Econ major Doug Freedman ‘92 was recently profiled in the Chicago Tribune for his work in private equity real estate.

The article asks:

“Q: How did you get interested in that line of work?

“A: Out of business school I fell in love with what Disney was doing, as they were building a town called Celebration (a master-planned community near Orlando). I shot former Disney CEO Michael Eisner an e-mail since he went to Denison University and I went to Denison, and he hooked me up with interviews at Disney, and the rest is history. That is how I fell in love with (community planning) and when I started my own business with my partner, we started doing master-planned communities.

“Q: What is the biggest challenge to your business?

“A: Finding the right properties. Finding the projects we want (is) very difficult, and we are very picky and we need something that is an infill community like The Glen. We need a project like that, so we do one project a year.