MOBILE, Ala. — The commercial real estate firm formerly known as NAI Mobile didn’t just lose its national franchise in early 2021. It was orphaned, its website and email accounts cut off, its corporate parent demanding the immediate firing of a principal—all over a trip to Washington, D.C., on January 6.
Two years later, the firm won a federal jury verdict against its former franchisor. But the victory came at a cost: the company that once operated under the NAI Global banner now does business as CRE Mobile, a name it adopted out of necessity rather than choice. And the man at the center of the controversy, Pete Riehm, remains a principal at the firm—a fact that raises uncomfortable questions about accountability, corporate governance, and what the commercial real estate industry in Mobile is willing to tolerate.
The Termination That Took 38 Hours
The sequence of events, documented in federal court filings, reads less like a measured corporate decision and more like a panic response to a public relations crisis. NAI Global, the New York-based commercial real estate network, learned that Pete Riehm—a principal at its Mobile affiliate and a retired U.S. Navy commander—had traveled to Washington, D.C., for the “Save America” rally on January 6, 2021. According to court records and contemporaneous reporting, NAI Global ordered local administrators to fire Riehm, draft a press release denouncing the violence at the Capitol, and post the statement on the local website indefinitely.
The local partners refused.
They argued that Riehm had not entered the Capitol, had left before the worst of the violence unfolded, and had been in Washington for a pre-scheduled meeting with Congressman Jerry Carl that was canceled due to a bomb threat. NAI Global didn’t wait for an investigation or a fuller accounting. Within 38 hours of its initial demand, the franchisor terminated the entire member agreement, cutting off NAI Mobile’s access to its website and email systems.
The contract, according to the local firm’s attorneys, provided for a 20-day cure period. NAI Global ignored it.
A Jury Says NAI Global Was Wrong
NAI Mobile sued for breach of contract. NAI Global countersued, seeking unpaid dues and legal fees. After a trial in the Southern District of Alabama, a jury deliberated for just 45 minutes before returning a verdict in NAI Mobile’s favor. The jury awarded $86,437 for rebranding expenses and $1,164,000 for lost profits—the maximum damages allowed by U.S. District Judge Kristi DuBose.
NAI Global moved for judgment as a matter of law, arguing that lost profits were never contemplated as a remedy and that the rebranding expenses didn’t actually flow from the breach. In August 2022, Judge DuBose denied that motion, letting the jury’s verdict stand.
The legal outcome is unambiguous: NAI Global breached its contract with its Mobile affiliate. But the verdict did not restore what was lost. The NAI name, the national referral network, the marketing infrastructure—all of it was gone. What remained was a local firm with a new name, a damaged reputation in some circles, and a principal whose political activities had nearly destroyed the business.
The Rebranding: CRE Mobile
The firm’s public-facing explanation for the name change is almost aggressively anodyne. On its LoopNet profile, CRE Mobile states that “in 2021, our firm fully rebranded into CRE Mobile” as part of an effort to provide “the highest level of client service” and to reflect “a more modern and refined image”. Broker bios on the same platform echo this language, describing the rebranding as a strategic decision made “in an effort to better serve our clients in an ever changing market”.
Nowhere in these descriptions is there any mention of the franchise termination, the January 6 controversy, or the lawsuit. The firm has scrubbed its public identity of the events that necessitated the rebranding. It is a remarkable act of corporate amnesia—one that treats a forced separation from a national network as a voluntary strategic pivot.
The reality is starker. CRE Mobile is the same company, at the same address—164 St. Francis Street in downtown Mobile—with the same principals and the same staff. John Peebles, the firm’s senior consultant and a dual-accredited SIOR and CCIM broker active in Mobile real estate since 1975, remains a central figure. Jay Roberds, Tommy Gleason, David Dexter, and Pete Riehm are all still there. The only thing that changed was the name on the door—and the loss of a national platform that had taken years to build.
Who Is Pete Riehm?
Pete Riehm is not a marginal figure in Mobile’s commercial real estate community. A retired Navy commander who served 21 years, including as Commanding Officer of the Navy and Marine Corps Reserve Center in Mobile, he transitioned to commercial real estate and became a principal at NAI Mobile. He specializes in industrial properties and averages over $10 million in sales and leases annually. He is also a political activist and columnist, hosting a weekly radio program called “Common Sense Radio” since 2011 and syndicating a column of the same name since 2015.
