James Graaskamp

James A. Graaskamp (1933-1988), a professor and department chairman of real estate at the University of Wisconsin-Madison, helped establish his field within the realm of academia. He is credited with creating a multi-faceted ethics based curriculum now widely used in teaching real estate.

Biography

Born in Milwaukee in 1933, he contracted polio at the age of 17. The disease left him quadriplegic, forcing him to abandon a football scholarship to Harvard. He earned a bachelor’s degree in creative writing from Rollins College in Winter Park, Florida, then went on to earn a master’s of business administration in security analysis from Marquette University in Milwaukee, Wisconsin and a doctorate in urban land economics and risk management from the University of Wisconsin. He began teaching real estate at the University of Wisconsin in 1964 and continued until his death in 1988 at the age of 54. His devotion to students and intellectual oratory earned him legions of loyal student followers.

Contribution to Real Estate

In the 1970s, he began to advocate for an environmental ethic in real estate proceedings, recognizing that development has considerable and nearly irreversible impacts on the land. He also believed in the need for a social component to real estate deals, appreciating that the rights of private and public property owners are inextricably linked.

His theories meant a departure from typical real estate deals of mid-century, based on appraisals that reflected only narrow interests and were not always financially sound. Because any resulting failures hurt communities and small investors, Graaskamp began to advocate a much more comprehensive approach to feasibility analysis. His book, A Guide to Feasibility Analysis, is still used as a standard text today. During the savings & loan collapse of the 1990s, Graaskamp’s concerns were widely seen as vindicated.

By the time of his death, Graaskamp had firmly established the preeminence of the UW Real Estate Department at the University of Wisconsin and nationally. Graaskamp emphasized a multi-disciplinary approach to the curriculum, moving it from a traditional finance emphasis and instead incorporating an eclectic mix of classes in behaviorism, physical science, and business administration. He believed in preparing students to tackle complex, unstructured problems that didn’t lend themselves to neat academic models. Today, the Graaskamp approach is commonplace in most real estate schools.

Graaskamp did not shrink from becoming involved in local politics. In the mid-1980s in his home city of Madison, Wisconsin, he often inserted himself into major city/university discussions over the disposal of large downtown land tracts being vacated by railroad companies.

In 1982, James Graaskamp was named a trustee of the Urban Land Institute, a nonprofit education and research institute that promotes responsible land use. In 2004, James Graaskamp was one of ten “real estate legends” profiled in a ULI book called “Leadership Legacies.” Of the ten, Graaskamp was the sole academic.

Recent developments

In April, 2007, the University of Wisconsin Center for Real Estate will be formally named after James Graaskamp in a special ceremony in Madison. In 2006, over 600 alumni successfully raised $11 million to rename the Center and enhance the real estate program, on their way to a $20 million goal.

[http://digital.library.wisc.edu/1711.dl/RealEstate.Graaskamp The James Graaskamp Landmark Real Estate collection] was made public on October 25, 2007. It contains over 165 of Landmark Research’s consulting reports completed between the late 1960s to the early 1990s. There are appraisals, market and feasibility studies as well as other types of research and analysis.

ee also

*Urban Land Institute

External links

* [http://wreaa.org/ The Wisconsin Real Estate Alumni Association] , founded by James Graaskamp and his students in 1976 (currently with a membership of 1,600 alumni and friends)
* [http://www.bus.wisc.edu/wcre/ University of Wisconsin Center for Real Estate]
* [http://www.bus.wisc.edu/wcre/news/default.asp University of Wisconsin fundraising announcement] , February 2007