HALL OF FAME
Robert
Whittlesey
BY GREG GULLEY
This year we are honoring our George
Washington, the very first President of the
Colorado Apartment Association,
which morphed into the AAMD
- Mr. Robert (Bob) Whittlesey.
Mr. Whittlesey moved from Iowa to Denver in 1948 and was a remarkably
successful person. With an engineering degree from Iowa State University and
an Architecture and City Planning degree from Denver University, he began
developing apartment buildings as a sideline. His first development was a duplex
for his retired mother and his largest was the 12 story Devonshire House,
later known as Crescent Arms and finally converted to condominiums, located
at 888 Logan Street.
In Denver in the 50’s and 60’s, there were several apartment owners new to
the industry. Mr. Whittlesey realized that there was a need for an organization
to educate owners on the management, efficiency and economics of apartment
buildings. On March 18, 1968, just over fifty years ago, Mr. Whittlesey and 75
Metro Denver apartment owners met, organized the CAA and Mr. Whittlesey
was unanimously elected President. It was determined that the
first year operating expenses for the CAA would be approximately
$6,000, the annual dues would be a whopping $25 per person
(including NAA dues) and meetings would be held at various
restaurants at $4/person!
Mr. Whittlesey’s son Brad sent the following message to share with
you - “Tell everyone that my father was an amazing man who lived
a long, full life and was still talking about real estate a few weeks
before he passed away on February 11, 2018 at age 97-1/2! We have
been going through boxes of his papers and found many newspaper
clippings he had kept about all of his apartment projects!
We appreciate the honor and award the AAMD has given him and we
are sorry to not be able to be present to accept it for him.”
Since Robert Whittlesey's family was unable to attend this years June
Awards his Hall of Fame award will be presented to them at the 2019
June Awards.
Meredith Wright
BY FOY BAILEY
Meredith joined the industry accidentally like so many of us do, as a leasing agent, for what she
considered a summer position between college and graduate school. Needless to say, grad school
didn’t happen.
In the intervening years, Meredith worked as a Leasing Agent, Assistant Manager, Manager,
Regional Manager, VP of Operations and finally Executive Vice President, the position she
holds today.
The critical step to that chain of events was her first property manager who recognized that
although Meredith was a terrible leasing agent, she would probably do better as an Assistant
Manager where she could deal with ledgers and money as opposed to trying to sell anything.
Meredith has been fortunate in her career to be able to work with incredible people at Legacy
Partners, Baron Properties, Echelon Property Group and now Mission Rock Residential.
Meredith was one of the founding members of Echelon Property Group as the Vice President of
Operations when they launched in 2010 and she joined Mission Rock Residential as a founding
member in 2012 when it launched. Participating in back to back start-ups enormously impacted
Meredith’s professional growth and added equally to her amount of gray hair and wrinkles.
Meredith participated in the AAMD Board of Directors in all positions including President in
2011-2012 as well as Chaired Tributes 2015 and participated in numerous other committees
throughout the years. Meredith is a former president of the Colorado Apartment Association board
and currently oversees 70 assets with 15,500 units in CO, TX, GA, CT, VA and MD.
www.aamdhq.org
JULY 2018
TRENDS | 35