Board

Ireland’s President Mary McAleese and her husband Mr. Martin McAleese, center, together with members of the I2UD board and staff.

Board of Directors

Joe Brennan, BS in Marketing, University of Maryland In 1974 Mr. Brennan opened up his own construction/development company at the age of 25. Over the next 29 years his company has become the most successful high-end housing developers in Toronto completing well over 500 houses ranging from $2,500,000 to $25,000,000 in construction value. In 1995 he opened an office in Palm Beach, Florida. The company has completed many notable projects including the former Kennedy Winter White House and the Firestone Estate that won the coveted Ballinger Award historic preservation. His company has matured to a point where he would like to give back to the community using the skills and experience he has developed in the industry during the last 29 years, with interest in Poland. [top]

Rene Pantalone, B.A. (York University), B.Ed. (York University), AMDP (Harvard) is the Director of a number of family owned real estate and development companies in Toronto, Canada, including “National Homes,” a major residential homebuilder; “Forum Development Limited,” a firm that builds and develops retirement residences, commercial projects and infill housing neighborhoods. Mrs. Pantalone was Chair of Montcrest School, an independent, non-profit private school, where she directed overall growth, acquisition of land, and campus development. She served on the Board of Harvard University Graduate School of Design Alumni Council and sits on the Boards of several charities in Toronto. Her education includes B.A. and B.Ed. degrees from Toronto’s York University, and AMDP from the Graduate School of Design at Harvard University. Rene is a Past Governor of the Canadian Olympic Trust, a member of the Canadian Olympic Association and Member of the Toronto Real Estate Board. [top]

Neil St. John Raymond, B.A. (Yale), M.Des. (Harvard) is the Chairman and Chief Executive Officer of Raymond Property Company in Boston, Massachusetts. He has been actively involved in the financing, development, marketing and property management of real estate in the Boston area and elsewhere for over 36 years. In 1969, Ted completed his first major real estate development project; the restoration and adaptive use of 21 Merchants Row in the Faneuil Hall area of Boston. The project marked the beginning of a long and successful series of restoration and adaptive use projects as well as newly constructed developments, for which he has won numerous awards. These include awards from the Boston Society of Architects, the Victoria Society of America, the American Institute of Architects, the American Society of Landscape Architects, and the National Trust for Historic Preservation. Trained as an architect at Yale and Harvard, Raymond has extensive experience in the public process and imaginative conceptual solutions to complex projects. He has participated as a teaching assistant and lecturer in various Real Estate related courses at the Harvard Graduate School of Design. [top]

John M. Sanger, Esq., B.A. (Harvard), J.D. (Harvard), MCP (Harvard) is retired from law practice as the founding principal and sole remaining shareholder of the San Francisco law firm of Sanger & Olson, A Law Corporation, which he closed at the end of 2013 after 18 years. He now does limited consulting through The Sanger Consulting Corporation and manages family real estate.  His law firm specialized in real estate law, including land use, environmental clearances and development entitlements.  Prior to founding Sanger & Olson he was with the firm of Pettit and Martin for 10 years and prior to that he had his own urban planning, economic and environmental consulting firm for 14 years, providing services to private and governmental clients. During his years as an active member of the bar, Mr. Sanger was listed in the Northern California edition of Super Lawyers.

He graduated from Harvard College magna cum laude in 1965, from Harvard Law School magna cum laude in 1969, and from the Harvard Graduate School of Design with distinction in 1970, with a Masters in City and Regional Planning.  He has been an Adjunct Professor in Subdivision and Land Development at the University of Miami Law School Graduate Program in Real Property (1993-95), Lecturer in City Planning and Government Organization at the University of California, Berkeley (1974, 1977) and Lecturer in Law, Planning and Urban Politics at San Francisco State University (1979‑1980).  He was senior legal advisor to the Republic of Kazakhstan on privatization of real estate, working through the U.S. Agency for International Development in 1992-94.

Mr. Sanger is a member and former chair of the Board of Trustees of the San Francisco Art Institute and is a founding member of the Board of Trustees and Executive Committee of the Institute for International Urban Development in Cambridge, Massachusetts. He formerly served as President of the Children’s Creativity Museum at Yerba Buena Gardens. He is also a member of Lambda Alpha, a former member of the Urban Land Institute and the American Planning Association and he has served on the boards of a number of local nonprofit organizations.  He was formerly a member and President of the San Francisco Public Utilities Commission and a member of the Executive Board of the Association of Bay Area Governments. [top]

