AREW celebrates "Three Decades of Breaking Ground"

On May 8th, AREW will be celebrating "Three Decades of Breaking Ground" in the real estate industry with a 30th Anniversary Gala at the Mandarin Oriental Hotel. When AREW was founded in 1978, the business environment was dramatically different. The industry was overwhelmingly male. Women in commercial real estate were a rarity. One of AREW's founders, its first president and the honorary chair of the 30th Anniversary Gala is Merle Gross-Ginsburg. In 1978, she was a VP of Edward Gordon Co. and subsequently became a senior VP. If there was strength in numbers and networking, Gross-Ginsburg and a handful of others realized women were not in the winner's circle. Thus, they formed the Women's Committee of the Real Estate Industry of New York as an adjunct to REBNY. With 30 charter members, the group's first event commanded an unprecedented audience of 175 women for a program which indicated a high level of prescience of the organization that would become AREW. It was entitled "Opportunities for Women in Real Estate." Fast forwarding three decades, compare that first luncheon to one held by AREW recently. Entitled "Influential and Powerful Women in Real Estate," the panelists included an executive vice president of one of the largest REITs in the country; the founder and president of one of the largest women-owned, full service commercial R.E.firms; a president and CEO of a prominent not-for-profit business leadership organization; and one of the youngest people ever appointed a senior director at one of the world's largest privately held commercial R.E. firms. 30 years ago, and every year since, AREW has provided opportunities for women to meet, network, become educated, support each other's career growth and make a difference in the greater community. From a grassroots effort to help women succeed and become recognized in an exceptionally competitive, male-dominated field, today AREW is a premier real estate association for both men and women, providing educational and networking opportunities at the highest levels of association experience. In tandem with AREW's 30th anniversary, we are offering an outstanding incentive for anyone considering membership. Join by the end of this month and your membership for the 2008-09 season will include attending our May and June luncheons at no charge, and member pricing for other events. The latter includes our 30th Anniversary Gala on May 8th where we will be acknowledging the strides made by women in real estate and honor the outstanding achievements of three distinguished N.Y. companies in these categories: Innovative development: Swig Equities, LLC, Kent Swig, president; urban renewal: Forest City Ratner Cos., Joanne Minieri, president and COO; creative capitalization: Apollo R.E. Advisors, Richard Mack, managing partner. Please feel free to email me at [email protected] about AREW. I promise you my personal attention. Frances Ann Delgorio is the 2007-08 AREW president and senior vice president, leasing and marketing, at Cohen Brothers Realty Corp., New York, N.Y.