Mike Bush
Bio
Mike Bush currently is an Adjunct Professor Urban Development for the Masters in Real Estate Program at Georgetown University School of Continuing Studies and founder of Project REAP. During his 20-year tenure as Vice President Real Estate for Giant Food, they opened or replaced 60 stores and expanded dozens more in one of the country’s most competitive trade areas. He directed market research, promotions to developers and municipalities, feasibility analysis, site selection, leasing and acquisitions, entitlement, and capex approval. He developed Giant’s first successful mixed-use unit with structured parking, and personally led successful campaigns to persuade citizen groups, elected officials, and staff to modify zoning to accommodate Giant stores. Bush created the Retail Development course for the Georgetown Master’s program in 2011, and has taught in the Master’s programs at Johns Hopkins and University of Maryland as well. He is active in ICSC, most recently leading a Roundtable at the University of Shopping Centers. He serves on the membership committee of the DC Building Industry Association, with special attention to its operating committees serving professionals in environmental regulation, retail, construction, affordable housing, and capital markets. He founded and developed the property management curriculum for Project REAP – the Real Estate Associate Program – now operated nationwide by a consortium of ICSC, ULI, NAIOP, BOMA, and NMHC. Bush began his career as a corporate lawyer specializing in real estate, banking, and finance. He went to law school at Harvard (LL.B. 1968) and to college at Stanford (B.A. 1965), where he graduated Phi Beta Kappa with Honors in Humanities. In 2012 Bush launched Long Lead, a career planning service, in response to students and practitioners asking him how to choose or change careers.
Show Notes
- Mike Bush formed Project REAP in 1997 to bring minority people into the real estate industry while he was at Giant Food. He reached out to landlords to find out why they had not hired minorities. (6:15)
- Raised by parents that had a community orientation that planted the seed in his mind (8:30)
- Weekend project to recruit and educate minority young people while at Giant (9:40)
Origins
- Grew up in Phoenix, AZ with parents who were active in the Jewish community (10:20)
- Father was a shoe store owner (11:20)
- Stock boy for his Father and then worked in a department store in sales (12:15)
- Selling shoes was an “interesting profession” (13:30)
- Public High School- Lived on North Side of Phoenix (14:00)
- Bookworm in HS because he had difficulty with athletics (14:55)
Education
- Attended Stanford University (15:25)
- Wanted to be on the Crew team
- Crew distracted him from his academics (16:00)
- Card sections at football games (16:25)
- Story about a prank the Cal students tried to impose on Stanford football players (17:45)
- “Dry” campus- Story about drinking beer (19:10)
- Initially interested in medicine (19:40)
- Story about a frog experiment (20:30)
- As a Jewish kid, you went into law if you didn’t like medicine (21:30)
- Went to Harvard Law and didn’t like it too much (21:50)
Career Arc
- After Law School, he worked at the office of economic opportunity at the Navajo Indian Reservation (22:15)
- Story about the new law regulating Indian tribes (22:45)
- Low draft number during the Vietnam War era drove him to do the tribal service (25:30)
- His wife wanted him to do the Indian service instead of serving in Vietnam (25:50)
- Joined a Phoenix Law Firm (Brown and Bain) after working at the reservation (28:30)
- Largest client was IBM, but he worked on the corporate side of law (28:50)
- Banking, Securities and Real Estate Law
- Board of Jewish community boards (29:20)
- After 10 years with the firm, his wife, who was from Boston, wanted to go back East (29:50)
- His in-laws had moved to DC from Boston and one of his classmates went to law school with Dave Rutstein who left a law firm to join Giant Food as General Counsel (30:30)
- He was hired by Dave to be a Real Estate Counsel at Giant Food. (31:20)
- Landlords- Peterson, Saul, Combined Properties (31:40)
- Story about Herbert Haft grabbing hair spray (33:00)
- Kathy Bonnafe and Gary Rappaport reference (33:20)
- Story about Steve Guttman of Federal Realty to help with starting REAP (34:45)
