Showing posts with label appreciation. Show all posts
Showing posts with label appreciation. Show all posts
Thursday, February 3, 2011
Monday, September 27, 2010
Honoring Fred Petri, tireless supporter of real estate education at Wisconsin
On Wednesday September 15, 2010, members of the Graaskamp Center Board of Advisors honored Fred Petri, President of Housing Capital Co., lifetime member of the board and long-time supporter of the real estate program at the Wisconsin School of Business. Professor François Ortalo-Magné, chairman of the department of real estate and urban land economics at the Wisconsin School of Business delivered the following remarks.“I would like my words to convey to Fred Petri my utmost gratitude for his quiet and humble contribution to the real estate program here at the Wisconsin School of Business. In deference to his wishes, we are honoring him tonight by simply being here, around him; no roast, no toast, no lifetime achievement award. Any such award would be unfair because we cannot yet measure the full impact of his contribution.
We would not be here tonight if he had not worked tirelessly and successfully, by himself and with his friends, to convince the UW and the School of Business to stay involved in real estate education once Jim Graaskamp passed away. Fred set the foundation for the post-Graaskamp era, putting us on a path whereby today we have a legitimate claim at global leadership in real estate education.
Once the program was secure, he innovated with his friend Jim Curtis to create and fund (with additional help from E.J. Plesko) the Applied Real Estate Investment Trust (AREIT) training program, one of the distinguishing features of our real estate MBA program. This program is so valuable that last year we extended its reach to include undergraduate students – a gift that keeps on giving.
Fred Petri has done much more for us, some of it only the chairman of the department will ever get to measure and appreciate.
Personally, I want to thank you, Fred, for two things. First, a month after I started at Wisconsin, we bumped into each other at the Madison airport. You sat me down and gave me the lay of the land. I left twenty minutes later thinking: these guys are really passionate about their real estate program, I’d better do my best. Second, today I am here as chair of possibly the best real estate program in the U.S., arguably the best in the world. Through the Global Real Estate Master (GREM) partnership, we are establishing ourselves as the real estate department to the number one business schools in Asia, Latin America and Europe. Without your inspiration to my career here, without your influence on the program, I would not have the privilege today to share the evening with you and so many of your friends dedicated to training the most competent, professional and passionate real estate leaders around the world.
So on behalf of all of us, on behalf of our Dean Mike Knetter who could not be here tonight, and on behalf of the university, thank you.”
Photo by Martha Busse of Fred Petri (center) with friends and family at the fall meeting of the Graaskamp Center Board of Advisors.
Friday, September 10, 2010
Honoring Cambridge's Professor Christine Whitehead
by Stephen Malpezzi, Professor and Lorin and Marjorie Tiefenthaler Distinguished Chair in Real Estate
September 15-17, I'll be joining a hundred other economists and social scientists at a conference at Cambridge University to honor Professor Christine Whitehead, one of Europe's leading lights on a range of housing and urban related topics. Christine is particularly known for her work on housing finance, for research on the effects of land use regulation on housing markets, and for working tirelessly to improve housing policy in the UK and around the globe. In addition to her academic reputation and awards, in recognition of her accomplishments Professor Whitehead has been honored by Queen Elizabeth with the Order of the British Empire.
For much of her career Christine has held simultaneous academic appointments at Cambridge University, and at the London School of Economics; at the former university, she was for a time the colleague of long-time UW Real Estate professor Jim Shilling when he taught at Cambridge; and our own Professor and Department Chair François Ortalo-Magné while he was on the faculty of the London School of Economics.
But where she's been has not been nearly so important as what Christine has accomplished; the thumbnail sketch above only hints at her contributions to research and policy. For example, in 1974 she published a seminal econometric model of the UK housing market. Her research productivity has never flagged; she's still undertaking important work on the effects of the current economic downturn on local public finance, for example. In addition to her institution-building work, keeping the flame of housing and real estate economics alive at Cambridge and LSE, Christine has been one of the driving forces behind the European Network for Housing Research, about which I may share more in another post. She has also been coauthor and mentor to many junior (and for that matter, senior!) faculty and researchers. While physically far removed from us, Professor Whitehead clearly embodies the Wisconsin Tradition of combining rigorous scholarship with a concern for real world problems.
I am proud to count myself as one of Professor Whitehead's many friends, and am honored to join with another good friend, Professor Kyung-Hwan Kim of Sogang University, to present our ongoing work comparing the volatility of housing markets around the world, to Christine and to the conference. Appropriately, the meeting is held under the auspices of the Cambridge Centre for Housing and Planning Research, which Professor Whitehead founded and headed for many years.
Professor Whitehead will soon be stepping down from her formal academic appointments, but all of us in housing economics and related fields look forward to continuing to benefit from her future thoughts and writings, and her continued participation in venues like ENHR; and of course her continued friendship.
I'll report back in a few weeks on the conference, and some of the research presented there. For now, from Wisconsin, we have no OBE to give, but we say, Christine, thank you and well done.
September 15-17, I'll be joining a hundred other economists and social scientists at a conference at Cambridge University to honor Professor Christine Whitehead, one of Europe's leading lights on a range of housing and urban related topics. Christine is particularly known for her work on housing finance, for research on the effects of land use regulation on housing markets, and for working tirelessly to improve housing policy in the UK and around the globe. In addition to her academic reputation and awards, in recognition of her accomplishments Professor Whitehead has been honored by Queen Elizabeth with the Order of the British Empire.For much of her career Christine has held simultaneous academic appointments at Cambridge University, and at the London School of Economics; at the former university, she was for a time the colleague of long-time UW Real Estate professor Jim Shilling when he taught at Cambridge; and our own Professor and Department Chair François Ortalo-Magné while he was on the faculty of the London School of Economics.
But where she's been has not been nearly so important as what Christine has accomplished; the thumbnail sketch above only hints at her contributions to research and policy. For example, in 1974 she published a seminal econometric model of the UK housing market. Her research productivity has never flagged; she's still undertaking important work on the effects of the current economic downturn on local public finance, for example. In addition to her institution-building work, keeping the flame of housing and real estate economics alive at Cambridge and LSE, Christine has been one of the driving forces behind the European Network for Housing Research, about which I may share more in another post. She has also been coauthor and mentor to many junior (and for that matter, senior!) faculty and researchers. While physically far removed from us, Professor Whitehead clearly embodies the Wisconsin Tradition of combining rigorous scholarship with a concern for real world problems.
I am proud to count myself as one of Professor Whitehead's many friends, and am honored to join with another good friend, Professor Kyung-Hwan Kim of Sogang University, to present our ongoing work comparing the volatility of housing markets around the world, to Christine and to the conference. Appropriately, the meeting is held under the auspices of the Cambridge Centre for Housing and Planning Research, which Professor Whitehead founded and headed for many years.
Professor Whitehead will soon be stepping down from her formal academic appointments, but all of us in housing economics and related fields look forward to continuing to benefit from her future thoughts and writings, and her continued participation in venues like ENHR; and of course her continued friendship.
I'll report back in a few weeks on the conference, and some of the research presented there. For now, from Wisconsin, we have no OBE to give, but we say, Christine, thank you and well done.
Photo of Professor Whitehead, flanked by Stephen Malpezzi (right), and by the late Professor Bengt Turner (left). Courtesy of European Network for Housing Research.
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