Maryland Commencement: Smith School of Business
By Allan Edelson
12/20/07
It is an absolute pleasure to be here and share this wonderful
day of passage with you.
Let me be one of the first to officially congratulate all of you here
today. First and foremost to the students [everybody let’s give
them a big hand]. Additionally, let’s give a hand to their family
and friends who have lived with you throughout your studies
here at the University. [Let’s make this interactive with giving
each other a hand.]
While today’s event is exciting to most of us, anticlimactic to
some of us, it is significant to all of us. Graduating reflects an
important achievement and officially kicks you off into a new
phase of life – As a full-time wage earner. This is an important
phase to figure out, as lasts a lot longer than your time here at
the business school.
My connection, as well as my family’s connection to this
excellent university and great business school is both broad and
deep.
My father was a professor in the accounting department for
forty-two years: from 1950 to 1992. He primarily taught tax.
Some of the parents out here today in the audience may have
had him as a professor.
In addition to myself, both my sisters went to Maryland. And in
my accounting class, I met my future wife Denise, who also
graduated from the business school.
The business school has gone through many changes during
my Dad’s forty-two years here and in the ensuing fifteen years
since he retired.
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Over this time frame, the school has continued to grow and
improve. I read in the Smith magazine that the business school
was ranked by the Financial Times:
• The number five research business school in the world.
• The number five public business school in the United
States.
• Had the second highest placement rate for MBA class of
2006 (2007 not out yet.)
• The business school was also ranked as the 18th best
undergraduate business program by U.S. News & World
Report.
This is truly an impressive achievement, and I think I speak for
Dean Frank and the rest of the business school facility in
saying, IT IS NOT DONE YET! Each year the admissions
requirements become ever more challenging for entering
students.
Thus, it stands to reason; I am speaking to the brightest
business class ever to graduate from this august institution.
Congratulations!
Congratulations for getting in, graduating and continuing to
improve the school.
I want to add my personal thanks, because of you, the business
students to attend just prior to you and surely those to follow,
the value and prestige of my undergraduate degree has
increased.
I salute you; keep up the good work. All of us alumni, a group
you are now joining, appreciate any help we can get.
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This is my first opportunity to speak to a graduating class here
at the Smith School. When I told my wife that I was speaking,
she was excited. She wanted to know how long I was speaking
and what I would say.
I replied I had to speak about fifteen minutes, and I would
probably talk about my career.
She looked at me and said great, but what are you going to do
with the other thirteen minutes?!
I think this is a good time to note: I have embedded certain
attempts at humor in this speech. I challenge all of you to see
how many you can find. Once you have discovered one of these
attempts at humor, please indicate your discovery by way of a
small laugh. As the brightest class to graduate the business
school, I expect you to find them all.
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In preparation for my address today, I did get an opportunity to
review previous graduation speeches. Their general themes
were reflections on one’s career over the previous twenty-five
years.
While these lessons were interesting, they spoke about life
experiences over a time frame that might not be the most
relevant to you as you embark on your first full time professional
job.
My favorite story I like to repeat that addresses a career over a
long period of time is a quote I heard from one CEO. This is
what he said when he was asked to reflect on his career:
He stated, “I started with an analyst job where I learned
absolutely everything about a narrow subject matter.
Then I became a manager, where I learned a fair amount about a
broader area of concern.
Later, I was promoted to head of a division where I focused on a
few key things about an exceedingly large number of critical
subgroups.
Finally, I got promoted to where I am today, where I know
nothing about everything.”
Now that’s good work if you can get it! But it is hard to find a
group that will pay you lavishly to know a lot of general stuff.
Additionally, since that CEO position is only available after thirty
years or more of work, I thought I would spend our time together
focusing on things in the work world a little closer in relevance
to someone who is about to start his/her first job.
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Thus, today I would like to talk to you about the process of
selecting a career. Then to drive the relevance of this
discussion even closer to your current status, I will conclude
with six specific things you can do in your first job that will help
you succeed in progressing to your second job.
When one sets out to select a career, let’s start with the obvious;
pick a career in an area that you enjoy and over time rewards
your skill sets. To excel in a job, it helps enormously if you have
a passion for the tasks and content that you have selected as
your career focus.
It is difficult to develop a passion for a subject matter or process
that you do not enjoy. Moreover, in this competitive world, even
if you are NOT passionate about your work, your most
successful competitor is passionate about their work.
The majority of the successful people I have met in their
respective fields are those individuals that have the highest level
of interest and passion about what they do.
For my career I selected the area of real estate finance. This was
not a haphazard choice on my part. While I did not formally
write down a list of what I liked to do and what I was good at, I
could have. Additionally, even though I may not have written it
down, I did go through the mental exercise in choosing an area
of work based on those two criteria.
People vary greatly in the things that they like, and the activities
they receive satisfaction from doing. In selecting a career, the
most important thing you can do is to be honest with yourself.
Select a field that rewards work that you enjoy, not what you
think will impress your friends.