- Israel (Izzy) Cohen– CEO of Giant Food- Learning from him was like a “Masters Degree” (35:25)
- Started on Labor Day, 1979 for a store opening and he shoveled snow to clear the lot (36:10)
- Story about A&P- stores closed and he negotiated taking over the two stores for Giant in McLean, VA and Bethesda, MD (37:15)
- Store in Bailey’s Crossroads too small and Cohen wanted a larger store- Mrs. Levin toured Flagship Giant & Izzy pinned an orchid on her to win the new store/lease (39:50)
- Demanding employer- Story about Store #97 in Towson, MD to acquire a park adjacent to an existing store (Barry Sher and Odonna Matthews-senior Giant officials), but store built in parking lot instead (43:20)
- Sainsbury purchase the Lehrman shares of Giant- Their real estate representative developed a relationship with him. (51:50)
- When Sainsbury came in there was more competition in the grocery business in the DC/Baltimore markets (52:30)
- Moved to Delaware Valley to open stores, primarily in the Philadelphia suburbs (53:15)
- He was a host to bus tours for the senior management (54:00)
- Sainsbury sold to Ahold which motivated management to sell the rest of company to Ahold, as well (55:20)
- Due to the conflict with Giant of Carlisle, another Ahold subsidiary, Mike had to sell 6 stores in Pennsylvania on a “fire sale” basis (56:20)
- Stop & Shop took over the Giant Food ownership (57:45)
- Description of valuation of the GFS Realty portfolio (58:15)
- Reference to the GFS portfolio sale to Edens (Jodie McLean Episode) (1:00:00)
- Mike shared story about Federal assembling Bethesda Row
- 2000- Giant executives let go- Mike trained Roger Wright (1:07:00)
- Project REAP then became his whole focus (1:08:30)
- Charlie Ackerman from Atlanta wanted him to come to Atlanta to start REAP there- Simon Properties there- 2002 open there (1:09:30)
- Cushman & Wakefield (1:10:30)
- Walmart in 2006 wanted to become involved and NYC was activated (1:11:00)
- Model introducing talent to opportunity- Employers promised to teach and hire people out of each class (1:12:30)
- Migrated from property management to development
- Modules of real estate disciplines
- Bill Norton of Northwestern Mutual (1:15:45)
- Brought in multifamily and office disciplines
- REAP is still the only public or private company that empowers minorities (1:17:30)
- Cited Joe Carrol‘s experience teaching at REAP (1:18:20)
- Several development focuses (1:19:20)
- “Investing in Retail Properties” Gary Rappaport (1:20:30)
- Real Estate company with 17 people in senior management with 16 men, one woman all white- Didn’t “know” minorities (1:23:00)
- Familiarity was the rationale
- Introducing the talent is critical
- Refers to ULI “Manifesto” regarding diversity with minorities (1:24:50)
- JV with Project REAP to teach prospective minority students (1:25:30)
- ULI activation has been a big thrust to REAP (1:26:00)
- Chief Diversity Officers in large companies (1:28:30)
- Advocates that they have a staff and budget with a strategy for hiring (1:29:30)
- CEO should be “motivated” to support CDO position
- Brokers are the toughest to recruit for the program
- Cited Ernie Jarvis, Freddie Lewis (1:32:00)
- Leslie Hale, CEO of RLJ Lodging taught classes at REAP (1:33:30)
- Bill Wolfe– First Washington (1:36:40)
Pandemic Influences and Personal Inspirations
- Pandemic affects on real estate, particularly retail (1:38:00)
- Amazon, Walmart and Target taking away business from existing retail centers (1:38:20)
- Mini-fulfillment centers fed from regional fulfillment centers (1:39:00)
- Perhaps zoning concerns with warehouse uses in retail centers (1:40:00)
- Handling relationship between retail tenant and the mortgage lender (1:40:45)
- Discussion about Friendship Heights Mazza Gallerie and Lord & Taylor (1:43:00)
- Capstone Story about GEICO (1:46:50)
- Inspirations- His Father and Dave Rutstein
- Put family and community first (1:48:00)
- Rutstein was the leader of the Hebrew Home
- Advice to his 25 Yr. old self- Go to Graduate Business School (1:49:00)
- Billboard statement- “Slow Down You Move Too Fast” (1:50:00)
Postscript
- Retrospective perspective of conversation (1:51:00)
- Tom Amos-
- The Paper Chase, movie (1:53:00)
- Project REAP- Real Estate Associate Program (1:54:00)
- Students have a Bachelor’s degree and learn over a 10 week program
- Setup a financial module with Bryon Barlow of B.F. Saul
- Program is now more advanced
