Darron Meares

Hope Meares

Meares and Associates, LLC was founded in April 2008 by Darron and Hope Meares.  The company began as a section of the Meares Auction Group of companies and quickly outgrew that status and became it’s own separate entity.  The company began as a fundraising auction and consultation firm and quickly expanded with an asset appraisal division and a public speaking/education division.

The fundraising auction division of Meares and Associates, LLC is Bowtie Benefit Auctions.  This part of the company began with a goal of conducting 25 auctions in it’s first year to conducting 51 events in 2010.  What started out as a fundraising auction company serving only South Carolina has now added clients in North Carolina, Georgia and the US Virgin Islands.  Bowtie Benefit Auctions does not take every client – the majority of the events serviced center around children and education, although golf events have become a major portion of the calendar year.

Asset Appraisals are a major part of the financial landscape of the United States today.  The rise in bankruptcies and the tighter restrictions placed on individuals looking to refinance has put appraisers in a different light.  Today appraisers are regarded as financial institutions by the Internal Revenue Service and are held to a higher level of scrutiny than ever before.  Our asset appraisers are USPAP-compliant and have given testimony in court for various cases.  USPAP is the Uniform Standards of Appraisal Practice and is the benchmark for appraisals contracted by attorneys, CPAs, banks and Courts.

Public Speaking and Auctioneer Education round out the trio of services provided by Meares and Associates, LLC.  Darron Meares is an auction school instructor at the Southeastern School of Auctioneering, the continuing education presenter for the Industrial Auctioneer Association, an instructor at the Certified Auctioneer Institute at Indiana University in Bloomington, Indiana and a past presenter in 27 states through the US, Puerto Rico and Mexico.  He writes his own presentations and tailors his presentations to the group to which he is speaking.  In addition, Meares is requested to speak on Generational Differences and Communicating Between the Different Generations – both presentations assist age groups in communicating with each other.