Ron's Story
I began my career with Dominium toward the end of 1995 as a Staff Accountant after working for a few other real estate companies in their accounting departments. As an Accountant at Dominium, I was assigned a complex portfolio, which included Huntington Point, Huntington Place, Century Court Penn, and Century Court Lyndale, at time Dominium co-owned these properties with Marv Wolfenson and Harvey Ratner (owners of The Timberwolves until 1994). The other major part of my portfolio was two Chicago public housing projects that Dominium was fee managing at the time for the Chicago Housing Authority – Hilliard Towers Family and Hilliard Towers Elderly.
With this challenging group of properties, I found myself often working late alongside a few folks in the Development Department who were just getting started on taking over the Nationwide Housing Group (NHG) portfolio. In 1996, I was asked if I would be interested in joining the Development team to work on the NHG acquisition. At that time, there was not an internship program at Dominium but this opportunity was the closest thing to it and I was excited to take on the challenge. After the NGH acquisition, I continued working on acquiring and developing projects under Jeff Hugget and Wally Johnson as a Development Associate.
In 2003, I left Dominium to assist with the startup of a new multi-family development company, which now has become more of a construction company (Stonebridge Construction). At Stonebridge, I worked on a variety of types of developments including market rate rentals, 9% LITCH apartments, condominiums, and even a senior cooperative. In 2008, I joined The Beard Group as a Partner developing a successful mixed-use development with retail and market rate housing, as well as a medical office building for Hennepin County Medical Center.
In March of 2011, I was given the opportunity to re-join the Development team at Dominium. I started working on the resyndication of some of the NHG portfolio that I had worked on 15 years prior back in 1996. In the last six years since returning to Dominium, I have been able to work on a variety of opportunities including acquisition rehabs and new construction of both senior and general occupancy. Most recently, I was given the opportunity to open an office in the Denver area, expanding our footprint further west. As I write this, I realize the word opportunity is used often; Dominium is an organization that offers just that — the chance to learn and grow your career alongside some great individuals.