When Beth Loughery began her career in real estate in the mid-1980s, she was looking for something a little steadier than sales. “All my friends were in sales like myself, but everybody worked for a company that had a steady paycheck and benefits,” she says. “So I was like, OK, I think I need to have a regular check.”
That decision led to a turning point that would shape her next three decades. “I answered an ad in The Washington Post—that’s how you got jobs back then,” she says. “There was a relocation company in Washington hiring for a relocation consultant. I had no idea what that was, but it said real estate experience required, so I was like, ‘Well, I got that.’”
She’s stayed in the industry ever since. “I’ve been in it 35 years,” she says. “When I started my career, I was a counselor working with the transferring employees and acquiring their homes, helping them through the system. And we operated on dummy terminals—that was my first exposure to anything even remotely computer-oriented.”
A few years later, she took a new job and finally worked on her first real computer. “It was the mid- to late-’80s,” she says. “All of a sudden, with computers and the internet, you got connected to people all over the world. I was like, ‘How am I talking to somebody that’s in a whole other country, like Australia?’ It was the connectivity—being able to utilize that new technology—that changed everything.”
Back then, the job was all phone calls and paper. “Your sphere of influence was very small,” she says. “Now, all of a sudden, with the internet and the computer, you had a huge range of folks to interact with. It totally changed that perspective.”
Seeing Every Side of the Industry
Loughery’s career has spanned nearly every corner of relocation. “I started out selling real estate,” she says. “Then I moved into being a counselor for a relocation company, and then I went to work on the inventory side. I got to know about how to manage the inventory process.”
Her experience expanded from there. “The company bought a real estate company that was focused on doing BMAs and managing the sale process and any inventory. From there, I went to work for one of their clients and then stayed on the client side for 23-plus years.”
Working across the industry, she says, helped her understand how every role fits into the bigger picture. “The corporate person has the whole pie, because they see it all. And then, each vertical, each piece of the pie, they see their own. But it’s great to be able to have the perspective of everybody’s slice. Everybody is just as important as the next piece, because nothing can happen without that total collaboration and partnership.”
It also helped her appreciate how the business works at every level. “It helps to know what people’s income streams are—how their business model operates,” she says. “When you’re going through procurement, that’s particularly important now. At the end of the day, we’re all in the business to make money. So to be able to have the appreciation and to work together so that the partnerships can be mutually beneficial for each side—that’s great.”
Technology and the Human Experience
Loughery calls herself a “techie from way back.” “I grew up a techie—from Star Trek,” she says. “I was always fascinated by the different technology, but I also saw the social aspect of Star Trek, which was working with multinational, and in some cases, alien, cultures—and how that technology enabled the interaction to occur. So, I always look for technology opportunities that help enhance communication.”
She recently found one at a WERC conference. “WERC posted a thing on LinkedIn about, ‘Is this your first conference?’ And one of the people commented that you can go on your LinkedIn profile and hit the search button. When you hit the search button, this little square thing comes up, and you just hit that—it scans someone’s name, and it brings up your profile like a business card. So, I didn’t have to hand out any of my business cards. It’s one click, really, and I’ve connected with more people because everybody else didn’t know about it. It was a great conversation starter—and something that made a huge impact just in the last couple of days.”
For Loughery, that moment captures how technology should work in this field. “We’re such a human industry,” she says. “It’s all about the human experience. You want to use technology to enhance that connectivity.”
She laughed when comparing today’s AI discussions to her grandmother’s reaction to a new appliance. “It kind of reminds me of when my grandmother first saw the microwave in the house,” she says. “She was afraid—like, this thing’s gonna kill us all. And then once she saw how you can make popcorn in it, she was like, ‘Oh, this is great.’”
The lesson, Loughery says, is knowing where tech fits. “It’s like the microwave,” she said. “You wouldn’t cook a steak in it. Same with AI—use it where it makes sense. Find the right application to enhance connectivity and relationships.”
Mentorship and Paying It Forward
When asked about mentors, Loughery doesn’t name one person—she names many. “Over my life and career, I don’t know that it’s been one particular person,” she says. “Your first mentors are your parents. I remember my dad saying to me very early on, and this has always stuck with me: Don’t let anybody ever tell you can’t do something because you’re a girl.”
Early in her relocation career, another mentor shaped her approach to leadership. “I went into this woman’s office—she was the director, and everyone was sort of afraid of her,” Loughery says. “I had a big problem on a case. I went in and explained the problem and asked, ‘What do you think?’ She looked at me and said, ‘I want you to go out of my office and come back in, because I don’t ever want you to come into my office with a problem without providing a solution. It may not be the right solution, but you have to be thinking. That’s how you grow into leadership positions.’ That’s always stuck with me.”
She also remembers a small but powerful piece of advice from a formal mentorship program. “The woman said, just smile. You’d be surprised,” Loughery says. “She said people can even hear you smiling over the phone. It just naturally enhances the connectivity between humans.”
Now, she makes a point to do the same for others. “I always recognize and try to seek out folks who are first-time attendees of something and offer my support,” she says. “I do believe there’s something to be learned from everyone.”
She credits WERC’s own leadership with setting that example. “I look at Anupam [Singhal] coming into his leadership role—he was sort of a first-time person too, because when he started, he was not part of the industry,” she says. “He brought a whole fresh perspective. That’s what I think the newbies bring—that fresh perspective that’s so important.”
Passion and Possibility
Asked what keeps her motivated, Loughery doesn’t hesitate. “It’s the passion to be able to help people,” she says. “When you get into this industry, no matter what aspect, unless you have that genuine passion for helping people, you’ll be out in a year. If you’re a lifer, it’s because you have that passion. It’s not something that you can learn—you just have to have that collective passion.”
That passion, she said, goes hand in hand with curiosity. “We are in a change-management industry,” she says. “We embrace change. Seek out new ideas. Embrace the possibilities. There’s nothing that limits you but yourself. Be curious. We’re in exciting times. We’ve gone from the computer age to now this AI thing, and other things coming down the pike, and that’s very exciting because that’s what makes the industry grow.”
Loughery’s favorite part of relocation has never changed: the people. “It’s a great career,” she says. “No matter what aspect of the industry you’re in, it’s full of very dynamic people. You get to meet so many different people from all over the world, and that’s really exciting.”
She smiled as she summed it up: “If you don’t like one particular thing, you can still be in the industry in a different role. It’s an industry about change—and it’s exciting.”