Clemens Sels, Agricultural Science (University of Bonn, Germany) Economics, (University of Cologne, Germany) Clemens Sels does not follow the conventional rules of property development. He prefers an economically, socially and environmentally sustainable approach and is not afraid of challenges in this business. 26 years ago he started with one building for a small group of European clients and went on to expand his company to three offices with over 40 employees. He is the President of CTL Group, which is active in the development, management, syndication and financing of real estate investments in Canada with over 120 commercial and residential properties under its management. Clemens is an innovative developer interested in the discovery and preservation of historic buildings, and has successfully revitalized forgotten downtown properties into economically viable projects. He is an advocate of a balanced approach to development and has pioneered the design for the first sustainable office tower in Toronto, which is now approved by the City of Toronto. Innovation Square is a complex of three towers in downtown Toronto, designed for high-tech tenants featuring innovative and leading edge sustainable technologies of natural systems and renewable energy. [top]

Daniel Tsai, B.S. (MIT), M.S. (Columbia), MDes (Harvard), DDes (Harvard) Daniel Tsai is an information systems consultant, specializing in database applications, collaborative web systems and historical databases. Major academic projects include: the Palladio Virtual Museum, StudioMIT, and the History of Recent Science on the Web. Financial information systems projects include: portfolio management, risk management, reconciliation, membership and personnel databases, accounting and cyclical reporting. He is directly involved with Geographic Information Systems (GIS), Web authoring, graphical Java applications, relational databases, and modeling of architectural and historical information. He is the lead technical researcher for the development of a multimedia web-oriented database on the history of Jerusalem started at the CUDS and continued at the Institute.

Advisory Board

Gary Haney, B.E.D. (Miami University), M.Arch. (Harvard) is a Design Partner at the New York office of Skidmore, Owings & Merrill LLP. Mr. Haney’s design approach often incorporates extensive materials research, environmental simulations, and computational scripting, which help to inform the parameters of each project. This research-intensive approach has enabled him to design buildings of great scale and complexity, including the Qatar Petroleum headquarters complex in Doha, Qatar, Al Rajhi Bank Headquarters in Riyadh, the Al Hamra Tower in Kuwait City, and the Al Sharq Tower in Dubai, which was honored with a 2007 Progressive Architecture award. Mr. Haney also recently completed the LEED-certified U.S. Census Bureau Headquarters, which has won more than 10 major design awards, and the $85-million redesign of the Smithsonian’s National Museum of American History, which reorganized and renewed this renowned institution.

Mr. Haney is a Board member of the National Building Museum and a member of the International Council of the American Academy in Rome. He has served on advisory boards at the Pratt Institute and Miami University of Ohio’s Department of Architecture and Interior Design and has led design studios at NJIT, Miami University, and Ball State University. He has served as a critic on juries at Columbia University, the Pratt Institute, Catholic University, University of Maryland, NJIT, City College New York, North Carolina State University, and Florida A&M. His design work has been covered extensively in national and international journals, and his drawings have been exhibited at Miami University, the Brooklyn Museum, and the National Building Museum.[top]

Nadia Beiser, B.A. in Urban and Regional Planning (Clark University), M.Arch. (Harvard) has been involved in the real estate development field since 1975, as a developer, construction project manager, architect, and land use planner. She is currently a self-employed real estate developer in Bozeman, Montana. Ms. Beiser started her own design firm in 1980 and completed over 25 solar heated residential projects, plus numerous state building renovations to increase energy conservation or to permit handicapped accessibility. Since 1986, Nadia Beiser has been responsible for the planning, design, development, construction, and marketing of 46 residential, commercial, industrial and mixed-use subdivisions from 4 to 235 lots each. Working with engineering, scientific, legal and accounting professionals has permitted Nadia to optimize her own professional strengths: organization, presentation, market-targeted design, and budget planning. [top]

Ismail Serageldin, B.S. (Cairo University), MRP (Harvard), Ph.D. (Harvard) is the first Director of the Library of Alexandria in Alexandria Egypt, a distinguished University Professor at Wageningen University, the Netherlands, and serves as chair and member of a number of advisory committees for academic, research, scientific and international institutions and civil society efforts. He has worked in a number of capacities at the World Bank since joining in 1972: Economist in Education and Human Resources (1972-76); Division Chief for Technical Assistance and Special Studies (1977-80), and for Urban Projects in Europe, the Middle East and North Africa (1980-83); Director for Programs in West Africa (1984-87); Country Director for Central and Occidental Africa (1987-89), Technical Director for all Sub-Saharan Africa (1990-92), and Vice-President for Environmentally and Socially Sustainable Development (1993-98). In addition, he was active in promoting NGO-Bank relations, and served as Co-Chairman of the NGO-Bank Committee (1997-99). He has edited or authored over 45 books and monographs and 200 articles, book chapters, and technical papers on various topics. [top]

