James A. Graaskamp

The Legacy of James A. Graaskamp

Every so often, the world is witness to new thinking that shakes foundations and provokes responses. Fresh ideas, at first controversial, later become woven so deeply into mainstream thinking that a world without them is nearly unimaginable, like stoplights at a busy intersection.

Such was the case in the 1970s and 1980s when the late James Graaskamp, a tenured professor of real estate at the UW-Madison, was weaving a deep concern for ethics into his approach to real estate education and his teachings about risk management, development, feasibility analysis, and appraisal.  His devotion to students and intellectual oratory earned him legions of loyal student followers, some of whom chose real estate as a career only after hearing the passion in Graaskamp’s voice.

Graaskamp, born in Milwaukee in 1933 and stricken by polio at 17, died in 1988 at age 54. By the time of his death, the UW Real Estate Department had become the nation’s best known and most successful programs of its type, with scores of successful graduates all bound by a vast and well-connected alumni network, the Real Estate Alumni Association, which Graaskamp helped to found in 1976. It was the considerable clout of that network, now over 1,600 members strong, that fostered the unusual success of a year-long fundraising campaign intended to dedicate the UW Center in his honor and provide much-needed money to support current initiatives.

Why was James Graaskamp significant? “He created a vision of real estate education that did not exist before,” said Rod Matthews, a longtime senior real estate lecturer who was hired by Graaskamp in 1974. “Graaskamp really created the modern real estate curriculum, and he did it in a way that really motivated everyone who knew him.”

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 wanted his students to be able to tackle complex, unstructured problems that didn’t lend themselves to neat academic models. His fellow academics were skeptical, but today, the Graaskamp approach is commonplace.

Meanwhile, his views on real estate finance are now considered as having been extremely prescient. 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.

In practice, this 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. Any resulting failures hurt communities and small investors, so Graaskamp began to advocate a much more comprehensive approach to feasibility analysis. His book, A Guide to Feasibility Analysis, remains a standard text. During the savings & loan collapse of the 1990s, Graaskamp’s concerns were widely seen as vindicated.

Armed with this belief, 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.” James A. Graaskamp Of the ten, Graaskamp was the sole academic. 

According to Rachelle Levitt, ULI executive vice president of policy and practice, Graaskamp strongly influenced ULI’s real estate education program. “His influence is still evident today,” she said. “ULI’s real estate school and books have roots with Graaskamp. He challenged ULI to think about the next generation.”

 

 

Additional Resources on James A. Graaskamp

 

Organizations

The Wisconsin Real Estate Alumni Association, Inc.

Co-founded in 1976 by James Graaskamp.

P.O. Box 307

Pewaukee, Wisconsin 53072

Phone (262) 746-9030

http://www.wreaa.org/

The Pension Real Estate Association

Sponsors of  the annual Graaskamp Award, “to highlight and encourage high quality research in the area of institutional investment in real estate.”

100 Pearl Street, 13th Floor
Hartford, CT 06103

Phone: 860-692-6341

http://www.prea.org/

The Urban Land Institute

1025 Thomas Jefferson Street, NW
Suite 500 West
Washington, DC 20007
Phone: (202) 624-7000

http://www.uli.org/

 

Books


“Essays in Honor of James A Graaskamp: Ten Years After,” edited by James R. DeLisle and Elaine Worzala, published in 2000 by the Wisconsin Real Estate Alumni Association, the University of Wisconsin Real Estate Department and the American Real Estate Society.

“Graaskamp on Real Estate,” edited by Steven Jarchow, published by Urban Land Institute, 1991.

“Leadership Legacies,” published in 2004, by the Urban Land Institute. A profile of ten real estate legends, including James A. Graaskamp.