James Wilson, PMP

James started in commercial construction PM — schedules, RFIs, change orders, the unglamorous half of every megaproject. He sat the PMP in 2017 under the pre-2021 format and renewed under the current 2021 ECO blueprint two years ago. After enterprise PMO leadership roles in Atlanta and Houston, he pivoted in 2022 to a residential real-estate brokerage practice back home in Tampa.

He holds the PMI PMP and a current Florida real-estate licence. He failed the Florida state real-estate exam on his first sitting — the math, predictably — and passed it on the second after a weekend of nothing but proration problems. That experience is the source of the single piece of advice he gives every real-estate candidate: drill the math until it's reflex.

On Cert Climb he covers the project-management certifications (PMP, CAPM, ACP, the Scrum tracks, CompTIA Project+) and the real-estate licensure exams (national portion plus the Texas, California, Florida, and New York state portions). He is allergic to PM frameworks that don't survive contact with a deadline, which informs the practical bias in every guide.