Robert Faith of Greystar Gives Keynote at Cornell Real Estate Conference
Attendees of the 33rd Annual Cornell Real Estate Conference had the pleasure of hearing from Robert Faith of Greystar Real Estate Partners on the evening of October 15th. Greystar develops, owns, and manages multifamily assets consisting of around 400,000 apartment units in over 1,600 apartment communities. It is the largest residential property manager, but the company formed from quite humble roots.
Faith grew up on a farm, and his father wanted him to go to college for a technical degree, so he went to the University of Oklahoma and received a BS degree in Petroleum Engineering. However, upon graduating, the recession in the 1980s hit the job market hard, and Faith decided that “since no one was hiring, I figured I’d go back to school.” Along with a rare few, Faith was accepted into Harvard’s MBA program straight out of his undergraduate degree, and went on to accept a job at the Trammell Crow Company, then the premiere developer in the United States. He noted that his salary would have been many times greater if he had accepted a position at Goldman Sachs, however, since Trammell Crow provided generous incentives to top performers, he decided to take the challenge.