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Shopping Centers Today -> May 2003
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NEXT GENERATION HELPS THOSE NEW TO INDUSTRY
BY DEBRA HAZEL
To a newcomer, the shopping center industry can seem like a maze of long-established personal relationships among more-senior professionals. But a new ICSC networking and education program is designed to help those with five years in the business or less meet one another and their more experienced colleagues.
The program, geared to the next generation of industry executives, kicked off in June 2001 with a cocktail party in Chicago, and shopping center professionals around the country have embraced it. For the first time, there will be a Next Generation reception and session at this year’s Spring Convention in Las Vegas.
The program was conceived by two newcomers to the industry: Andrew Stein, a development and leasing associate at Wheeling, Ill.-based development firm Joseph Freed & Associates, and Peter Eisenberg, a principal at Lakeshore Development Corp., Chicago.
“Peter and I said there’s no function for professionals that are young, not necessarily in age, but in experience level,” Stein said.
The two approached seasoned professionals, among them Norris Eber, SCSM, CLS, executive vice president of asset management and acquisitions at Joseph Freed. Eber, who has more than 30 years’ experience, advised them to get a group together and also put them in touch with ICSC.
The idea was to give newer real estate professionals a chance not only to network with their industry peers, but also to meet those with more experience, Stein says. Above all, he adds, it was an opportunity to learn.
The first event, at Maggiano’s in downtown Chicago, drew more than 100 professionals. Eber and members of the ICSC Illinois state committee were the speakers.
“It became an opportunity for young people to get access to the senior people they would not normally have access to, in an informal environment,” said Eisenberg.
The Chicago group meets quarterly and varies the format each time. Approximately 20 percent of the attendees are senior professionals looking to give back to the industry by acting as mentors to junior staff, organizers say.
ICSC state committee chairmen around the country are choosing Next Generation program chairmen and will serve as advisers to the various Next Generation committees.
The veterans say they get as much out of the program as the newbies do.
“There’s a sheer pleasure in helping someone achieve their goals, and I’m having fun,” said Richard Hearn, director of leasing at Phoenix-based Vestar Development. Hearn, a 16-year industry veteran, is ICSC’s state director for Arizona. In February he played host to a reception at the Ritz-Carlton Hotel in Phoenix, recruiting top officials from Vestar, The Pederson Group and Westcor Partners to speak to a gathering of about 175 people. Hearn said he hopes to have at least two more Next Generation events next year.
In the meantime, ICSC’s Next Generation reception at the Spring Convention will be held May 18 at The Skin Bar in the Palms Hotel, and a session for the group will be held Tuesday, May 20. For details, contact ICSC’s Juleen McTaggart at (646) 728-3656.
What started out as a way to help their careers and businesses has mushroomed into something much more. Stein and Eisenberg say they couldn’t be happier, even though in a couple of years, neither of them will be “new” to the industry any longer.
“In five years I’m not in the ‘next generation.’ ” Stein acknowledged. “But my contacts will have increased exponentially, and the next group will take over.”
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