by Mary-Kate Roan
Staff Writer
The sign has changed outside, and there might be a few new faces and different e-mails, but Buddy Register and Bob Retherford are still in business even after their Personal Services, Inc. (PSI) closed its doors.
Register, the former president of PSI, and longtime friend and coworker Retherford have joined Cushman & Wakefield as part of an expansion for Cushman & Wakefield’s commercial real estate division.
“We were contacted by Cushman & Wakefield,” said Register. “And we had been approached by about four national companies but none fit the mold quite like Cushman & Wakefield.”
Pleased with the move, two out of the three divisions at PSI (leasing and sales and commercial management) were sold to Cushman & Wakefield while the residential management division was sold to Associa’s local office of Community Managing Concepts, Inc. Retherford and Register went to Cushman & Wakefield to become the leaders of the leasing and sales division, working in brokerage with the company.
“With PSI we were a small local real estate company that didn’t have the contacts or resources to keep up,” said Register. “And while it had a lot of emotions and tough decisions were made, I enjoyed the success at PSI and now am just taking it to a higher level.”
For Retherford, the emotions quickly turned to excitement.
“As soon as the sign was changed, it was done,” said Retherford. “We’re in the same office and we’ve expanded the team with some ‘new blood.’”
Part of the agreement to sell the division to Cushman & Wakefield was to keep Register and Retherford on staff as an office brokerage team. As Retherford puts it, they are responsible for getting Cushman & Wakefield’s office leasing department going again.
“We have an ability to take our three decades in the local market with Cushman & Wakefield’s resources,” said Retherford.
“We’ve been working with Cushman & Wakefield since Aug. 18,” said Register.
The process of closing PSI and opening Cushman & Wakefield’s office was simple, though, despite the fact that the PSI office remained open while Tropical Storm Fay hovered over Jacksonville and Florida. The doors of PSI were closed on Friday and the doors of Cushman & Wakefield’s “new” office opened Monday.
They’re still working on converting their office in Baymeadows and technology from PSI to Cushman & Wakefield according to Retherford. But he added that so far things are going well.
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