another big change has been to enhance our chapter’s quarterly dinner meetings with presentations focusing on issues of general interest to all appraisers, from personal property, gems and jewels, real property, BV, and equipment & machinery appraisers. We’ve had especially excellent presentations from attorneys, including an overview of the bankruptcy process from the court and trustee perspective and how to work with creditors, debtors and trustees; a review of how to be an effective and professional expert witness; a presentation on valuations specifically for litigation, including written reports, depositions; and coaching on testifying as an expert witness in the ad valorum tax appeal process.
All in all, I’m pleased with the educational offerings our local ASA chapter has put together during my term as chapter president and look forward to attending and supporting future educational opportunities in the San Francisco area.
Jack Young, ASA, CPA
Northern California/Nevada ASA Chapter President 2012-2014
NorCal Valuation Inc.
