Chad Barron

NALS Apartment Homes

By Leah Etling on Jan 23, 2013 in People

If you need a restaurant or bar recommendation for your next trip to Santa Barbara, Chad Barron is the guy you should ask.

A district manager for the Santa Barbara-based Nevins Adams Lewbel Schell real estate investment firm, Barron is also immersed in the local food and beverage scene. He’s a volunteer organizer of the Santa Barbara Beer Festival, keeps an eye on the latest restaurant openings, and enjoys experimenting in the kitchen.

The Beer Festival, which has grown from a small event five years ago to a major annual happening each October at Elings Park, benefits the park as well as the youth programs of the Santa Barbara Grunions Rugby Club. A former rugby athlete, Chad and his co-organizers hosted 2,000 people at the 2012 event.

“I cannot believe how much it has grown, from us hoping to break even with 700 participants the first year, to selling out a week before the event this year. The brewers are great to work with, and it’s a lot of fun to see everyone have a good time,” Chad said.

Don’t ask him to tell you what his favorite local brewery is, though. There are too many high-quality local contenders to select just one.

“I would say it’s a really tough competition between Telegraph, Islands and the Brewhouse,” he conceded. The Brewhouse, a local favorite for happy hour and its wide-ranging dinner menu, is also on his short list of recommended restaurants – along with Cajun flavors at The Palace and locavore-inspired Julienne.

When it comes to his own kitchen, Chad is always willing to try new things. His signature dish combines walnuts, bacon, and Brussels sprouts. The local Farmer’s Market is the source for many of his kitchen inspirations, from fresh citrus for experimental alcohol infusions to Brussels sprouts, which are his favorite vegetable.

A native of Portland, Ore., Chad came south to attend college at UC Santa Barbara, where he studied business economics. He started in the real estate industry with property marketing, and then found work at NALS as an operations assistant to upper level management. NALS has 14,500 units of apartment inventory, primarily in the west and southwest.

Over the last eight years, he advanced to his current position as a district manager, responsible for apartment communities in Nevada and Texas. He also plays a large role in NALS’ online property marketing efforts, focusing on elevating the search result returns for community websites using SEO.

He’s found that there’s no single formula for Internet-based marketing that will work universally across all markets, and that a heavy social media presence for apartment communities may not be the magic bullet it has been touted as.

“Social media presence hasn’t brought us a lot of recognizable value. And the reality is that you can only give your on-site people so much to manage and have them do a good job at it,” he noted.

Chad told us that his favorite part of his job is interacting with the top-notch team that oversee the NALS portfolio.

“I’ve been at the company for eight years, and my seniority is on the lower end. We have managers that just reached the 20 year mark, and a couple more knocking on that door. All the knowledge I have about this industry comes from them, and our employees are really good people that I enjoy spending time with outside of work.”