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ICSC HONORS VOLUNTEERS AT FAMILY BRUNCH

BY IAN RITTER

At the start of this year’s convention, about 500 of ICSC’s key volunteers and their families gathered for the annual Family Brunch, which honors individuals for long-term service to the organization.

“There are always those unique few who, for many years and year after year, can be counted on to give generously,” said ICSC President and CEO Michael P. Kercheval. “Each year they not only exceed what they have given in the past, [they] also exceed everyone’s expectations.”

Developer Gary D. Rappaport, SCSM, SCMD, CLS, the organization’s 43rd chairman, came up to recognize the outgoing 44th chairman, Kathleen M. Nelson, who heads TIAA-CREF’s $40 billion mortgage and real estate portfolio, $6 billion of which is retail. Nelson, one of the industry’s leading financial specialists, was there with her husband, Jeff.

Kercheval and his predecessor, John T. Riordan, who is now a trustee, honored the organization’s other past chairmen by awarding them gold pins.

Richard S. Sokolov, Simon Property Group’s president and COO and an ICSC past chairman, also won this year’s Park Bench Award. The award goes to past chairmen who have also served a five-year tenure on the Executive Committee. He also received a diamond-and-gold pin. Last year’s Park Bench Award went to Drew Alexander, president of Weingarten Realty Investors.

Also celebrated were four Distinguished Service Award winners: Bertrand Courtois-Suffit, an executive manager at Kharis Conseil, a Paris-based consulting firm specializing in shopping center management; Kenneth S. Lamy, president of the New Orleans–based Lamy Group, an accounting and financial services firm; Alan E. Smith, CLS, executive vice president of Farmington, Conn.–based development firm Konover & Associates; and Nancy R. Walters, SCMD, president of Very Special Events, a San Diego marketing company.

The brunch has also become an occasion to applaud those who are still building their careers and have been given scholarships to attend ICSC’s wide-ranging educational courses. This year’s winners of the John T. Riordan Scholarship are Bonney J. Rempel, marketing director of Lougheed Town Center, Burnaby, British Columbia; Julie Chalise Sanchez, redevelopment specialist at the Fort Wayne (Ind.) Redevelopment Commission; Simeon (Mickey) Trotter, assistant property manager for Regency Centers in Dallas; Bryon Wall, assistant property manager at Simon Property Group’s Florida Mall, Orlando, Fla.; and Michael Xie Xin, tenant coordination officer at Raffles City Shanghai (China) for Cushman & Wakefield Premas.

The Harold Eisenberg Next Generation Educational Scholarship went to Darryl Johnson, executive director of Riverworks Development Corp., Milwaukee.

These scholarships will pay their recipients’ expenses for programs at the John T. Riordan School for Professional Development.