An Award-Winning Event Indeed

Our recent awards ceremony was a fantastic event to recognize and honor the BBF’s best of the best and to recognize several individuals for their exemplary dedication to our great association. In addition, the event served as a testament to the exceptional skills of the top-producing business brokers and showcased the power of co-brokering. Collectively we continue to make our mark in the world of business intermediaries.

It was great to see so many familiar faces and quite a few new ones. Even with the early morning awards breakfast starting time, there was great excitement from the over one hundred and thirty folks in attendance. I was honored to have Mrs. Roberta Caputo, BBF Vice Chair, as my co-host of the event. Hearing her share background information and particular details of many award recipients was fantastic. Her insight and glowing personality were the perfect match for this special occasion.

The BBF had record-breaking 209 top-producing award winners for the year 2022. As an association, our top producers sold just shy of one billion dollars in businesses, which is an outstanding accomplishment. What makes these numbers even more exceptional is our business intermediaries co-brokered almost thirty percent of the 1161 deals closed last year. Demonstrating yet again the value of co-brokering to our buyers and sellers, along with other intermediaries.

The list of winners is quite long, too long to share here in this article. However, the complete list of winners is showcased on the BBF member section of our website, and I encourage each of you to review this list to congratulate your fellow members on their extraordinary achievements. With that said, I want to highlight the best of the best across the whole state, as it takes a considerable amount of work to outperform all the highly skilled professional intermediaries in our association.

From the over three hundred plus co-brokered deals across the state, Rick Gruber in the Tampa District took the “Most Co- Brokered Deals” award. In addition, Tampa District gave us another top producer of closing fifty-four deals, awarding the “Most Done Deals” for the state going to George Antonaklas. Finally, the North Florida District had the intermediary who produced the “Highest Deal Value” for the whole state, John Geiwitz. We are honored to have such talent in our association, raising the bar for next year’s award winners.

I would be remiss if I didn’t acknowledge the accomplishments of our service award recipients. As the Chairman, I must decide who I felt impacted my role in leading the BBF. While there were many people to choose from, however, there were two individuals that stayed at the top of my list, so I decided to honor them both. Therefore, I was pleased to bestow the “Chairmans Award” to Mr. Mark Habib and Mr. George Rosen. This is the first year that we’ve recognized one of our affiliates. Many of us in the association know this gentleman as one of the best closing attorneys in the state. For over 40 years, he has closed hundreds, more likely a thousand deals. What is little known is that Mr. Steven Kutner has been quite generous of his time to our association, providing legal advice where needed, and has been instrumental in drafting quite a few of the documents we use daily in our deals. For this, we honor Mr. Kutner with the “Exceptional Service Award” and wish to thank him for his service and dedication to the BBF over the past 23 years.

The highest and most prestigious award in the BBF was created in honor of one of our founding members Mr. Ken Stebbins. This award is passed from the 2021 recipient Mr.John Hoyt to recognize the member who has shown exceptional dedication and sacrifice to the BBF. This individual has been instrumental in many of the improvements we all enjoy over the past several years. In addition, whenever there is a request for help, he raises his hand repeatedly. It is an honor to see Mr. Paul McNally receive the “Ken Stebbins Award”.

In closing out this incredible event, we want to acknowledge an exceptional person who was not only an amazing business intermediary but was instrumental in inspiring his daughter to become one of our association’s best intermediaries, business owners, and incredible leaders. Unfortunately, with great sorrow, we lost Mr. Jean Kruger a few months back, so we felt it befitting to honor Mr. Kruger with the “Honorary Membership” award by presenting this to his loving daughter Mrs. Roberta Caputo.

We are the biggest and best business co-brokering association globally, with over two hundred award winners to prove it. I congratulate you all and look forward to your successes in the next year.