Geography and place

I think about this a lot... You might already know that I've worked in commercial real estate development for over 25 years. I came up through accounting and finance, and long ago learned important investment concepts like opportunity cost, time value of money, capital cost and risk premium.

But did you also know that after graduating from Northern Illinois University (summa cum laude), I undertook post-graduate study there in accountancy? ... I confess that I never finished this. My primary motivation was to buy time so that I could directly assist in the home birth of my first child. I worked in the hospitality industry as a night auditor for University Guest Rooms, and studied obstetrics in addition to my accounting theory texts.

At that time, I was also deeply involved in the local community food cooperative - Duck Soup Coup. So naturally, I gravitated to studying "human value" and "ecological value" in my accounting theory work. That's when I first recognized how significantly flawed are current financial reporting systems. Only reporting value for "financial capital" and ignoring these other economic values? That's ridiculous! We all know that human resources are an investment. We all know that pollution creates a cost upon our society. But financial statements don't reflect this, and bad decisions are made as a consequence!

By the time I got involved in real estate, I had also connected these values to the importance of "quality of place" in our quality of life... Quality of place affects people at their soul. In my mind, "quality places" are inviting, welcoming and comfortable, soothing or enriching, and appropriate to their surroundings. Like human value, quality of place has value too - even if it is not recognized in the equation.

One of my joys in working for The Fiore Companies over the years has been the opportunity to participate in developing a number of really nice additions to the community. These developments have all been authentic in material and design, functionally practical, and appropriate to their place. Fiore earns a modest return and the projects work. I'm proud of this.

Most recently I've been thinking a lot about "home" and "roots." I just returned from "a trip of a lifetime" where I saw my daughter marry a great guy in Ireland, toured the country, and felt a deep connection with my family history... We stayed three nights in Ennis - a 750 year old city that has held a weekly farmers market every Saturday since obtaining permission from the King of England in 1609! While there, I mentioned to a wonderful Irishman - Paul Corey (who photographed my daughters wedding) - that I thought it must feel amazing to be surrounded by so much history. And he said, "Sure, but we are all just humans right?" That made me really think about how "my people" are from Chicago (by way of New Orleans, Canada and Roscommon), but my place is now here in Madison Wisconsin - my home for the past 30 years - and the birthplace of both my children with Aszani.

I live on a street named after an insightful urban planner (Phil Lewis) who long ago foresaw a future where Madison and Chicago are part of a continuous megalopolis. He thought we should recognize this and plan accordingly - protect our environmental resources by building vertically. Chicago - Milwaukee - Madison already form a single regional triangle, don't you think? ... I grew up in the south suburbs of Chicago - Chicagoland. But from a broad perspective, Madison is also part of Chicagoland - it's one region.

Likewise, Madison's metropolitan service area (MSA) includes all of Dane, Columbia and Iowa Counties. That's Madisonland! The political boundaries between Madison and surrounding communities are simply historical anachronisms. We've got to recognize this because, in the end, we will rise and fall together. So I am hopeful that in the future we will work together for the common good within "Greater Madison"!

This is a very good place... it's worth nurturing!

My new favorite sweater

I don't usually care much about "shopping" when I'm on vacation. That's just not how I relax. But I do like my comfy clothes ... so when in Kinsale, Ireland last month I bought a really beautiful blue Aran Sweater.

We made good fun of the fact that it came with a numbered and signed "Certificate of Authenticity."


I saved it of course, because on its back is a key with the meaning of a selection of Aran stitches. I only recently looked closely at the certificate... This little detail made me laugh:


Nonetheless, it is still my "new favorite sweater." Beautiful stitching, cotton lining and fleece collar - the wool sweater perfected.

Just as true today

A co-worker sent me a copy of this email today, which I sent nine years ago to our corporate staff ... We had recently concluded a significant "visioning" process, which had affirmed the importance of human values within our company in addition to the financial capital objectives. I then wrote a series of emails to all-staff unpacking the elements of the "vision" that we adopted. This was one of them...

Sent: Friday, April 14, 2000 10:33 AM
Subject: Thoughts and Ideas

Greetings.

In recent weeks, I have reviewed with you the elements of Fiore’s vision statement, and discussed some of the development and investment activities of the company. In the next few memos, I plan to focus on each of the functional divisions in the company. But first I thought I would share with you some food for thought from an address given last fall as part of the executive-in-residence program at the University of Notre Dame by Elmer W. Johnson, who is a former Exec VP and Director of GM. The purpose of his talk was to take moral stock of our economic system. After making a powerful case for capitalism, he went on to discuss several contemporary moral concerns, one of which was the question of “character and the market mentality”:

“In The Battle for Human Nature (1986), Barry Schwartz, a psychology professor at Swarthmore College, argues that the disciplines of economics, evolutionary biology, and behavioral theory have converged on a frightening conception of human beings as self-interested, rational, economic individuals living in a world of social Darwinism very much to their liking, a conception that has come to be so widely accepted that it threatens to undermine the traditional conception of humans as moral beings who are obligated to choose the right, regardless of self-interest. As the modern conception becomes ever more pervasive, Schwartz says, our social lives and democracy itself are tainted and transformed by the market mentality: everything becomes a commodity. Thus, a false conception of humans becomes a self-fulfilling prophecy. Yet as Schwartz says, the commercialization of noneconomic goods is ultimately self-destructive. Society cannot hold together, and even the market cannot exist, without conventions of social responsibility and mutual trust.”

So his question is: How do we prevent (both individually and as a society) the all-pervasive “culture of the market” from eroding our institutional and personal lives and frustrating our higher purposes?

I believe, that if we really “buy-in” to our corporate vision and live out these values, it mitigates the worst aspects of this market mentality. And just as some of the early defects of capitalism – such as cartels, investor fraud and exploitation of workers - were remediated by reforms over the past century, we can help to bring about a corrective to these continuing moral concerns by the way in which we carry out our business.

What do you think?

Regards,
Bill

“Do not go where the path may lead, go instead where there is no path and leave a trail” – Ralph Waldo Emerson

The Fiore Companies
William J. Kunkler, Executive Vice President
wkunkler@fioreco.com