10 Questions for 1 Alumnus: Derek Varona ‘03

(This article first appeared in the Belen Jesuit Alumni Magazine, Winter 2020 edition)

Q. What was your experience like at Belen?
A. The first 2 words that popped into my head were: fun and challenging. Fun because I enjoyed going to school every day and spending time with my friends joking around in a carpool, in between classes (many times in class), and in sports and extracurriculars. Challenging because the teachers and Jesuits demanded rigorous academic discipline in order to achieve success in the classroom.

Q. What type of student were you?
A. I was a decent student.  As and Bs for the most part. I graduated with an unweighted GPA just north of 3.50. I was usually a procrastinator, waiting to study or do homework at the last minute. 

Q. Can you describe one funny moment while you were a student?
A. There were many funny moments, most of those stories are not publishable but some of my favorite memories are from Fr. Eddy’s Philosophy class senior year.  Fr. Eddy’s class was notoriously one of the more difficult classes in Belen with the infamous “oral exams”. Although the class was hard, there were quite a few moments that made you laugh.  For example, if you were ever caught sleeping in class, Fr Eddy would make you stand the rest of the class or if he caught you wearing your loafers like “chancletas” he would kick them into the disciplinarian’s office.

Q. What is one thing that you will never forget that you learned in school?
A. My first year in Belen was 8th grade and one of the first lessons I ever learned was in Mr. Zoller’s civics class. He would require us to highlight the book during reading assignments, but we could never highlight more than one of every three sentences. This would force us to isolate only what is truly important and really learn that material rather than trying to memorize the entire chapter.    That is a lesson I have carried with me and it has helped me in high-school, college, graduate school and now as a professional in the real estate industry. 

Q. Who made an impact in your life?
A. Many people have made an impact on my life, especially people from my time at Belen. These people range from parents, friends, coaches, and teachers. One quick story that has stayed with me happened back in 9th Grade. On the first day of Mr. Sucena’s Science class, he gave a speech about looking to your left and looking to your right and that one of these people will not make it through senior year at Belen.  It was my first time hearing that speech, but I learned that various iterations of that speech are pretty common in real life. He added that his class was going to be challenging, that Belen will be challenging, and the only way you were going to make it was to work hard.  Mr. Sucena and that particular message impacted me because it was my introduction to high school and, more importantly, it made it clear that the most important determinant of success is me. This is something I carry with me to this day.   

Q. What is the difference between a Jesuit education and other forms of education?
A. I studied at Loyola University Chicago, so most of my educational experience is with the Jesuits. I believe the Jesuits strength in education is focused in two areas: first, they expect from their student’s hard work and discipline as a foundation to learn the subjects at hand. This skill translates easily to the real world, where effort typically overcomes most obstacles. Second, a focus on faith and philosophy, which forces the individual to think deeply about their purpose in life, gratitude for things we don’t control and have been blessed with, challenge the status quo, and understand life’s core issues to ultimately achieve happiness individually and as a member of a community.

Q. What prompted you to go into the real estate market?
A. There are two people who have significantly influenced me in my real estate career.  The biggest influence was my mother. She raised me as a single mother and was, and is, a real estate agent. I was heavily exposed to the real estate brokerage business from a young age. My mother and I lived through the many ups and downs of the Miami real estate market over the years and what impressed me the most about my mother was how she was able to manage the uncertainty of being self-employed and an entrepreneur.  I am proud that my mother is one of the most successful agents in the real estate brokerage firm that I own, so things have really come full circle. My second prompt to enter the real estate market was my relationship with Rick Moreno, a fellow 2003 Belen alumnus. Rick and I were friends at Belen but we did not really become close until we both started working in Chicago at Deloitte as CPAs. It was there while spending many late nights chained to our cubicles counting beans, where we both decided that accounting was not the endgame for us, but a starting point, and we decided to become real estate brokers.   Our paths diverted for a while but we both ultimately ended up back in Miami. Rick was the one who pushed me to leave the stability of the W2 life to start a business with him and now almost a decade later we own a successful brokerage and I have no regrets.   

Q. How do you make a difference in that industry?
A. The Miami market is known as one of the most saturated markets in the country for real estate brokers, so it is important to set yourself apart in a crowded industry.  I like to think I make an impact in the industry by bringing a level of professionalism and attention to detail that is often lacking in the industry. Our brokerage also likes to approach real estate from a more analytical and structured perspective because finance plays such a major role in the business and the dollar values are so huge.   There are almost no barriers to entry in this industry, so there are a lot of part-time people in real estate that think they can make a quick buck by simply opening doors. As you can probably imagine, buying or selling real estate assets, especially one that you plan to call home, is a little more complicated than just having your cousin open doors or post cell phone pictures on the internet. I pride myself on doing my best to put my clients in a position to make the most important financial decision of their lives.

Q. What do you hold most dear?
A. My wife. 

Q. What advice do you have for the current students?
A. For this question, I lean on my experience at Deloitte. I volunteered with recruiting during my time there and quickly realized that many students don’t get beyond “getting good grades” as a way to get a job after college. Students are so focused in the classroom they forget to look into the future and are so focused on themselves (their grades), that they overlook two extremely important factors to getting the great job they are working hard for. The first is understanding how employers recruit. Employers will host speakers, career fairs, conferences, and internships for students as early as freshman and sophomore year. The students who recognize the process employers use to fill their pipelines early will be the ones that have the relationships with the recruiters and have a leg up to the students who wait until junior year to get an internship. Second, having a relationship with the teachers in your major. The teachers are the ones that have ongoing relationships with the recruiters and help organize the events at the school. So when the recruiters, who have limited time and interview spots, need to make a decision between students, they simply call the teacher and ask them which student they should choose. The teacher will always refer to the student they have a relationship with.
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BELEN JESUIT PREPARATORY SCHOOL
500 SW 127th Avenue, Miami, FL 33184
phone: 305.223.8600 | fax: 305.227.2565 | email: webmaster@belenjesuit.org
Belen Jesuit Preparatory School was founded in 1854 in Havana, Cuba by Queen Isabel II of Spain.  The task of educating students was assigned to the priests and brothers of the Society of Jesus (the Jesuits), whose teaching tradition is synonymous with academic excellence and spiritual discipline.  In 1961, the new political regime of Cuba confiscated the School property and expelled the Jesuit faculty.  The School was re-established in Miami the same year, and over the next decade, continued to grow.  Today, Belen Jesuit sits on a 30-acre site in western Dade County, only minutes away from downtown Miami.