Students, faculty, staff, alumni join together to celebrate third annual Whitman Day April 4

Students, faculty, staff, alumni join together to celebrate third annual Whitman Day April 4March 28, 2006Amy Schmitzaemehrin@syr.edu

The Martin J. Whitman School of Management at Syracuse University has announced its third annual Whitman Day, Tuesday, April 4. The day will be full of activities to commemorate the 2003 naming of the Martin J. Whitman School of Management and to celebrate Martin J. Whitman’s continuous contributions to the investment community.

Whitman Day will kick off at 11 a.m. with a roundtable discussion featuring Whitman, founder and co-chief investment officer of Third Avenue Management; Steve Ballentine, president and chief executive officer of Ballentine Capital Management; and Richard Haydon, managing director of Neuberger Berman. The roundtable discussion will be part of a graduate-level course called “Managerial Finance,” taught by Maurice Harris, visiting assistant professor of finance in the Whitman School.

The official launch of the Orange Value Fund will follow at noon in Room 110 of the Whitman building. The Orange Value Fund will be a partnership of Whitman students who will make investment decisions on real money. The fund is designed to help students develop the habit of saving. The launch of the Orange Value Fund is free and open to the public.

Whitman Day culminates in a keynote address by Samuel Zell, founder and chairman of Equity Group Investments. Zell’s lecture, “Life From an Entrepreneurial Perspective–What Makes Sammy Run,” will begin at 2 p.m. in the Marvin and Helaine Lender Auditorium, located on the Whitman building’s concourse level.

With 123 million square feet of office space and close to 200,000 apartments under his control, USA Today calls Zell “the country’s largest landlord.” Zell began his real estate career while an undergraduate at the University of Michigan, where he and his fraternity brother, Robert H. Lurie, bought and managed apartment buildings in the region. In 1968, Zell founded Equity Group Investments in his hometown of Chicago. Its holdings include the nation’s largest real estate investment trust and the largest office portfolio of any publicly traded, full-service office company in the United States. In 2006, Forbes featured Zell in its special report “The World’s Billionaires” and estimated his net worth at $2.4 billion.

Zell’s lecture is free and open to the public. It will be followed immediately by a reception in the Milton Room located on the fourth floor of the Whitman building.