| ‘Balance’ key to success, says Kogod BY MATT GETTY
Photo by Jeff Watts
Robert Kogod
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According to successful Washington real estate mogul and philanthropist Robert Kogod, the secret to success may be a good set of scales. Addressing students and faculty last Wednesday evening at the business school that bears his name, Kogod discussed such complexities as the benefits of private limited partnerships in a cyclical real estate market, but he came back again and again to a much simpler concept—“balance.” “Balance is very important in life,” he said during the Kogod Real Estate Club–sponsored talk. “I have great respect for people who’ve made a lot of money, but there’s a lot more to life. You need balance in all things to truly be successful.” Detailing his rise to president of one of the largest realty management companies in Washington, D.C., the AU benefactor revealed that his business success itself resulted from a balance of education and instinct. Though he entered real estate in the 1950s after studying at but not graduating from the University of Maryland and the University of Michigan, Kogod explained, he knew he needed a college education when he began working for his father-in-law in the Charles E. Smith Company in 1959. Enter AU. He earned his degree at AU during a time when making room for studying was a challenge. “Here I was working, I had young children, I was going to school, and that’s how I learned to do so many things at once,” he said with a laugh. As much as he prizes his AU degree, however, Kogod stressed that “entrepreneurial instinct” played an equal role in his career. “Today, there’s a lot of analysis and number crunching, but back then we used to work sometimes off the back of an envelope,” he said, explaining how, in 1967, he saw a future “oasis” in Crystal City, which the Charles E. Smith Co. developed from a wasteland of junkyards and auto parts dealers into the bustling hive of apartment and office buildings it is today. “It’s a matter of what I call ‘entrpreneurial instinct.’ We just looked at it, and we knew it was so close to downtown, the airport, and the Pentagon, it ultimately had to be successful.” In the area of philanthropy, which takes up most of his time in his retirement, Kogod expressed a similar need for balance. His contributions to the Smithsonian, AU, and several religious organizations, he explained, spring from his desire to create equilibrium among his own identities. “A long time ago,” he explained, “I figured out that I’m three things. I’m an American, I’m a Washingtonian, and I’m a Jew. I want to be good at all those things, so I’ve said, ‘This is who I am; this is who and what I owe.’ Then I try to find balance among those things.” Naturally, when asked about his vision for the qualities that should define the future Kogod School of Business graduates whose résumés will carry his name, Kogod returned to the theme that dominated his speech. Stressing his confidence in new dean Richard Durand’s ability to continue the rise that has seen the business school ascend to number 77 in the U.S. News and World Report’s rankings, he embraced Durand’s cross-disciplinary focus. “What we’d ultimately like to say is that Kogod graduates are extremely well-prepared business people who are well-rounded human beings,” Kogod explained, “because you have to be a good human being, you have to have perspective, you have to have balance.” |
