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Despite the recent focus on so-called "mega-brokers," the concept is not a new one, although the reasons for such large organizations have changed over time.
"It's like the mule and the horse; they're related, but they're not the same," says Bill Iredale, president of mega-broker Rogers-American's MidAtlantic Division, who has immersed himself in the history of his chosen profession.
The first large regional brokers were KelleyClarke, Inc. and Bromar, Inc., both in California. In the years after the Second World War, they spread east into Phoenix, north into Portland, Seattle and Spokane, west to Hawaii and farther north to Alaska, when none of those places had the populations they have today.
"That was a financially driven regionality born of lack of population," Iredale says. "The only way you could have a meaningful broker in...