Roger Kallman, B.Arch (Miami University), M.A.U.D. (University of Minnesota), MRP (UNC) Roger Kallman is the Consulting Partner for all urban and regional planning studies undertaken by SOM London’s Planning Studio, and planning issues in respect of all architectural projects. His work encompasses land planning, urban design, transportation planning, new town and campus planning, feasibility studies, environmental assessments, historic preservation and adaptive reuse studies. Roger joined Skidmore, Owings & Merrill in 1971, was elected as Partner in 1989. Roger moved to the UK when he helped to establish SOM’s London office, in 1986. Roger has had extensive experience in the master planning of award winning, large-scale developments in both urban and countryside settings. Prior to this work, he undertook the role of resident SOM representative for the Dublin Transportation Centre study. Subsequently he lived in Cork, leading preparation of the Greater Cork Area Land Use/Transportation Plan. The Planning Institution of Ireland recognized his contribution to the Greater Cork Area by electing him an Honorary Life Member in 1996. In addition to his work in Europe, Roger has been engaged in projects around the world for both public and private sector clients. He served as Senior Planner for the Chicago Central Area Plan and on numerous projects in the Far East, Central Asia and the Middle East. He recently lead the Planning Studio in the preparation of the regeneration strategies for the City of Newport in South Wales and Victoria Harbour in Hartlepool, while also directing a Master Plan for INSEAD, a graduate business school, outside of Paris. [top]

Aziza al-Hibri, B.A. in Philosophy (American University of Beirut), Ph.D. in Philosophy (University of Pennsylvania), J.D. (University of Pennsylvania Law School) Azizah Y. al-Hibri is a professor of law at the University of Richmond. She has written extensively on issues of Islamic culture and law, approaches to democracy, as well as on human rights in Islam. She has also guest edited a special volume on Islam by the Journal of Law and Religion. Presently, she is completing a book on The Islamic Marriage Contract in American Courts. Professor al-Hibri is internationally active exploring the possibilities of cooperation in connection with various women’s issues in developing countries. She has lectured in numerous countries on topics relating to Islam, democracy, women’s rights and Muslims in the United States. Professor al-Hibri has traveled widely throughout the Muslim world in support of Muslim women’s rights and acted as a consultant to the Supreme Council for family Affairs in Qatar in the development of that country’s personal status code. She has visited 13 Muslim countries and discussed with their religious, political, and women’s leaders. Professor al-Hibri is interested in women’s participation in their communities, as well as in micro-enterprise projects to improve low-income family budgets. She believes in training programs directed to women to improve urban management and development. In addition to her teaching and professional activities, Dr. Al-Hibri is founder and president of Karamah: Muslim Women Lawyers for Human Rights (www.karamah.org). She has also served on the board of director and advisory boards of numerous non-profit organizations. Dr. al-Hibri is member to the New York Bar, the District of Columbia Bar, and the American Bar Association. Among the most important awards received recently by Dr. Azizah Y. Al-Hibri are: Virginia First Freedom Award, Council for America’s First Freedom (2007), Dr. Betty Shabazz Recognition Award, Women in Islam (NY), 2006.[top] Aline Kradjian, B.S. Urban Planning (Cal Poly, Pomona), MRED (USC), AMDP (Harvard) Aline Kradjian is President and Founder of The ARD Group in Costa Mesa, California. The firm specializes in development of affordable and market-rate ownership housing. Her real estate practice entails evaluating market conditions, analyzing real estate proposals, raising capital, and overseeing all aspects of the development process for the company. Aline has served on and chaired numerous boards and commissions in Los Angeles, such as Historic Preservation, Design Review, and Workforce investment. [top]

Mary Jane Lawson Mary Jane Lawson is the Owner and President of M.J. Lawson Real Estate Ltd., in Toronto Canada where she specializes in the sale and leasing of commercial real estate investments. She has spent the past 25 years working in transitional neighborhoods where her marketing expertise has contributed to revitalization and/or repurposing of under-utilized urban buildings. Those projects have included the Ontario Design Center, where she helped transform an outdated drug supply warehouse into Ontario’s first large scale commercial center for interior design. She marketed one of Toronto’s iconic landmarks The Flat-Iron Building in Toronto’s famous St. Lawrence Market neighborhood. She also worked with forward thinking developers to rebrand and market a former piano factory into a vibrant office complex known as Studio City. This building became an incubator building for the burgeoning Dot.com companies in the 1990s and continues to offer creative office space for a host of new businesses today. She worked for several years with the renowned Canadian Architect, Jack Diamond to market his renovated office complex known as Berkeley Castle which was a ground-breaking transformation of a former derelict industrial warehouse into a vibrant office community on Toronto’s eastern downtown core. Through her work with the CTL Group in Toronto she participated in and contributed to negotiations with city planners and private architects to help conceptualize Innovation Square one of the first and largest concepts for a sustainable office tower in Toronto. In addition, Ms. Lawson has contributed her marketing expertise to various community groups including the Toronto Philharmonia. During her time as a member of the Board of the Philharmonia she rebranded the organization, developed new marketing materials and was an important member of the planning committee for their popular annual fund raiser – the famous Viennese Ball. Ms. Lawson is an American citizen who immigrated to Canada 25 years ago after graduating with a BA in History and Business from Andrews University in Michigan, USA. [top]