A Newsletter for Friends and Alumni of the University of Washington
Feature: REAL ESTATE MATTERS AT THE RUNSTAD CENTER

The Runstad Center for Real Estate Studies is emblematic of the kinds of interdisciplinary programs the UW seeks to embrace — programs that enable students to translate knowledge into action, to engage with their communities, to transform their own lives and those of the communities they serve. We here at the UW are grateful for the extraordinary leadership and generosity of Jon and Judy Runstad and many other private contributors. Thanks to them, this program is positioned to make an increasingly important impact on the real estate industry, now and in the years ahead.

Mark A. Emmert (’75)
President

Ask real estate developer Jon Runstad (’65) which is his favorite of the many buildings his firm has developed and you’re not likely to get an answer. “If you asked me which is my favorite child I wouldn’t answer that either,” says the co-founder, chairman and CEO of Wright Runstad & Company. “These things have a long life and a personality of their own, so I like to take pride in all of them.”

Over four decades in the real estate development profession, Runstad and the firm he co-founded in 1972 have contributed significantly to the downtown cityscape in the form of such iconic landmarks as the Washington Mutual Tower, where Runstad’s 27th floor office has an unmatched view of Elliott Bay. But today Runstad has even more to feel proud about as he reflects on another sort of development project that he has had a hand in shaping—the development of the Runstad Center for Real Estate Studies at the University of Washington.

For Runstad and his wife, Judy (’74), a prominent land-use, environmental and development attorney, supporting this unique, multi-disciplinary program housed in the College of Architecture and Urban Planning has been a natural extension of their dedication to both their alma mater and the commercial real estate industry.

“For Jon and me it’s been our lives, our professions, so we were eager to support the program going back to the days when (late Center director) Bob Filley and (professor) George Rolfe were nurturing it along as a concept,” Judy Runstad says. “We really want to see the program succeed.”

Six years after their lead gift helped to re-establish a real estate program at UW after a 25-year absence, the Runstads are looking at a program geared toward the future. They, along with a consortium of donors, including the Weyerhaeuser Company Foundation, Kemper Freeman Jr., George Rolfe, Gary Waterman, the ICSC Educational Foundation, and Jim Kenyon, have endowed a new chair named in honor of the late Bob Filley, the Center’s first director, who passed away in 2001, and the Center is on track to launch a Master of Science in Real Estate degree. With these recent achievements, the Center is gaining momentum in educating a new breed of real estate professional.

With its multidisciplinary approach to educating students for careers in the real estate industry, the Center is anticipating the industry needs of the coming decades. The key to adapting along with the industry, increasingly, is a big-picture view of how each development fits into its community. Along with profitability, there are other considerations, such as sustainability and smart growth. “The generation in the university today is more interested than any to date in those issues,” Jon Runstad says. “And we all are. We all acknowledge that we have to be a lot smarter and do a lot better job of doing things in the context of sustainability and conservation and energy efficiency and resource efficiency. I think that’s all extremely positive in terms of an evolving trend which has a tremendous amount of momentum. And it’s not just how you build it; it’s how you manage it after that.”

Such thinking has proved stimulating to graduate students Jason McCalpin and Andrea Hoag, who worked together on a property case study in a recent real estate development class.

“It’s a really interesting way to look at things,” Hoag says of the Center’s collaborative approach, which puts business students in close working proximity to those with backgrounds in architecture, design, public administration, law, or other disciplines. “Jason and I work really well together, but we see things differently.” McCalpin, who chose the UW for its top-ranked MBA program, says the opportunity to gain new perspectives is one of the most rewarding aspects of a program he has high praise for. In addition to his respect for the program’s two primary faculty members, Rolfe and Runstad Center director Jim DeLisle, and his appreciation of the many professional contacts he has made through the program, he finds working with architects, designers, and other creative types a good balance to his business-oriented mind.

McCalpin, Hoag, and undergraduate Mike Woo all look forward to Rolfe’s real estate development processes class. They like his easygoing style, his tendency to temper classroom lectures with an abundance of personal anecdotes, and the ways in which the real estate advice he gives them can also be applied to life in general.

In Rolfe’s view, a successful real estate developer needs far more than a good head for numbers or an ability to sell a vision. A good developer requires a keen sense of the market and its demands, which ultimately requires an expertise in human behavior. In real estate development, as in life, assumptions will be challenged, and much cannot be controlled. Rolfe invites his students to put themselves in others’ shoes, to anticipate how developers and clients think, to challenge their own assumptions.

“There’s not always an answer to the problems that we’re doing,” Woo says. “George is usually looking for the way we analyze the data we get, the way we think about it, more than if this answer is right or wrong. There’s no real right or wrong answers in the real world. It’s all about how you go about getting your answer.”

There may be no cut and dried answers, but a well-rounded background in marketing, finance, design, construction, and law may facilitate workable solutions. “It’s not just looking at the bottom line,” says Woo, an undergraduate earning degrees in civil engineering and architecture. “It’s also looking at the type of design and the community that you’re changing from an urban planning standpoint.”

And it’s preparing students to make a seamless transition into their professional futures. McCalpin, who will graduate in June with an MBA and an emphasis in real estate, took advantage of the program’s connections to area firms to secure employment at GVA Kidder Matthews, a local commercial real estate firm. Asked if he’s pleased with the education he’s received at UW, McCalpin answers without hesitation. “Very pleased.”

That education, says Jon Runstad, will serve McCalpin well in his future. “Real estate is such a huge part of the world we live in. If you take all of its various components it’s probably a third of our total economy, but it’s also a huge part of the environment, what we see and what affects our lives on a daily basis. To have a program that better prepares people to participate in the industry is a very positive thing and a very good thing for the University to be doing.”

For more on the Runstad Center, visit www.reuw.washington.edu/

Return to Spring 2006 Campaign Newsletter