Micah Berg

Micah Berg is the “Servant-in-Chief” (CEO) of RealJoy Vacations in Destin, FL.

Micah brings a mixture of military and financial management industry experience to the RealJoy Vacations executive team. Micah took over a failing vacation management company in early 2009, with only 20 units, and has very quickly transformed it into one of the leading companies in the industry with over 400 units under management as of June 2018.

Micah also recently founded and is the CEO of Vacation Rental University, which aims to educate the vacation rental and short-term rental space to a high level of competency to solidify Vacation Rentals as an official “industry” by completing the loop by having an end-to-end education platform available to get started in the business or follow through to mastery.  Micah’s co-founders are Jim Olin and Michael Friedman, who both have multiple decades of experience in the Vacation Rental industry. The blood sweat and tears of their combined years have gone into more than 350 video lessons, as well as all of the forms, templates and tools required to properly manage a vacation rental business.

Being so involved in a rapidly growing and very competitive industry, Micah understands the value of pioneering new ideas and utilizing a mixture of education, data and technology in order to stay a step ahead of the competition. In addition to VRU, Micah used this experience to develop a vacation rental operational management software, which was ultimately sold to the Kigo business unit of RealPage (RP) in 2015 and has become Kigo Operations Management (KOM).

Micah started his professional career as a Financial Advisor for Merrill Lynch in Atlanta, GA and moved to Destin, FL to assist in opening a new branch. During his years with Merrill Lynch, Micah was recognized multiple times for superior performance and production and was part of a team that was fiduciary managers of over $450 million of investment assets for their clients.

Prior to his career in the financial industry, Micah was a Sergeant in the United States Marine Corps and served our country in Operation Iraqi Freedom (I and III) with the 13^th and 15^th Marine Expeditionary Units (SOC) out of Camp Pendleton, CA. During his service in OIF III, Micah was recognized for the superior performance of his duties and leadership by receiving a Navy and Marine Corps Achievement Medal. After ending his active service with the Marine Corps, he became the Commandant of the Marine Corps League – Emerald Coast Detachment 915 for 3 years – and continues to be active in philanthropy and the community of Marines today.

Micah is a licensed real estate agent in Florida and received several licenses and designations during his career including: