Remembering Jim Curtis

James J. Curtis III passed away at the end of June 2019, after a full but all-to-short life.  When I arrived at the University of Wisconsin's Real Estate Program in 1990, Jim was one of the Graaskamp-era alums who greeted me and my new colleagues Kerry Vandell, Jim Shilling and Richard Green.  Over the years I relied a lot on Jim's advice, which he gave freely, especially when I took on roles as Department Chair and Center Director.  He supported UW Real Estate -- and many other institutions, including the Urban Land Institute -- unstintingly.  Some of his support was financial, much of that was on the QT, but for someone with so many irons in the fire, I was always most impressed with Jim's commitment of his most precious resource, his time.  If I sent him a draft strategy document, it invariably returned with pages of detailed and invaluable comments.  If anyone asked him to come speak to a class or a real estate club meeting, he was there.

In my favorite Bond movie, Skyfall, another James is asked to provide some word associations.  Say the word "Curtis" to me and the first word that comes to mind is "passion."  Other words follow, including "commitment," "integrity," and "values."

Like so many, I was shocked to hear about Jim's health problems.  I sent a letter to Jim in February 2019.  Later in the year I was in the Bay area, and despite his illness Jim and his wife Melanie Duke were kind enough to invite me to their home where we had an hour together, an hour I remember and treasure.

Here are some edited selections from the letter, suitably transformed, e.g. I now refer to Jim in the third person.  I’ve extended the remarks in a few places, too.

By the way, over three decades, while everyone around me called him “Curtis,” I called him “Jim.”  Even his obituaries mention the fact that most called him Curtis.  There are a lot of Jims that have played important roles in the program, not limited to Curtis and Graaskamp; and I’ve got a brother by that name.  As I did for 30 years, in this note and elsewhere, I’ll continue to stick to Jim.

I was, as you’d imagine, shocked and saddened when I first heard about Jim’s health. I know ALS is a difficult disease and the outlook is never good.  Ron Shaffer, a friend of mine in Applied Economics, was dealt the same lousy cards some years ago. Ron was a leader in community economics.  When Jim Curtis and I had our conversation a few months after the letter, it turned out their paths had not crossed, but I’m sure Jim Graaskamp knew Ron and his work. 

Ron taught me a little bit about community economics, but he taught me some deeper lessons throughout his illness.  Ron stayed active as long as he could, intellectually and to the extent he could, physically.  Jim G. was not the only “materials handling problem” to face Wisconsin winters in a wheelchair!  I asked Ron once how he could handle his situation with a mostly positive outlook.  His answer was something along these lines.  “I decided that I could spend my days doing my best to treat people well and make them glad I was still around.  Or I could be a pain in the ass and make them think the reverse.” Ron chose the former path, as did my illustrious predecessor and Jim’s mentor.

I wrote Jim to express my thanks for his friendship and guidance over the years – even if sometimes I might have paid much more attention to the guidance part!

I have a vivid memory of our first meeting in Fall 1990 at a picnic table after some event or other involving alumni. To be honest at first I thought Jim had been drinking a bit. My mistake.  Before long I realized that it was rather a combination of deep nonlinear thinking and an awful lot of passion, about real estate and especially about our program.

I had never been to Wisconsin before 1990, and I never knew Graaskamp personally, though of course I met many others who played important roles in the University and in our program.  Over the years I developed a strong attachment to the program, one that went beyond the normal employment contract. That was some combination of deep connection to probably the greatest real estate faculty ever assembled over time, Kerry Vandell, Jim Shilling, Richard Green, Tim Riddiough, Morris Davis, Rod Matthews … well,  the list is long.  Staff at all levels: Sharon McCabe, Phyllis Miller, Lee Gottschalk, too many to list once again.  And great colleagues outside the Department, like Don Hausch, Joan Schmit, Dan Bromley, Antonio Mello, again far too many to list here. Mike Brennan.  See  the T&I paper for more names and details.

So the thing that attracted me to Wisconsin wasn’t Graaskamp, or the program’s history – I’d heard a little bit about it but not so much. It was that I knew Kerry and Jim for a number of years from conferences and other interactions over research. I had a great job at the World Bank and I had the equivalent of tenure there. But I was coming up on a decade at the Bank after five years at the Urban Institute, and I knew that if I stayed a few more years I would be a lifer. Which would’ve been fine, but I thought it was a good time to test out a different path since I always had an academic bent. When I saw that Kerry and Jim were rebuilding a program at a great university, and that they wanted me to join, I knew that was something I couldn’t pass up. Of course, having Richard join us shortly after I signed on, and finding Rod Matthews upon arrival, that was icing on the cake.

