Mark Gittler
“I sat me
down to write a little story, which maybe in the end became a song.” That is the opening line of one of my friend
Mark Gittler’s favorite Procol Harum song.
It’s sad that early this morning I’m writing a little story about Mark
who died on Tuesday apparently of a heart attack while driving in West
Virginia.
The vast
majority of you don’t know Mark but those of you in the shopping center
industry have had, unbeknownst to you, a slim connection with Mark. In his career, he was the general manager of
the highest volume A&S (Abraham & Strauss) Department Store (now long
gone) in Manhattan. His career in retail
real estate (on the retailer side) spanned more than 30 years. And, while Mark was a very hard and dedicated
worker, his job was not his life.
I was Mark’s
summer camp counselor in 1967 or 68, his first year at the wonderful Camp
Walden on Trout Lake, up the hill from Bolton Landing and Lake George, NY. Mark was part of the camper-waiter group, a
bunch of guys who were around 15 years old.
Those were special times – those years and a few more afterwards.
Mark was a
competitive basketball player and Walden, although not a ‘basketball camp’ in
the true sense of the definition, had a serious basketball personality. The camp was then owned by Mel Besdin, who
played varsity basketball at Syracuse University and Dolph Schayes, voted one
of the 50 Greatest Players in NBA (National Basketball Association) history. Also a counselor in those days was Jimmy
Boeheim, the long-time coach of the Syracuse Orangemen basketball team. Thinking back on that time, we had a lot of
fun – and played some great basketball!
Mark was
also one of the most dedicated fans of Bruce Springsteen. He and his good friend Irwin Cohen, saw, I
don’t know how many Springsteen shows.
The one I shared with them was in about 1974. Mark, who then lived in Long Beach, NY,
organized a party at his house, which was followed by a chartered bus trip into
New York for a Springsteen show at, perhaps, The Academy of Music. I will not go into any details about that
night – think about the time and use your imagination.
Mark was one
of the most generous souls on the planet.
Not just with his family but with others as well. Sadly, Mark and I had a falling out after the
now legendary Camp Walden reunion in Montreal in the summer of 2003. That night, Mark sang lead with The Arcade
Love Machine, a camp rock and roll band that reunited for one last gig (three
months after that show, lead singer Dave Florendo died of an aggressive
cancer). That night was the last time I
saw Mark.
I kept up
with him via Irwin. His retailing odyssey
took him to senior positions with a number of well-known chains. His passion for retailing was likely only
overshadowed by his love for The Boss – Bruce Springsteen.
In connection with Mark's death, a memorial
page in the Winter 2017 issue of the PREA Quarterly (Pension Real Estate
Association) for Michael J. Humphrey, who recently and unexpectedly died,
included this message:
His family would like to stress that heart
disease and heart attacks can happen to anyone at any age and fitness level,
and there are many preventative steps people can take to stay heart
healthy. The family encourages everyone
to visit a doctor regularly for a health screening, which can determine if
further action needs to be taken.
Mark was
carrying around a bunch of extra weight for a number of years and I learned
that he suffered from Type-2 Diabetes – which is many times directly related to
being overweight. But both Michael
Humphreys and Kevin Lynch, co-founder of The Townsend Group who also died
recently of a sudden heart attack, were not overweight and we should all heed
Michael’s family’s message.
In ending
this piece about Mark Gittler I want to mention to two good stories about people in
the industry. Ray Torto, co-founder of
the legendary real estate research firm Torto/Wheaton and currently a professor
at Harvard University, has substantially recovered from a terrible car accident
about a year ago and is back to his teaching gig. Mike Clarke, London-based
senior exec with CBRE Global Investors is also ‘this close’ to going back to
work full-time after also being involved in a bad car crash a little more than a
year ago. As Sam Cooke sang, ‘Ain’t that
good news!”
My
condolences go out to the family and large entourage of friends of Mark
Gittler.
I hate writing these pieces - except for the good news!
 |
| Mark Gittler |
University of North Carolina Real Estate
Development Case Challenge
Last week, thanks to the gracious invitation of Dave
Hartzell, director of the Leonard W. Wood Center for Real Estate Studies at
Kenan-Flagler Business School at the University of North Carolina, Chapel Hill
(boy Dave, that’s some title you have!), Susan Drake and Jim Spaeth, I once again served a judge for the
annual real estate development case competition.
