Meet the team
Our instructors
Every Tristar instructor is an active real estate professional. Get to know the people behind our live Zoom classes, their backgrounds and how they teach, before you choose your next course.
Leadership
Meet our leadership
School Director & Instructor
S. Sarah Sinanan, CDEI
Sarah earned her Maryland salesperson license at 18 and her broker license at 22. Today she is an Associate Broker licensed in Maryland and Pennsylvania and leads Tristar Academy as School Director, Education Coordinator and Instructor. Her work at Tristar began in 2014 in administration and grew into education coordination and leadership, carrying forward the school her parents, Cindy and the late Chris Sinanan, founded in 2015.
Sarah is a Certified Distance Education Instructor (CDEI), a designation from ARELLO, the Association of Real Estate License Law Officials, for teaching through distance education such as live online classes. She also holds a Life and Health insurance license and is a member of the National Association of REALTORS® (NAR), Maryland REALTORS® (MAR) and the Greater Capital Area Association of REALTORS® (GCAAR).
Her expertise spans agency and brokerage relationships, contracts, fair housing and ethics, and she brings an insurance professional’s perspective on protecting the household as well as the property. Sarah also writes about the future of real estate training, including her HousingWire article, “Brokerages Cannot Recruit Their Way Out of a Training Problem.”
President & Instructor
Cindy B. Sinanan
Cindy is a broker licensed in Maryland, Washington, DC, Virginia, Pennsylvania, Georgia and North Carolina. She built Tristar Realty Inc. into a brokerage of more than 700 agents, recognized as the top minority woman-owned brokerage in the DMV, before it was bought out in 2019. Together with the late Chris Sinanan, she founded Tristar Academy in 2015 and serves as its President.
Her expertise includes short sales and loan modifications, and she has more than 20 years in real estate investing and property management. She also spent more than nine years as chief financial officer of computer firms. Cindy believes no sale is a good sale unless both buyer and seller benefit, and she treats every client with respect, honesty and fairness.
She is an author and publisher of real estate books, a Maryland notary public, a graduate of the Weichert Fast Track Academy and a member of the National Association of REALTORS® (NAR), Maryland REALTORS® (MAR) and the Greater Capital Area Association of REALTORS® (GCAAR). Cindy is also a proud mother of three daughters.
Our team
The instructors who teach our classes
Our instructors bring real transactions, client conversations and years in the field into every class. Bios and photos are being added for each instructor.
Ruby Harley
Instructor
Bio and photo coming soon.
Robert “Bob” Pettis
Instructor
Bob is an Associate Broker with more than 26 years in residential sales across Montgomery County, Fairfax County and Washington, DC. He is also a licensed Maryland structural engineer with a Master of Science in Engineering, so he brings a builder’s eye to contracts, construction and inspections. Bob holds the ABR, CRS, GRI and GREEN designations and is a certified real estate instructor in Maryland and DC.
Stuart “Stu” Reynolds
Instructor
Stu has been a real estate broker since 1985 and is the principal broker of Reynolds Real Estate Company, a full-service firm in Washington, DC. He has also worked as a real estate appraiser for 20 years and has taught real estate courses for about three decades. Stu enjoys working with investors looking to increase monthly income or improve their tax position, and he holds an MBA in Real Estate.
Catherine Inniss
Instructor
Catherine is the broker/owner of NorthStar Realty Group in Bethesda, with 25 years of experience serving buyers, sellers and commercial clients across Washington, DC and Maryland. She works with first-time buyers, military families and veterans, investors and distressed properties, and holds the AHWD and SFR designations. Catherine speaks English and Spanish and earned a master’s in Real Estate Development from the University of Maryland.
Cherice Clark
Instructor
Cherice is the owner and principal broker of Clark Premier Realty Group, licensed in Maryland, Washington, DC and Virginia, with more than two decades in residential and commercial real estate. Her work centers on helping clients build generational wealth through buying, selling, investing and leasing, and she offers free real estate and financial literacy trainings throughout the year. Her designations include ABR, CRS, GRI and CIPS.
Brittany Clark
Instructor
Brittany is the operations director at Clark Premier Realty Group and a full-time residential REALTOR® licensed in Maryland and Washington, DC. She brings hands-on experience in market analysis, pricing, seller marketing and keeping transactions on track from contract to closing. Her designations include C2EX, e-PRO, SFR and PSA.
Briana Clark
Instructor
Briana is the marketing director at Clark Premier Realty Group and a REALTOR® licensed in Maryland and Washington, DC. Born and raised in Prince George’s County, she works with first-time buyers and investors and has specialized training in short sales and foreclosures, pricing strategy and rent-to-own programs. She holds the ABR, HPA, PSA and SFR designations.
William “Bill” Inglis
Instructor
Bill began his real estate career as Long & Foster’s 1992 Rookie of the Year for the Baltimore/Pennsylvania region and has ranked among his office’s top agents ever since. A GRI designee based in Columbia, he is a member of Long & Foster’s President’s Club and the Howard County Million Dollar Club. Outside real estate, Bill enjoys hiking in the desert Southwest and songwriting.
Samuel “Sam” Nicholson
Instructor
Bio and photo coming soon.
Nia Condrey
Instructor
Nia is the broker/owner of Purpose One Realty, licensed in Maryland, Washington, DC, Virginia, Pennsylvania and West Virginia. With more than a decade in real estate and 20 years in sales, she leads work in new construction, resale and property management, with more than $500 million in assets and sales under her leadership. She serves on the Affordable Housing Council of Frederick County and is guided by her motto: People, Passion and Purpose.
Guest instructors
Special guests in our classroom
Guest instructors join select classes to share expertise from outside the day-to-day of real estate practice.
Joseph “Joey” Balsamo, PhD
Guest Instructor · Senior Associate, Financial Educator
Joey co-teaches Protecting Your Real Estate Assets, a continuing education elective on protecting the household as well as the property.
Mona McKenzie
Guest Instructor
Bio and photo coming soon.
Learn from people who do the work
Join a live class on Zoom and ask questions in real time.