Developing Passions
Kristin Thompson grew up recognizing the importance of opportunity. Originally from Dallas, Texas she attended the University of Texas at Austin where she pursued a Civil Engineering degree. She graduated in 2013, and directly after college began on a career path in Project Management. While pursuing Project Management she realized she was being funneled into a career that would not let her explore her multitude of other passions. So, Kristin decided to pack up and move to Washington DC in 2015 to allow herself to explore other career interests. Her exploration led her to develop an interest in Construction Management. She felt that DC was a city with great opportunity for Construction Management due to the city’s growing development sector. Once she moved to DC she began took a job as a Construction Project Manager at CBRE in Landover, MD.
Breaking Into Real Estate
While pursuing her Construction Management Career Kristin realized she might be interested in buying a home, so she added an extra step to her home buying process and set out to earn her real estate license. Kristin likes to have all possible information before diving into a project, and she felt she needed to know the ins and outs of the real estate business before buying a home. There was no better way to learn about the home buying process than becoming a home buying expert. She obtained her license through the LIFT program at The Menkiti Group and became a dual career agent who practiced Real Estate and Construction Management.
Licensed To Sell
After getting her Real Estate License at The Menkiti Group Kristin joined MG as a sales agent. Kristen stayed on the Sales Team for two years, and after a while she began attending all staff meetings where she learned the deep history of The Menkiti Group. After time on the sales side of Real Estate Kristin knew she wanted to break into the development world because of the Civil Engineering degree she had earned in college. It was important that Kristin built her two-year foundation as an agent for MG because she knew exactly where the company wanted to go in the future. Soon, an opening in the MG development team was announced and she took her chance and applied for the position. She was awarded the position in the development arm and was so good at both sales and development that she was able to combine development and sales into one role. For Kristin her future career expansion was carefully planned as she waited for the right opportunity to come along. She now works as the Development Project Manager for MG.
What’s Next?
In the next 5 years Kristin’s biggest goal is to construct a building. She wants to build a library, school, or anything that would be able to assist the community. Kristin believes in development that aids neighborhoods in need. She does not want to develop recklessly. A reason why she feels so at home at The Menkiti Group is because the mission statement of “transforming lives, careers and communities through real estate”, is a statement that she stands behind and feels passionate about. A project she loved because of its commitment to the community was the Yards Project. She loved seeing both the architectural and engineering stages of the project, and how all parts of the project positively impacted the community.
Final Thoughts
Aside from her career Kristin enjoys spending time in Dallas, Texas with her family as they catch up over a home cooked meal. She plays in a co-ed flag football league on the weekends. Her flag football team is a 7-time championship team, and Kristin even won the MVP award for Spring 2022. She has scored a touchdown in every game she played!
A final word of advice she wanted to give to readers is to “pursue any opportunity where you see growth and improvement”. Kristin attributes her success to bring able to recognize where growth is needed and making herself apart of that growth is what has propelled her professional and personal successes. To learn more about Kristin’s journey at the Menkiti Group website and find her bio under “The Menkiti Team”.
