In 1983, Wisconsin's Handicapped Man of the
Year Award went to UW Prof. James A. Graaskamp, who's confined to a wheelchair.
"The Chief," as his loyal students call him, was flattered,
and word of his prize quickly got out. One former student heard of the
achievement and sent this note:
"Hey, Chief, congratulations on your award. Bur I'm sorry to hear
that you've become handicapped. What happened?"
It was a poignant jest. Graaskamp was struck down by polio at 17, but
conquered it and went on to make a tremendous contribution to the study
and practice of real estate development.
Today, Graaskamp, 52, is the UW's star professor of urban land economics
and, in the words of E.J. Blakely, acting Dean of the Business School,
a "pioneer" in the relatively new field of formal real estate
study.
The professor's theories about land appraisal and planning have earned
him a top reputation among colleagues. His comprehensive and rigorous
curriculum has won his department the number-one slot nationally in real
estate study. And his graduates effectively compete for jobs with MBA's
from such prestigious business schools as Harvard, Wharton and Stanford.
In the fast-growing Twin Cities area, Graaskamp's graduates are known
as the "Wisconsin Mafia." A laudatory article in a recent issue
of the Minnesota Real Estate Journal said: "Dozens of University
of Wisconsin alumni are working their way up the local real estate ladder.
And they're 'networking' like hell."
Bryant Wangard, a 1979 UW graduate and vice president of investments
at the Opus Corp, told the journal, "If you're in the [Graaskamp]
program, you're in it up to your eyeballs. You worked tremendous hours.
Most of the group who went through the program were extremely motivated
to get through-they used to call it a combination of boot camp and med
school.
"The only way you could get through was if you hooked up with a
number of other students," he said. "That's kind of why this
Wisconsin Mafia business [came about]-they |
force
you to work so tightly together that it creates this camaraderie that
lasts well after you've graduated."
Beyond the Classroom
Graaskamp's credentials go beyond the classroom. He is the founder and
President of Landmark Research, Inc, a Madison-based consulting firm that
has contracts from Alaska to Florida, as well as in downtown Madison.
He is also the co-founder of a general contracting firm, a land development
company and a farm investment corporation.
This background, combined with his network of former students (called
"the most developed of all departmental alumni groups" by the
Wisconsin Business School), gives Graaskamp an uncommon perspective and
sets him apart form his colleagues in both academia and industry.
"Jim wears two hats," says Sue Spingman, a former aide to Mayor
Joel Skornicka and now development director with the Munz Corp. "The
fact that he knows what it takes to make a project happen makes him a
better teacher."
If Graaskamp had had his druthers, he would have become a builder. In
1951, as a high school senior in Milwaukee, he became interested in architecture.
Between football and basketball practice, this 6'6", 220-pound upstart
"infected," as he says, the other students with his enthusiasm
for modeling dream buildings.
"When I couldn't draw a straight line as a result of polio,"
he says, "I changed my interest somewhat." But not for long.
Graaskamp grew up in Milwaukee and graduated from Rollins College in
Winter Park, Fla., with a degree in creative writing. Just before he was
to leave for Harvard graduate school, his "logistical support"-the
person who tends to his personal needs-decided to get married. His father
forbade him from waiting to recruit a Harvard student for the job (on
the theory that Harvard students don't need jobs), and Graaskamp ended
up going to night school at Marquette.
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During the days, he
worked with his father in a house-building company they started on the
city's east side.
In 1959, Graaskamp came to Madison to teach insurance at the UW. Fatefully,
his desk was put next to that of Dr. Richard Ratcliff, whom Graaskamp
declares was the country's "premier urban land economist and appraisal
theoretician.
"Before things were finished," Graaskamp recalls, "I had
completed a Ph.D. in insurance and one in real estate." When Ratcliff
left in 1964, Graaskamp was offered a choice: full-time teaching of insurance
or real estate. The rest is real estate history.
"For the eclectic curiosity, it's a marvelous field in which to
teach and research and operate," he says.
"The real estate industry has a real appetite for the talent that
Graaskamp's students have," Binkowsky says, noting that the students
are trained to handle computer analysis as well as business negotiation.
"It's a never-ending, 24 hour-a-day, seven-days-a-week program,"
says Jim Sobel, a 25-year-old graduate student in Graaskamp's program.
"We've been exposed to so many aspects of real estate that nothing
in the real world will come as a surprise.
"The Chief's real estate program, his company, his network of students
and his reputation all add up to a remarkable achievement for a man who
is supposedly handicapped. "The thing that is most extraordinary
about him is not his handicap, it's his personality," Sobel says
admiringly.
Graaskamp speaks enthusiastically about his students and the careers
they're headed for. "Developers are my favorite people," he
says. "They are neurotic and creative, and the best of them, I think,
are as close as we get to renaissance men."
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