IIJournals JPM-Special Real Estate Article Collection | Page 19

most remember her for. I am proud to have called Susan
my friend and am thankful to have known her. The
industry will miss her—but not as much as I will.
—George Pappadopoulos
In 1992 I interviewed for a job at AEW and was
instructed to prepare for an interview with Susan Hudson-Wilson. The job, however, didn’t materialize, so
imagine my surprise when in the fall of 1994—two years
later—I heard Susan’s voice on my answering machine
asking me if I would be interested in joining her new
endeavor, PPR. I had to replay the message a few times
to be sure it was real.
That phone call from Susan started my career in
commercial real estate research. Susan, in her characteristic way, handed me a huge task—producing forecasts
of investment returns in 240 markets—and expected me
to deliver solid and compelling information. There was
never any question in her mind whether I could do the
job. She gave me complete autonomy in selecting the
model structure and variables, and in 1995 she trusted
me to defend PPR’s models and methodology to an
important client.
Susan’s self-confidence, exuberance, and belief in
her vision inspired confidence in me and those around
her, and I am forever grateful for that call I received 19
years ago.
—Ruijue Peng
My first encounter with Susan Hudson-Wilson
was at MIT when she came and spoke at one of Bill
Wheaton’s classes in 1994. She had just recently formed
PPR, and I can still recall that while at first she appeared
traditional, it quickly became clear that her approach
to constructing real estate portfolios definitely wasn’t.
Initially I doubted her “portfolio construction” approach
which argued that even a 7-11 retail store in Salt Lake
City could add diversity to a real estate portfolio. Over
the years, her investing style evolved and she started
making the case for “four-quadrant” investing. The last
time I remember seeing Susan was at a PREA conference; as usual, she eloquently described the way she
conceptualized real estate, and by then the approach she
advocated had been widely embraced.
Certainly there are many in the ind