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The Age of Albert Sussman: The ICSC Years, 1958-1986
How ICSC’s First Head of Staff Created the Organization We Know Today
Michael Tubridy and John T. Riordan
The Latin inscription on the tomb of British architect Christopher Wren reads, Lector, si monumentum requiris, circumspice ("Reader, if
you seek a memorial, look around you"). The same might be said for Albert Sussman (1916–2004) in relation to ICSC. “Al” was in many ways
both architect and builder of virtually all of the basic components of ICSC, particularly in the areas of information, education and action in
support of the association’s members. These building blocks continue to be among the most valuable parts of the fabric of what is today one of
the largest and most successful industry associations in the world. ICSC is renowned for its local and regional meetings, topical conferences,
conventions, deal makings, government relations initiatives, professional education and accreditation, international expansion, research, and
book and magazine publishing.
The son of immigrants, Al was a graduate of the historic class of l939 of City College of New York, which produced nine Nobel Prize winners, among other notables. Following his service in World War II he tried his hand, successfully, at various aspects of journalism and public relations, including a stint for the Automobile Association of America. This job made him aware of the heavy automotive traffic to shopping centers built after the war. Such a growing industry, he believed, had the potential for a trade magazine.
Al brought his idea to Leonard Farber, a neighbor in Hartsdale, N.Y., whom he knew from local political functions. Farber, ICSC’s founding president, took Al to ICSC’s board of trustees to speak about the proposal, but the idea was judged premature. (Al fulfilled his vision nearly two decades into his 28-year tenure at ICSC by converting the industry newsletter into the magazine, Shopping Centers Today, in 1979.)
His intelligence and drive so impressed the board, however, that Farber offered Sussman the job of heading up the association, but on a part-time basis, as ICSC could not afford to pay a full salary. By January 1958, Al was spending so much time on the new group that he joined ICSC full-time. Unable to match the salary that he had been making in his public relations job, ICSC agreed to pay him a percentage for each new member—an arrangement that lasted until he had brought in so many recruits that it became apparent that it would bankrupt the association, so he began working on a straight salary.
Although initially responsible for day-to-day operations, public relations and membership drives, Al soon realized that exchanges of information and experiences also were critical in reducing the effects of publicity about failures of some centers and bringing stability to the young industry. Years later, Al pointed to several factors that helped turn around the early perception of shopping centers as risky investments. They included the creation and the perfection of leases designed especially for this new form of retail real estate, standardized financing techniques and the willingness of shopping center people, principally at the time developers, to learn from one another. Al’s biggest single accomplishment in the long list for which he justly gets credit was to bring about the realization that competitors could work together, share information in appropriate ways for the common good and stand an equal chance of benefiting from what they’d learned from each other. Implicit in this was the understanding that ICSC members were the best available teachers besides being the students most in need of learning. Al’s skills in actively involving the members in the most important work of the association is the key to ICSC’s success over time.
Al Sussman was more than just an insightful innovator. He had numerous varied interests that brought him knowledge and skills that tended to serve him well as ICSC grew and demanded more and more of him. Above all, he was interested in people—people in all walks of life. And, he was a passionate New Yorker. He knew its history, its neighborhoods and its quirks. To walk along 53rd Street with him was to hear not just of the clubs, bars and restaurants, but also of the celebrities, musicians and New York characters who had frequented such places as the Stork Club (once located in what is today Paley Park, just across the street from ICSC’s long-time headquarters off Fifth Avenue). Many of those walks, and talks, in New York and elsewhere brought Al as close as a friend to both the leaders and members of ICSC. Some of those people discovered in Al a capacity to be more than just a friend, but something closer to being a member of the family. For Farber, Al was like a brother of sorts. He was expected to attend, and did, baptisms, bar and bat mitzvahs and marriages of family members of people like Roy Drachman, Aaron Aronov, Jim Kelley, John Smith, Ken Tucker, Frank Orrico and other early successors to Farber as ICSC presidents. The same was to be true for later leaders such as Jim Wilson, Dan Donahue, Steve Karp, Buddy Herring, and Irv Maizlish to name but a few. Nor was it just ICSC leaders who were his friends and he theirs, but many—indeed thousands—believed correctly that they knew Al as a friend and he saw them as friends.
There is yet another way to look at it. In an industry where deal making is one of the core functions, personal interaction is crucial. Few were able to thrive—as did Albert Sussman—in such an environment. Whether dealing with dozens of trustees or building and motivating a staff, this man was impressive not only in his ability to get along with people of varying temperaments but also with his skill to get them to share his vision and enthusiasm for what he called “the most exciting business of the twentieth century.” 1
1 “Farewell, Al: Sussman Turned ICSC From Small Club Into Global Organization,” Shopping Centers Today, July 2004, p. 9.