School of Business > UPDATE > Fall 2001 > Article

Wisconsin Realtors Create Fellowship to Honor Donald Hovde

Members of the Wisconsin Realtors Association have established a graduate fellowship to honor Donald Hovde, a prominent Madison-area Realtor. The endowment will enable the School of Business to award a fellowship in Hovde's name to a real estate graduate student each year. The first fellowship was presented in September to Phillip Aiello, a student majoring in real estate and finance from Milwaukee.

"The Wisconsin Realtors Association felt that creating a fellowship in Donald Hovde's name would be a fitting way to honor him for his many years of service to the real estate industry," said William Malkasian, executive vice president of the Wisconsin Realtors Association. The fellowships are earmarked for students specializing in residential and commercial real estate. More than 100 people from the real estate and financial communities across the U.S. have given to the Donald I. Hovde Real Estate Fellowship Fund.

A successful Realtor, Hovde has also spent many years in public service. He earned a degree in finance from UW–Madison in 1953. He is president and owner of Hovde Realty, which is based in Madison, and co-founder and chairman of Hovde Financial, Inc. He has developed more than 3,000 residential and commercial acres and owns several commercial office properties.

From 1981 to 1983, Hovde served as undersecretary of the U.S. Department of Housing and Urban Development and also served on the Federal Home Loan Bank Board, the predecessor agency to the office of Thrift Supervision. He was a director of the Federal Savings and Loan Insurance Corporation and on the Federal Home Loan Mortgage Corporation board. He served as chairman of the executive committee of the JE Roberts Company, which became the largest real estate asset management company for the federal government, and has served as a director of numerous banking institutions.