On a sad note, long-time appraiser Glenn M. Desmond has passed away. Glenn was a consummate entrepreneur, starting successful real estate and business appraisal firms in Maine and Los Angeles.

Glenn was also the author of numerous books on business valuation, publishing the first in the 1970s, a time when books on this subject were scant. They included Business Valuation Handbook, Handbook of Small Business Valuation Formulas and Rules of Thumb, and How to Value Professional Practices. He also became one of the country’s preeminent expert witnesses on business damages.

In 1975, Michael C. Wierwille, now managing director at Duff & Phelps, was a young apprentice appraiser of machinery and equipment when he joined Glenn in the Los Angeles office of the Corporate Appraisal Co. (later acquired by Valuation Research Corp.). Under Glenn’s tutelage, Wierwille soon was learning to value real estate and business goodwill.

“What Glenn did as a colleague, a boss, and a mentor, was to always guide the people who worked with him to achieve the best that they could,” Wierwille remembers. “Glenn was a tremendous individual who left a warm and lasting impression on everyone he met. But it was his thought leadership in appraisal techniques that wouldn’t be written about for years to come that set him apart. He realized that the corner grocery store was more than bricks and mortar, but an assemblage of assets, both tangible and intangible, that needed to be valued.”

As for his legacy to the BV profession, Wierwille says: “He recognized the common denominators in the field of appraisal, taking real estate valuation principles and evolving them into business valuation principles. Whether it be machinery and equipment, real estate, or business enterprises, they’re all fundamentally valued in similar ways. Glenn picked up on that very early on.”

BVWire extends its deepest condolences to the family and the many colleagues and friends of Glenn Desmond.