Phil Guire · 2026 Spark Award Winner

Early in his career as a real estate broker, Phil Guire was told, “If you want the neighborhood to be good to you, you’ve got to be good to the neighborhood.” This was advice his outgoing personality predisposed him to take. For 25 years, Phil has been saying “yes” to a variety of calls from local organizations for everything from board service to leadership roles in fundraising, political organizing, building renovation, and more. He’s even taken on scheduling for his Sunday morning golf group. Each week he emails tee-times to 62 people.

Phil’s neighborhood engagement has paid off for him. Personally, he feels a strong sense of attachment to the Capitol Hill community, where he and his wife, Sarah Wilson, have raised two now college-aged children, Lucas and Katie. And professionally, in his career at Compass Realty, he and his teammates Jeanne Harrison and Meg Shapiro are among the firm’s top-grossing brokers. 

Growing up in Ann Arbor, Michigan, an only child of two educators, Phil excelled in a variety of activities. Still, when he enrolled at Kalamazoo College, he remembers that he had no idea “what I wanted to be when I grew up.” He took a meandering path through several schools before finally graduating from Eastern Michigan University with a degree in management. Similarly, after moving to Washington, DC, for a job at the Washington Performing Arts Society, Phil quickly moved on to several jobs on Capitol Hill in fundraising, answering phones and getting what he called “quite an education” about politics.

But it was when he and his wife, Sarah, were expecting their first child that his present path emerged. Phil was temporarily out of a political job, waiting for one he had his eye on to become available, while Sarah had a secure position as a researcher with Deloitte. So he took an unusual route and decided to stay home with the baby. Once he was home, he thought well, he might as well get his real estate license. “All my friends,” he remembers, “were buying houses.”

Since then, Phil has sold a great many houses and contributed to the community in many ways. He has served on the boards of the Capitol Hill Arts Workshop and Capitol Hill Village, whose board he chaired. He is currently vice president of the Capitol Hill Association of Merchants and Professionals (CHAMPS). At St. Mark’s Episcopal Church, he served as junior warden and was a critical voice arguing for a bold fundraising and renovation plan there. He has worked for political candidates and even said yes when asked to be the swimming coach at Eliot-Hine Middle School.

“The act of saying yes,” Phil reflects, “has been beneficial to me as a human being. I have learned a lot.”