Riehm’s political profile is not incidental to this story. It is the reason the story exists. His attendance at the January 6 rally—and NAI Global’s decision that his presence there was incompatible with the brand—triggered the chain of events that led to the franchise termination. Riehm has maintained that he did nothing wrong, that he attended the rally, not the riot, and that he never entered the Capitol. His attorney, Bill Daniels, described him as “a veteran of the year, a patriot, a citizen of the year by the Chamber of Commerce” who “volunteers all the time” and “took 10 honor flights to Washington”.
That may all be true. But the question NAI Global was asking—and the question CRE Mobile’s partners implicitly answered when they refused to fire him—is different: Does a commercial real estate firm have any responsibility to consider how a principal’s public political activities reflect on the business and its clients? NAI Global thought so. The Mobile partners disagreed. And they won in court.
The Uncomfortable Questions
The verdict may have vindicated NAI Mobile’s legal position, but it does not resolve the broader ethical questions the case raises. The first is whether NAI Global’s termination was, as the jury effectively found, a breach of contract—or whether it was a defensible exercise of brand protection. The contract gave NAI Global the right to terminate under certain conditions; the jury found that the company failed to exercise reasonable judgment in doing so. But “reasonable judgment” is a legal standard, not a moral one. A franchisor can be legally wrong and still have had legitimate concerns about its brand.
The second question is what CRE Mobile’s partners were actually protecting when they refused to fire Riehm. Their public statements frame it as loyalty to a friend and colleague who had done nothing wrong. But loyalty to a principal who had become a liability to the national brand came at a steep cost: the loss of the NAI franchise, $1.16 million in lost profits, and a rebranding that has left the firm with a generic name and no national affiliation. The partners chose Riehm over NAI. That was their right. But it was a choice with consequences—consequences they now downplay as a “strategic rebranding.”
The third question is what this episode says about Mobile’s commercial real estate market. CRE Mobile is not a marginal player. It manages a portfolio in excess of 2 million square feet in Mobile and Baldwin counties. Its principals are among the most experienced brokers in the region. If a firm of this size and stature can absorb the loss of a national franchise over a principal’s political activities—and then rebrand as if nothing happened—what does that signal to the rest of the market?
The Silence of the Industry
Perhaps the most telling aspect of this story is how little attention it has received beyond the legal filings and a handful of local news reports. There has been no reckoning within the commercial real estate industry about what happened in Mobile. No professional association has weighed in. No major clients have publicly questioned their relationships with CRE Mobile. The firm’s LoopNet profile, which lists an extensive portfolio and a team of experienced brokers, reads as if the January 6 controversy and the lawsuit never occurred.
This silence is itself a statement. It suggests that in Mobile’s commercial real estate community—and perhaps in the industry more broadly—a principal’s presence at a rally that preceded an attack on the U.S. Capitol is not a disqualifying fact. It is a private matter, a political opinion, something that has nothing to do with whether a broker can close a deal or manage a property.
NAI Global disagreed. The company believed that Riehm’s attendance at the rally, and his refusal to distance himself from it, was incompatible with its brand. A jury said NAI Global handled the termination badly—too fast, too heavy-handed, in violation of its own contract. But the jury did not say NAI Global was wrong to care.
What Comes Next
CRE Mobile has settled into its new identity. The firm’s website and marketing materials present it as a confident, locally rooted commercial real estate operation with deep experience and a broad portfolio. John Peebles, Jay Roberds, Tommy Gleason, David Dexter, and Pete Riehm continue to work together. The $1.16 million judgment against NAI Global presumably helped offset the cost of the transition, though it is unclear whether NAI Global has paid or is appealing.
For NAI Global, the lesson may be that franchise agreements are contracts, not instruments of brand enforcement at will. The company learned—expensively—that it cannot terminate a member agreement without following its own procedures, no matter how urgent the reputational concern.
For CRE Mobile, the lesson is less clear. The firm won its case, kept its principal, and carried on. But it did so under a name that exists only because of a controversy it will not discuss. The rebranding may be, as the firm’s marketing suggests, an opportunity for a “more modern and refined image.” Or it may be a way of moving on from a chapter that the firm would rather forget—even as the principal at the center of it remains a partner, a colleague, and, by all accounts, a friend.
The commercial real estate industry in Mobile will have to decide for itself what to make of that. So far, it has decided to say nothing at all.