October 17 th , 2012

Re: Reference for Gerald (Gary) Bock
110 37 th Avenue South
Moorhead MN 56560

To whom it may concern:

I had the good fortune to hire Gary Bock, October of 2000 and he worked under my supervision through September of 2011. Gary was the Assistant City Assessor for about half of those years and was elevated to Real Estate Development Specialist for the remainder of his employment. In fact, the job was custom made for Gary so the City of Moorhead could maximize his knowledge and skills in real estate. Moorhead did not attempt to re-hire the position as we concluded this level of knowledge was not available for the pay grade and it would be best to hire Gary as a private consultant.

Gary, in his capacity as the Deputy Assessor appraised many residential properties, apartments and all types of commercial properties. Gary explained appraisal methodologies and values to tax payers and Boards of Review. In addition, Gary did some extremely complex work in preparing and defending values for multi-million dollar properties in tax court. During Gary’s 10 year tenure at the City of Moorhead the City never lost a tax court case. This degree of high level success in defending market values only comes with extreme appraisal skills, judgment and real estate knowledge.

While working as the Deputy Assessor, Gary began doing more and more acquisition appraisals for partial property takings following all Federal Guidelines (yellow book) appraisal requirements. He performed many appraisals where only part of the property rights were acquired and for specific uses, such as specific utilities easements. In addition, Gary performed multiple residential and business relocations following acqusition. Gary always had to be very aware of the local, state and federal sources of money as every level of government money bring its own layers of requirements. During these complex assignments, Gary had access to the Attorneys, Civil Engineers, Environmental Engineers, Waste Water Engineers, MPCA and EPA agency staff and Building Codes Officials. Gary’s strong property and appraisal knowledge combined with access to people with technical information resulted in a many complex and successful appraisals, acquisitions, relocations and many complex issues were solved with his systematic, even keeled approach.

In summary, Gary came to Moorhead as a skilled appraiser, who was put in the position that networked with many technical, legal, environmental and financial areas to solve complex issues. He produced meaningful work product while working for the City and left Moorhead with the experience and network that few Appraisers/Brokers/Consultants will ever achieve.

Respectfully,

Peter Doll,
Manager of Development Services
MN Certified General Real Property Appraiser #4003563
Senior Accredited Minnesota Assessor #2542