I thought it might be good for those acclaimed to introduce ourselves in this thread. I will start the ball rolling with my own introduction

Christian Szpilfogel - Vice President OREIO

Dear Friends, after much thought and the encouragement of other OREIO members, I decided to offer my services as Vice-President in the upcoming elections and as you know by now, I have been acclaimed. I have been at OREIO just over two years and in that time, I have had the chance to meet many of you. What I love about the organization is not only the combination of networking and education but the ability for me to help encourage others to see the possibilities in real-estate investing; a profession that set me free. I want to be part of an executive team whose mission it is to help people take bigger and bigger steps.

Some of you know my story but for those who do not, I will be brief. My wife and I started investing in real estate in 2005 when we bought a purpose built 4-plex right next to our house. It was a stroke of good luck that started us on our path. We were conservative in our approach as we grew our newfound hobby and continued to acquire larger properties. About five years ago we began to realize that we needed to grow our skills and begin educating ourselves with books, training and seminars. This then led us on a path to creating our company (Aliferous.ca) and I left my corporate job in 2017 to do real estate investing full time. This was pretty much when you started seeing me attend OREIO meetings as now REI was my main business. Since that time, we have continued to acquire and build multi-unit residential, light industrial, office and retail buildings.

For those who have got to know me, you will realize that I love helping people better themselves. I have also been a strong supporter of small independent landlords and have been working with other advocates to improve the laws which impact small landlords the most. I firmly believe that changing the laws to encourage people to become rental housing providers is one of the biggest levers we have for housing availability and affordability while at the same time creating a path for wealth creation for those who provide housing.

I look forward to working with the new executive team seeing you all when we can. It is indeed be a strange time.