Felix / Weiner Workshops
On Tuesday
of this week, in New York City, we ran another of our Behavioral Presentation
Coaching Workshops. These four-hour
interactive sessions are limited to 6 participants from different commercial /
institutional real estate firms. For
example, in this week’s workshop were folks from UBS, AEW, Ackman Ziff, Oxford
Property Group (owned by OMERS (Ontario Municipal Employees Retirement System)
and Stockbridge. In these workshops
there are no speeches by my partner Liz Weiner or I, no presentations and no technology (nothing can go wrong!). It’s all interactive exercises.
The feedback
we’ve received about these workshops has been extremely positive – and, more importantly,
participants have taken the time to give us some great suggestions on how to
make this workshop even more valuable.
Our schedule of these and our Women’s Leadership Workshops can be found
here. Btw, today, we are conducting our
23rd Women’s Leadership Workshop in New York City. Liz and I have run these across the U.S. and, as of a
few weeks ago, in London. Women from
more than 90 different industry firms have attended.
PREA
(Pension Real Estate Association) Spring Conference
This week
PREA held one of it’s semi-annual conferences at the Waldorf Astoria in New
York City. Attendance is estimated to
have been 900 of my closest friends in the industry!
While I got
to run into a good number of folks I know, what interested me is the number of
younger folks wearing conference badges. It’s great to see what is
starting to amount to the changing of the guard in the pension fund real estate
world.
The senior
executives in our industry generally aren’t going anywhere fast. Yes, there have been some retirements or
semi-retirements of my peers over the past few years but those founders of
private equity and investment management firms are still very actively involved
– not only in their businesses but in nurturing the next generation of industry
leaders.
Congratulations
to Gail Haynes, President of PREA, her long time colleague Amy Laffargue and the
entire PREA staff for hosting another great event. If you are someone who would like to immerse
themselves in the institutional real estate world, check out the next PREA conference,
which is in October in Chicago (there's a good chance the 'Unofficial PREA Band will be performing the night before the conference...stay tuned).
On the Road with Steve Felix…
March 1-2:
San Diego, CA to attend the NAREIM Spring Executive Officers Meeting
March 3 –
8: New York City
March 9:
Dallas to conduct and internal Women’s Leadership Workshop for 29 women
March 13-17:
Arden/ Asheville, NC
April 3-4:
New York City to conduct a Behavioral Presentation Coaching workshop for a real
estate investment management firm
April 5-6:
Los Angeles tentatively to attend the PERE Global Investor Forum
May 11:
London tentatively to attend the PERE Europe 2017 Forum
May 23: London to conduct our Women’s Leadership
Workshop
June 25-27:
Newport, RI where I’ll be moderating my “A Day in the Life of an LP” at IMN’s18th Real Estate Opportunity and Private Fund Investing Forum
2 comments:
I'm sitting here in a state of shock. This is the first I heard of Mark's passing. I worked at A&S with Mark in the early 70's and he was the first person to turn me on to Springsteen. I always felt indebted to him for that. We hung out for awhile, shot hoops near my house and talked about girls, including a very special girl he liked from camp that left him a little heartbroken.
Many many years went by and we lost contact as I had moved to California. We reconnected via Linked In a few years ago and I was literally just sending him an e-mail tonight about a You Tube video of Springsteen playing in Passaic N.J. in 1978. His e-mail no longer worked and when I did a Google search your piece came up about his passing.
So so sad to hear of this. I remember him as a fun guy, good sense of humor, athletic and a hard worker. I knew he rose up through the retail ranks over the years. I wish we had a chance to connect in person and am sad to know that moment won't come. I wish his family well.
Joe
Perhaps its the passage of time but as the years creep by and I'm three years retired my mind sometimes wanders back to the people and places that have been part of my life's journey. As I wrote in my post on August 15, 2017, Mark had a brief but impactful place in my life. The last time I actually spoke to him by phone he was a store manager for A&S on Long Island. I was happy to see how far up the ranks he had come from our early days as assistant buyers out of the A&S main store on Fulton St. Brooklyn. Those were heady days. We were full of vim and vinegar as young men can be starting off their careers. While I left retailing not long after a stint as a buyer in the Budget store at A&S Mark stayed with them and built a long and successful career. My journey eventually took me to California and eventual VP of Marketing at the California Science Center. I so regret not making a point of tracking him down earlier and arranging a get together. So shocking that he went at what feels to me like a very early age. Its a lesson to keep in mind about staying in touch with friends and family. I don't know much about his family at all but if I was to say something to them is that I remember him fondly as a good guy, funny, energetic and just so human with all the vulnerabilities of an authentic person. I miss you Mark! Joe D
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