'This Is What I Want To Do': Summer Program Launches High Schoolers Of Color Into CRE Careers

While the anti-diversity, equity and inclusion backlash bolstered by the Trump administration has led many companies to scale back their efforts, one program focused on getting students of color interested in commercial real estate is pushing forward after several years of positive results. 

NAIOP Greater Philadelphia and Drexel University launched the 10-day pre-college experience in 2019, and a vast majority of its alumni have expressed interest in pursuing a career in commercial real estate.

Now, some of them are finding their place in the industry.

While the participants come from a wide array of backgrounds, so far none have been white, program founder and Tishman Speyer Managing Director Joe Ritchie told Bisnow.

“There’s a severe lack of people of color in this industry,” the former chapter president of NAIOP Greater Philadelphia said. “We want commercial real estate to be an option for these folks.”

A Bisnow analysis in November found that just over 85% of C-suite executives at the 100 largest CRE firms were white. That proportion has been slowly but steadily shrinking in recent years.

Ritchie believes the summer program will help bring it down even more in the coming decades. But that doesn't mean it's immune to shifts in the zeitgeist, including growing scrutiny for initiatives that prioritize people of color.

“That’s frankly harder to do nowadays,” said Ritchie, who noted that the program isn't exclusively for people of color. “We do not exclude anyone from applying.”

The program has shown results in getting high schoolers of color interested in CRE. NAIOP’s survey of students who participated in the program between 2019 and 2023 found that 80% were considering in a CRE internship and 72% were interested in a full-time career in the industry.

Demand for the program is also increasing. The applicant pool roughly doubled to more than 120 between 2019 and last year, but the number of students granted a spot has stayed steady at 30.

Alexis Clark took a tour of Brandywine Realty Trust’s offices while attending the program in 2019. She was hired by the company last spring and spent nearly a year there as a property assistant following her graduation from West Chester University.

“The opportunity to engage with industry leaders, gain hands-on experience, and develop a real-world understanding of the field provided me – and many other alumni – with the foundation to thrive in a competitive industry,” Clark said in a written statement. 

College students Kaylah Nobrun and Gordon Houston III say the connections they made at Drexel helped them secure several CRE internships.

Nobrun scored summer positions at Odin Properties and Ensemble Investments while studying business at WCU. After the Northeast Philly native graduates next year, she hopes to find a full-time job in the industry as a leasing agent.

“If I wasn’t in this program, I wouldn’t have the internship opportunities I’ve had,” said Nobrun, who added that many of her peers have struggled to find similar summer positions. “I’m also surely guaranteed a job when I get out of college.”

Houston, a North Philly native who is in the middle of his final year at Morgan State University, has completed summer internships at two different departments of CBRE. He secured the first position after meeting several of the brokerage’s employees at an NAIOP event.

Clark, Nobrun and Houston are part of a small group of alumni who continue to attend NAIOP events. The group’s Executive Director, Sarah Maginnis, has made a point of helping those who stay involved get job interviews and other networking opportunities, they said.

Houston wasn’t sure if he would have gotten into CRE without the summer program.

“Maybe eventually down the road, but not as soon as I did,” he said. “Being exposed to it early on was definitely an advantage.”

That’s exactly what Ritchie wanted to accomplish. He had zero experience with CRE before enrolling in a graduate program at the University of Pennsylvania’s Wharton School.

“I did not know there was a real estate industry,” Ritchie said.

During his early months at Penn, he bought a triplex in West Philadelphia. The purchase is what got him interested in CRE, which is ultimately what he ended up studying at Wharton.

“The way that I got into the industry isn’t really replicable,” he said. “What we wanted to do with the program was introduce high school students to the industry while they’re thinking about their careers.”

The program is free, with all of the costs covered by NAIOP’s membership fees and corporate sponsors. But that doesn’t mean all the students who attend come from financially disadvantaged families.

“It is not exclusively intended for those who would not otherwise be able to attend,” Ritchie said. “We get some middle-class kids who would be doing summer programs anyways.”

It’s also not the case that every attendee has zero exposure to CRE beforehand.

Houston grew up in Brewerytown but attended Friends Central, a private school in Wynnewood. His father worked in the residential real estate sector for a time, but Houston said that was long before he started thinking about his own career.

Nobrun said she has several family members who work in real estate.

“I really knew this is what I wanted to do for a long time, probably since middle school,” she said. “Doing the program made me realize for certain that this is what I want to do.”

She added that pre-college programs are a way for high schoolers to rule out career paths and fields they don’t want to pursue.

“If you get a taste of your major, it’s beneficial,” she said. “You can figure out if you like it or if you don’t.”