>> My name is Art Fusilo [phonetic] and I am a real estate developer in Washington D.C.
So there's a series of projects that I've worked on.
Literally looking at the opportunity and saying, "I could put a Walgreens on that corner."
You know? Just give me 5 minutes and give me a phone and I'm going to go make it happen.
And that's how developers really do.
Developers are a creative people by and large.
They see an opportunity, they see a need probably before the opportunity
and that need then they go after and they create the opportunity.
Whether it be office or retail or industrial or hotel or apartments.
So my job everyday really from in the 80s - in the early 80s -
was to make sure that the deal closed.
It was my responsibility to negotiate the best deal on behalf of the company
that I could relative to changes that that tenant wanted.
So really from 1987 really to this day, my responsibility shifted
from the heavy document work to sort of vice president in charge of creativity.
It was my job to go out and find opportunities that were not part of this organization,
had not been in the land that we owned and create opportunities for the company to grow.
So if I look at a field and I decide that I'd that to be a city and I'd like there
to be office buildings and retail and a hotel and a plaza, there are many components to that.
I take a pencil to a paper and I say, "Where are my dominant views?
Where are people going to see?
What do I want them to see?"
When they enter the quote-unquote space
or they enter the place, have I created a sense of place?
Have I created an environment that people go, "Wow, I understand this.
I appreciate this.
I can relate to this.
I'm entertained by it.
It's pleasing to me.
It's a plaza and there are people sitting outside on tables and chairs with umbrellas
and there's a restaurant and there's somebody playing music
and there's a fountain in the middle.
In the backdrop there's an office building and here's
where the residential people live and they walk at night."
And there's things that you've created.
So there's an enormous amount of creativity.
Enormous amount of creativity that goes into real estate development.
Really nothing is 9 to 5.
If you think you're going to work 9 to 5, then you're fooling yourself.
You really work till your work is done or you work until you feel that you're satisfied
that you've put in a hard day's work and you've accomplished something.
Even when I'm on vacation or away, my BlackBerry or my iPhone now is working.
I'm checking my computer.
I mean it's part of who I am.
It's my life.
I think for me today what's fun is to really continue to create things and do things
and move forward with things that here to -- here to for have not been invented.
The -- I've done a lot of wonderful things over the last 30 years - built a lot of projects -
but the beauty of that is that Mr. Lerner [phonetic] was essentially my age
when he hired me.
So I want those next 30 years that he and I have had together in doing things and my association
with him and he family, I want that to be my next 30 years.
That was a very creative 30 years.
There are -- there's a whole new set of 30 years out there for me that will get me
into my late 80s and then I'll worry about the next 30 years after that.
But bottom line is, it's having the mindset of wanting to continue to create.
And not being anywhere near done if I'm allowed to continue
to do it health wise, I'm not the least bit done.
So what's the most exciting thing to me is that every day I start like I was 27.
Well as I say to people who focus on it, first of all,
understand if you're addicted to real estate.
I mean if you have an addiction, you know you have the addiction.
So if I were to advise anyone, it's just pick some tools.
Get out there.
Become a financial analyst.
Get in front of a computer.
It's what you know more than my generation knows.
My son's doing it now.
He sits in front of computers all day
in a financial analyst real estate position understanding how loans work
and how documents and valuation on real estate.
Fantastic.
Great portal.
There it is.
It's a tool.
Put it in your toolbox.
You may not do it forever but then when you say to somebody, "Run me a spreadsheet
on this opportunity," when it comes back, you're going to know everything about that spreadsheet
because you did them for 5 years of 3 years or 4 years.
So just put tools in the toolbox.
Get into it.
If you come in on the computer side, fantastic.
Financial analyst side, fantastic.
Small real estate development company, being a gofer, fantastic.
Work at a law firm in the zoning side, fantastic.
Become a land planning, get a land planning degree --
whatever it is just get some tools in the toolbox
and then you'll figure out what your passion is.
I attended Villanova between 1971 and 1975.
I know that seems like a thousand years ago.
It doesn't to me.
And I was a political science major.
And I was fortunate enough to have gotten very good grades at Villanova,
and done reasonably well in my law school admissions test.
And I was accepted at the Catholic University of America in Washington,
D.C. And I received my jurist doctorate degree in June of 1978.
So I went on to receive a master's degree in tax law from Georgetown University.
And while I was attending Georgetown to get my tax degree at night, I was practicing law
at a law firm in [inaudible] Virginia, but ironically my office had a window
that overlooked Tysons Corner Center.
And I would actually look at that building - and I still have the picture out my window
in my office today at that building and wonder what it was like to build that shopping center?
What would it take?
How did somebody put it together?
That was the pinnacle of real estate development for me.
And then in May of 1981, an opportunity presented itself really through an ad
in the paper ironically for a learner corporation.
And I came in as a general counsel into Lerner Corporation
and I spent literally probably the next 5 or 6 years in concentrated study of lease negotiation
and document preparation and focused on real estate development through the portal of the law
and then in the side of it that was the documents work.
The heavy legal work.
The negotiation of the business deal.
On or about 1985 or 1986, opportunities presented themselves
in a local county called Loudoun County.
I worked very hard on a particular zoning case and was able to zone a regional mall
out by Dulles Airport which has become Loudoun County's regional mall called Dulles
Town Center.
It's about a 1 point 4 million square foot regional shopping center.
And I zoned that in November of 1987.
I remember that because as you recall, I used to look out my window and wonder what it took
to put together a regional mall and that was a dream that was coming true for me.
Fortunately I was with a very strong company and we were able to begin that project in April
of 1998 and open up in August of 99.
And it still operates today.
Since then, we're working on a theater deal now.
I've added Cheesecake Factory, Chang's.
I continue to grow the company.
Lord and Taylor, continue to grow the mall over time.
No recently the family bought the Washington Nationals Baseball Team.
I was given an opportunity to participate as an owner that.
I've invested in that for my family.
That's been a thrill to be part of that.
Go to a lot of games.
Go to spring training.
Sit with Mike Rizzo [phonetic] and occasionally with others and talk about it.
And occasionally I'm asked what I think of a particular ball player
and how we should go about doing something.
And I provide my best baseball advice.
I have 3 adages.
Put this on video.
Can you imagine this?
I have 3 adages that I would teach my children.
You can't have too many jobs in your 20s.
You can't have too many degrees in your 20s.
And you can't have too many boyfriends and girlfriends in your 20s.
And that's really the point I'm driving home is that your 20s are times
that you explore for your passion.
So if you are in your 20s and you're watching this, which you obviously are -
it's sort of what you're doing -
or even if you're in your 30s, you can't have too many jobs.
You can't say, "Oh my God, I'm 23 years old.
Should I leave this job or not?"
Leave the job.
Find it. If you have an inclination that something else may be --
don't worry about it in your 20s.
It's not the time to worry about it.
Enjoy that period of your life.
Enjoy the exploration of it.
You know 30 may be the new 20 but my advice has been, you'll find your passion
if you allow yourself to find your passion.
And you can't get too many degrees.
It's just - from my standpoint - I think you should go to school forever.
I mean you should just constantly get more degrees, sharpen the pencil, sharpen the pencil
so that whatever you decide to do, you ultimately become the best you can at it.