ISSUE 112
NEWSLETTER
FEBRUARY 2021
@home
WITH COLDWELL BANKER TOMLINSON
Eric Johnson Elected President of Association of Realtors: A Uniquely American Story
E
rland Droivoldsmo had worked hard before emigrating from Norway to the United States, and continued to work hard after he arrived. As he lay on his deathbed, he told his son, Leroy Johnson (the family name had long since been changed to a more Anglo-friendly form), to accept the fact that he was born into a life of poverty and hard labor, that it was simply his lot and that of his offspring, and that hopes for improvement were futile.
As Eric explains it, his service to our local Association and to others on both the state and national levels allows him to extend to people he will never know, in communities he will never visit, the same benefit he offered his clients as a Realtor: professionally managed access to the American Dream. His ambition is to help eliminate whatever barriers still stand
His ambition is to help eliminate whatever barriers still stand between large groups of American citizens and the pursuit of happiness promised to them as an “inalienable right.”
Leroy, however, was not a product of the Nineteenth Century, or of the culture of northern Europe, and he knew that he could choose a path different from his father’s, that he lived in a country where the proceeds of hard work and ingenuity could be invested in an asset of genuine value, value that, if properly managed, could continue to grow, affording not only oneself but one’s family a higher standard of living than earlier generations ever dreamed possible. The valuable asset in which Leroy Johnson invested his time, money, ingenuity and determination was real estate, specifically, real estate in Spokane, Washington. That investment paid off, not only for Leroy and his family, but for the entire Spokane community, which has benefited for decades from the services provided by the Johnson family, first under the name of Windermere Johnson, then Coldwell Banker Northwest Group, and now as partners in Coldwell Banker Tomlinson Group of Companies, with a footprint extending from central Washington to western Montana. Eric Johnson, youngest of Leroy’s children, saw what participation in the real estate industry had done for his family and was determined to follow the same path. After 27 years as a real estate agent, manager, trainer and political activist, Eric has just been installed as President of the Spokane Association of Realtors. Like many assignments for which Eric has volunteered, this is a position which demands much time and energy, while offering little in the way of power or prestige, and no monetary compensation whatsoever. The compensation it does offer, however, is, by Eric’s reckoning, far greater than any of these.
between large groups of American citizens and the pursuit of happiness promised to them as an “inalienable right.” By combining his talents and experience with those of other members of the Spokane Association of Realtors, Eric feels that he can make, not incremental, but geometric progress toward achieving the goal of access for all to the opportunity of home ownership. Unintended present inequities are very often the result of deliberate past policies to promote ethnic, religious and economic biases, as illustrated in a bill currently before our state legislature. As a direct result of efforts by Eric and his colleagues, our legislature created HB 1335, which has to do with racial covenants or deed restrictions preventing homeownership by racial minorities and are an explicit legacy of racial discrimination in housing. While such covenants have been ruled unconstitutional and unenforceable, they are still on the title of properties in Spokane. HB 1335 would create a statewide review of recorded real estate documents to provide notification to homeowners whose properties have a racial covenant, and to inform them of how such a covenant can be repudiated through the county administrative process created by the Legislature. The course of Eric’s career is a vibrant and ongoing testimonial to the good that American society allows to spring from a child’s decision to disobey their parents.