LOS ANGELES-The AIR Commercial Real Estate Association has named executive managing director and regional manager Joseph Vargas of Cushman & Wakefield as the 2011 president of the organization. Vargas succeeds Chuck Noble of Lee & Associates to lead the Los Angeles-based AIR, which also has offices in Orange County.

Joining Vargas as new officers of AIR and making up its executive committee are David M. Harding of CB Richard Ellis, Universal City, president-elect, long-range planning chair; Corey Spound, Jones Lang LaSalle Americas, Los Angeles, vice president, Multiple chair; Jason Jamison, GM Properties Inc., Whittier, vice president, education chair, and Joseph T. Faulkner, Cresa Partners, Los Angeles, secretary/treasurer, budget and finance chair.

Newly elected as members of AIR’s Board of Directors are Louis J. Tomaselli of 360 Commercial Partners, Irvine, Adam Deierling, Colliers International, Torrance, and Jeff Puffer, Delphi Business Properties, Inc., Van Nuys.

Commenting during his recent installation as AIR president, Vargas said in a prepared statement: “ AIR is uniquely positioned to continue providing the best data and the best products and services possible to help brokers serve their clients in a 2011 real estate market that promises to be better than 2010. My overriding goal is to enhance AIR’s position even more by providing the most complete and accurate property data to our members and by making available continually improved technology tailored specifically for brokers.”

Vargas’ responsibilities at Cushman & Wakefield include managing the operations of the company’s Southland offices including Los Angeles, Orange County, and San Diego, LA South Bay, and the Inland Empire. During his career of more than 20 years in the real estate industry, he has specialized in the marketing, leasing and sales of premier office buildings and projects throughout California.

The nation’s largest organization of its kind, AIR is a non-profit corporation formed in 1960 for the purpose of fostering knowledge, integrity and efficiency in the field of industrial and commercial real estate brokerage. More than 1,750 real estate professionals in over 400 firms located in the eight-county Southern California area, representing approximately 95% of the brokerage community, actively participate in AIR.

Among its many programs and services, AIR provides specialized standard industrial/commercial lease forms and purchase order forms for industrial and office real estate, and CDX, its Internet-based system that provides access to multiple sources of property data on every building in a given market, considered the ultimate source for offering complete facilities for cooperative marketing of industrial and office properties. AIR is headquartered in Downtown Los Angeles, and also has an office in the City of Orange in Orange County.