We were also lucky to have a group of committed PhD students that helped us a lot during the transition.  In my own case, Mark Eppli, Dan Knox, and Tony Ciochetti served as my TAs out of the box, and they and others (Elaine Worzala , Tim Riddiough, Chuck Carter) took on a lot of extra work during the transition.

I was more or less prepared for, and looked forward to, great academic colleagues and a great university. I expected, and found, great students. But nothing had prepared me for the intensity of alumni commitment to the program, to its place in the commercial real estate firmament, and of course to its deep history reaching back to the very establishment of real estate as an academic discipline a century ago.

Another part of my education in 1990 was my own first year’s teaching. In addition to urban economics (for which I was pretty well prepared intellectually) I dove into the deep end of the pool with 300 students in Real Estate Process in room B-10; a course in Local Public Finance; and Richard Andrews’ course in “History and Theory of Urban Land Economics.” The latter course was particularly important to my development. We dropped the course from the curriculum given other teaching needs after one semester, but teaching it that one time got me to delve into writings by Ely, Ratcliff, Andrews, and Graaskamp among others. Adam Smith, David Ricardo and other usual suspects were also on that reading list. Those readings were put to good use later when preparing the teaching note that morphed into the Tradition & Innovation paper. 

Jim became a huge fan of the T&I paper (as did Mike Brennan, I think a number of others).  Jim appreciated how it carried on the Graaskampian tradition, but he also emphasized how it was important, in his opinion, that the paper put the Graaskamp era and his contributions into a larger perspective, of the world that Richard Ely and Richard Ratcliff and Richard Andrews also played such a huge role in.

Alumni engagement was one of the things that impressed me early on, as I’ve already indicated.  It wasn’t just talk and advice, valuable as those can be.  Jim knew better than I the role alums played in keeping the real estate program alive after 1988, and getting Kerry and the rest of us on board.  And remember what the markets were like during my first few years.  More than one alum would tell me how their business was frankly struggling, then pull out a checkbook and provide some funds for scholarships or whatever was needed.  Beyond financial contributions, everyone was generous with their time. Any time we were looking for help on case study materials, outside speakers, whatever was needed, Jim and his friends, among many others, came through.

As years passed and I filled in some of my gaps in my knowledge of real estate, I never sought leadership positions, but I did try to step up when I saw it was needed. Much of the credit for any success I had along those lines has to be shared with colleagues, both faculty and staff, and in no small part people like Jim. 

Jim’s contributions stood out from the beginning.  An academic’s highest praise is, “I learned a lot from that –.” (Paper, presentation, colleague, whatever).  I learned a lot from Jim.

I tried to pass to students and others some of what I learned from Jim, and so many other real estate professionals like Craig Manske, Jim Smith, Jim Haft, Jill Hatton, Kelley Smith, Mike Arneson, Mike Komppa, Paul Gilbert, Fred Petri, Dianne Orbison, Wendell Kurtz… too many to list fully here. Many aren’t alums of course, here I’d have to put Mike Brennan at the top but Fred Cooper, Brad Olsen, E.J. Plesko, so many others contributed to my education.

When I think about Jim’s contributions I could list many specifics – his contributions to our strategic plan and fundraising, AREIT, helping me sharpen my reunion presentations.  But the one that always comes to mind first is a particular half hour of our day at House of Blues in Chicago when about 10 of us – senior faculty, a few key alums and other professionals, including, of course, Jim – hammered out a framework for communicating the values of the Wisconsin Real Estate Program to future students and many other friends of the program.  It wasn’t just the list itself, though that was important. It was also that Jim helped me see just how important values were as part of our education, and that I could and would have to ramp up that part of the curriculum, even if it did not come naturally to me at first.

A few pages about those values can be found in the T&I paper.  Here’s the briefest summary of the values that Jim and I and our colleagues drafted years ago:

 

There’s a lot that can be said about each of these; and effective teaching requires that we revisit each of them from time to time during a semester and during a program.  Here's a little more elaboration in another blog post.

It’s very important to note that this is a bottom-up list.  This is not Steve’s or Jim’s list of our personal favorites, at least we try not to make it that.  We are trying to report the values we see brought up repeatedly within the program, especially in what happens after somebody graduates.

It’s also important to note that the list is aspirational.  We are all human, and none of us measure up all the time to all our values.  But we do our best.

One important value was later added, thanks to another great friend of the program, David Shulman.  David reminds us of the importance of curiosity.

Jim leaves quite a legacy, and of course I only know about some of that legacy.  I told Jim even he only knows about some of his own legacy.  Jim Curtis’ passion, his honesty, his love for the program, his focus on the importance of values, all made a difference in how I and many others think about real estate, and beyond. For this and more, I’m in Jim’s debt.

Finally, why not hear from the man himself.  Here's a short interview clip, courtesy of ULI; and here's a longer version.