Botsoe first black president at 101-year-old Realtors group

The Hudson Gateway Association of Realtors will be led by the first black president in its 101-year history in Westchester County with the appointment of Dorothy Botsoe, broker-owner of Dorothy Jensen Realty Inc. in White Plains.

Botsoe, a West African native, is the first black president to serve since the association”™s inception in 1916 as the Westchester County Realty Board. The Westchester Realtors group merged with the Putnam County Association of Realtors in 2009 and the four-county Hudson Gateway Association (HGAR) was formed in 2012 in a subsequent merger with the Rockland County Board of Realtors and Orange County Association of Realtors.

Prior to the merger, the Rockland County board elected its first black president, Bill Thorne, in 2011.

Realtors re-elected Renee Zurlo, an associate broker with Better Homes and Gardens Rand Realty in Central Valley, to a one-year term as president of the Hudson Gateway Multiple Listing Service

Botsoe and Zurlo and executive officers and directors of HGAR and HGMLS were installed in their new posts on Thursday in a ceremony attended by more than 300 people at Abigail Kirsch at the Tappan Hill Mansion in Tarrytown.

A native of Ghana, Botsoe has been in the real estate business for nearly 30 years and has owned her own firm for 21 years, according to HGAR. In a prepared statement, she said her main goal for her one-year term as president is to ensure that HGAR reflects its diverse geographic and demographic membership.

“The makeup and membership of HGAR is changing and I believe that we have to change with that too,” she said. “We have to include everyone in the process, making sure that the voices of our membership are heard.”

Zurlo, who also led the regional multiple listing service board in 2016, began her real estate career in 1994. She is the Orange County regional manager for Better Homes and Gardens Rand Realty and is also a state-certified real estate instructor. She also serves on the HGAR professional standards committee.

Other HGAR executive officers installed for 2017 were John Lease III, of John Lease Realtors in Newburgh, as president-elect for 2018; Kathy Milich, of RE/MAX Benchmark Realty Group in New Windsor, as regional vice president for Orange County; Jennifer Mallory, of Keller Williams Hudson Valley in New City, as regional vice president for Rockland County; Barry Kramer, of Westchester Choice Realty in Scarsdale, as regional vice president for Westchester and Putnam counties; Clayton Livingston, of Coldwell Banker in Croton-on-Hudson, as regional vice president for Westchester and Putnam counties; Pamela Jones, of Coldwell Banker in White Plains, as secretary/treasurer; and Marcene Hedayati, of William Raveis Legends Realty in Tarrytown, as immediate past president.

At the Hudson Gateway Multiple Listing Service, executive officers for 2017 are Nancy Kennedy, of Houlihan Lawrence in Croton-on-Hudson, vice president; Chirag Shah, of Gateway Realty Corp. of New York in Mamaroneck, treasurer; Louise Colonna, of Douglas Elliman Real Estate in Scarsdale, secretary; and Leah Caro, of Bronxville Real Estate in Bronxville, immediate past president.

The second largest Realtor association in New York, the nonprofit Hudson Gateway Association of Realtors includes nearly 10,400 real estate professionals in Westchester, Putnam, Rockland, and Orange counties as well as Manhattan. It owns the Hudson Gateway Multiple Listing Service, which lists about 20,000 residential properties on the market in the Bronx, Westchester, Putnam, Dutchess, Rockland, Orange, Sullivan and Ulster counties. placing it among the 50 largest multiple listing services in the country.