Things I liked were:
• Real Estate
• Financial structures and solutions
• Opportunity for high earnings
• Compensation directly based on what I was able to do
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• Also, I did not want a desk job which had high levels of
oversight, structure, and repetitiveness
What I was good at:
• Designing financial structures and problem solving
through innovative solutions
• Good at understanding the various elements of financial
statements and how their subcomponents impact an
entity’s ability to make money
• I thought I had good negotiation skills
• Lastly, I felt I understood people, their motivations; thus, if
I had to, I thought I could sell
When you look at the characteristics I listed about myself, both
in terms of things I liked and the areas I felt I was good at; in my
mind, there were only about five professions that had significant
appeal to me.
Of those five professions, the area that I selected was
origination in the commercial real estate mortgage business. I
originate large loans, secured by real estate, throughout the
United States. For the last 13 years, my focus has been on
multifamily projects, which are more commonly referred to as
apartment communities.
The typical client that owns multifamily complexes generally
falls into one of four categories:
• Large Institutional Companies like pension’s funds,
insurance companies, real estate investment trusts.
• Specialized Funds, which serve as investment vehicles
that raise large amounts of capital to specifically invest in
commercial real estate.
• Wealthy Individuals whose personal financial statements
resemble that of large companies.
• Individual Sponsors/Developers that have formed a joint
venture or partnership with one of the large capital sources
previously listed.
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The area of commercial real estate finance has changed
dramatically in the over twenty years I have worked in this field.
When I first started, most real estate was financed domestically
by specialized lenders, each with significant capital constraints.
During my early days in the business, borrowers had relatively
few options with programs that were not particularly flexible.
Today, commercial real estate finance is a distinct subset of the
ubiquitous capital markets. Commercial real estate loan options
have increased dramatically, and the structuring and distribution
side of the business has become significantly more complex.
Commercial real estate finance today utilizes structures and a
distribution system, similar to those used to finance and raise
capital for publicly traded and private corporations.
However, despite the dramatic change that has occurred in
financing of commercial real estate, many of the original
reasons that I selected this area, as well as, the skill sets that are
rewarded in this profession are still the same.
• Understanding real estate is still important.
• Understanding and structuring financial options has
become even more important.
• I still travel about 40% of the time; visiting clients and
properties. So I continue to leave my desk on a regular
basis.
• Compensation is still related to your ability to generate
business.
So for me, the match is still good.
I hope, even in your first job, you commit to undertake some
level of introspection concerning what you like to do and where
you can excel. By doing this you have a good chance at
generating a career ideal to either actively pursue, or generally
migrate toward.
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It is always easier to analyze others than one's self. However,
you deserve your best efforts to put yourself in a position that
will make you happiest and most at peace with the contributions
you provide to our global community.
Now, to jump start you in your first job, I am going to give you
six things that will make you more valuable to your employers:
1. Treat everyone with respect.
This seems basic and obvious, because it is basic and
obvious, and it works. No one likes an employee that is
friendly to only their direct reports or people they think can
help their careers.
In the long run, people like working with people who are
consistently fair and respectful to everyone. It is noticed.
2. Reiterate before you reinvent.
Most companies have processes that to the new employee
seem redundant, unnecessary, and highly inefficient.
While in some cases, it may actually be true, you should
not revise the process until you have mastered the
process.
Few employers like to listen to someone new, who has
never closed business with the company, tell them how
their systems are wrong.
However, a young bright employee, who learns the process
fast and succeeds, is another story. If that employee has
suggestions, because of their success, people in the
company are now ready to listen.
3. Discover a problem, develop a solution.
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As you get assignments from the company, there are times
when your due diligence will uncover answers that are
inconsistent with the goals and objectives of that
assignment.
The idea is not to hide the problem, but as you report the
problem to your boss, provide him/her with options to
mitigate the disappointing discovery.
They may or may not take your proposed solution. But
they will be glad you at least offered one.
4. Control the agenda.
This is a powerful concept. When you are given an
assignment to research, or deal to underwrite, or a market
study to report on; you have sifted through thousands of
data points and facts.
Deciding which of the data to include and how to present
that data is solely your responsibility.
If you conclude upfront, and then succinctly support your
conclusions with self contained points, you should do well.
Remember, any of the facts presented are those you have
researched and studied, thus, you are the expert on those
facts. This means in your presentation to the group you
can defend those facts.
If you don’t conclude upfront, or if you provide open ended
facts, you create the opportunity for the audience to ask
questions that are more likely to divert to topics not in your
report. Once that occurs, it becomes a free for all, as many
questions dwell on things you have not researched. If this
happens, you have lost the position of expert to the group.
Your credibility is now shot.
Avoid the later, aim for the former.
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5. Error on the side of action vs. inaction
Do not act imprudently, but act. Try to go above and
beyond the narrow call of duty.
If you want to earn above average compensation, you need
to perform at an above average level.
6. Lastly, let me conclude with something that was obvious
when I graduated, but seems not as obvious to many of the
young workers we hire today.
Show up at work before your direct report arrives. Also,
stay in the office until he/she leaves.
It’s hard to become the go to person in the office, if you’re
not there to go to when your boss needs you.
Thank you very much. I wish all of you good luck with your
career journeys.
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