by G. Sax, Head of Communications, RESO
Welcome to “Three Questions,” an interview series that introduces you to real estate industry professionals, their businesses and how they interact with real estate standards. The goal of the series is to humanize the tech side of the industry, fun included.
This week’s interview is with none other than RESO Technical Product Manager, Jason Darrough, he of the read-along-with-me RESO Antitrust Statement during workgroup meetings and of the midnight Saturday subgroup metadata spreadsheet organizing (believe it!).
Even though we talk almost every day, we managed to find some new subjects to explore, including the MLS in all its definitions, football in all its definitions and, yes, metadata. Enjoy!
Q1: You came to RESO from MARIS, an MLS based in your home of St. Louis, Missouri. What was the appeal of joining RESO at this juncture in your career?
Jason: I happened to see the job listing on Vendor Alley, and it sounded interesting. That’s the extent of it.
The whole time I was at MARIS, I was not actively looking for another job, but I figured that I had done what I needed to do in the MLS world for the past 16 years. Since I regularly worked with data, I thought that RESO could be a good fit.
At MARIS, when we were first onboarded into the MLS Grid, there were four or five of us from different MLSs, headed by Gayle Ludemann of MRED, mapping our stuff into one big spreadsheet. That was a good experience – working with common RESO data, keeping our mappings consistent between organizations. I wanted to be part of more of that.
Standardizing data was something I enjoyed – working with vendors on a daily basis and regularly getting feedback. I thought I could capitalize on that on a national level.
Q2: You have become the face of not only RESO’s workgroups and subgroups but for getting all that happens in the Data Dictionary Workgroup into the actual Data Dictionary, including some heavy consolidation of fields in massive verticals like commercial real estate and rental properties. Do you find this work gratifying and why?
Jason: Absolutely. When there’s an industry need, and the group gets something proposed and we’re in agreement, it’s such a good feeling.
And to get those specific use cases up at RESO, it’s just gratifying when proposals are submitted and conclusions are voted into the Data Dictionary as the law of the land.
Q3: You are a fan of another kind of MLS – the one that comes up more often when you actually search “MLS”: Major League Soccer. Do you think soccer will ever reach the popularity of American football, baseball, basketball or even hockey in the U.S.?
Jason: It’s definitely exciting for St. Louis to have an MLS team. We may have enjoyed some success with the Cardinals and Blues, but remember that we have lost not one but two NFL teams in the last 40 years, including a Super Bowl champion!
The only time I used to watch soccer was the World Cup and the Olympics, and now I’m happy to regularly stay updated on my local MLS team.
U.S. soccer may not reach the same popularity level as it has in the rest of the world, but you never know. It seems to be growing.
In St. Louis, there are definitely more soccer-themed bars around town, and I’m having more conversations about the team with friends.
Unless American football figures out concussions and such, you may see even more young players going the futbol route over football.
