Dad. Husband. Citizen. Real estate broker.
Fostoria, Ohio
I grew up in Fostoria, Ohio, where you could tell the season by what was growing in the fields. Winter wheat, soybeans, corn. By the Fourth of July, you measured the corn and hoped it was knee-high. Saturdays in the fall were sacred. Cookouts were a mainstay, with local bratwurst on the grill and Lake Erie perch or walleye fish fries that were hard to beat. My parents left early for work and still made it back to coach ball teams. You said please and thank you. You respected people who served, because someone in every family did. My grandfather served in the Navy during World War II and crossed the English Channel as part of the Normandy invasion. My other grandfather served in the Marine Corps during Korea, and the work ethic he brought home from that service has never left the family. Those men shaped the culture I grew up in. That isn’t background. That’s the foundation.
Leadership came early. By my senior year, I was captain of both the football and baseball teams, class president, and a Buckeye Boys State attendee. The pattern was already there: show up, earn the trust of the people around you, and take responsibility for the outcome.
Ohio Wesleyan and Paris
Football got me to Ohio Wesleyan University, where I double-majored in Politics & Government and French. Junior year, I spent a semester at La Sorbonne in Paris, living in the 5th arrondissement. The academic program was rigorous, but the real education happened outside the classroom: navigating a city where I didn’t fully speak the language, reading situations and people, learning to get comfortable in unfamiliar territory.
It was also the sixtieth anniversary of D-Day and the liberation of Paris. One morning, jogging through the Luxembourg Gardens, I came across a group of American Legion members gathered in the park. I stopped and thought about where I was. A kid from a small, blue-collar town in Northwest Ohio, studying at one of the most storied universities in the world — and sixty years earlier, my grandfather had been crossing the English Channel toward the beachhead at Normandy. That moment put everything in perspective. It still does.
That experience — all of it — shaped the way I move through the world. Present. Attentive. Grateful for what came before me.
Boston
Three days after graduation, I moved to Boston with no job lined up and no one in my contact list. I got involved. I joined the local Democratic committee representing Beacon Hill, Back Bay, and Fenway, and before long was elected Chairman of the Boston Ward Five Democratic Committee and to the Massachusetts Democratic State Committee. I met people, built relationships, and worked my way into state politics. I served as Legislative and Budget Director for State Senator Tom Kennedy in the Massachusetts State House, then managed the political committee for State Treasurer Steve Grossman, a former DNC Chairman under President Clinton. I attended the Democratic National Convention in Charlotte, worked campaigns across Massachusetts and New Hampshire, and when a state representative seat opened up in my neighborhood, I ran for it. I got the Boston Globe endorsement. I had strong support from working families and trade unions. I lost.
That loss clarified things. Around the same time I was offered a position at Charles Gate Realty Group, I also got into law school in Massachusetts. I had a real decision to make. I chose real estate, and the reason still holds: what I loved about politics was working with people, solving complex problems that affected their lives. Real estate, I realized, was the same thing. Not unlike constituent services, really. You’re the trusted adviser helping someone navigate something that feels overwhelming, and the outcome matters enormously to them. Law school could wait. It’s still waiting.
I joined Charles Gate Realty Group in Boston, where PT and Mike gave me what I still describe as a two-year graduate education in the business. I learned the craft. I learned what it means to earn a client’s trust.
Coming Home
Then life shifted. Lindsay and I moved back to Columbus in the winter of 2015-16, and I had to get my real estate license all over again — there’s no reciprocity between Massachusetts and Ohio. So I started from scratch. We rented in German Village while I rebuilt my business, then moved to Clintonville, where our second daughter was born.
When we finally became eligible to buy — Ohio lenders wanted two years of in-state tax returns — we looked at everything: Worthington, Upper Arlington, Hilliard, Clintonville. Then we saw the plans for Bridge Park in Dublin. It hadn’t been built yet. We looked at each other and knew. We bought our first home near Coffman Park, and we haven’t moved since.
Shortly after planting roots in Dublin, I served as President of the Greater Dublin Realty Association. When COVID hit, I was already with Core Ohio Realty Advisors. I used that time to get my broker’s license, and shortly after became the firm’s principal broker. From there, I moved to Keller Williams Consultants Realty in Dublin as managing broker, overseeing more than three hundred agents, then became principal broker for Real of Ohio, Real Broker’s Ohio brokerage. Those years gave me something most agents never get: a front-row seat to hundreds of transactions, contracts, and negotiations at every price point. I coached agents through the hard ones. I saw what worked and what didn’t.
In the summer of 2025, I stepped away from brokerage leadership to launch Josh Dawson Real Estate. It’s a solo practice built on repeat clients and referrals, and every client gets the full benefit of everything I’ve learned. I currently hold an appointed seat on the MLS Committee of the Columbus Realtors. Recently, an agent with over thirty years in the business told me that the offer I wrote on behalf of my clients was one of the best she’d ever seen. Those clients got under contract before the home ever hit the market.
Dublin
Today, I’m no longer involved in public life. I am, however, deeply involved in my family’s. My two daughters attend elementary school in Dublin, and I’m all-in on their world: coaching softball and basketball through Dublin Youth Athletics, spending as much time with them in the summer at Lake Erie where my parents live, and feeling grateful every day to raise my family in the kind of community that shaped me.
One percent of every commission I earn goes to the Dublin Education Foundation, a non-profit that funds grants for innovative educators in Dublin City Schools. My daughters are in those classrooms. Investing in them feels like the right thing to do.
If you’re thinking about a move in Dublin or Central Ohio, I’d be glad to talk it through.