Josef Mittlemann '72 P'00 P'04, adjunct lecturer in engineering, stepped down over the summer from his position as chief operating officer at Silverstein Properties, the real estate company that holds the lease to the World Trade Center properties. Mittlemann, who commuted between New York City and Providence this past spring to teach two upper-level seminars, will return to Brown in September.
Mittlemann was appointed to the COO position in December 2004.
"I always told Larry (Silverstein, the real estate developer and head of Silverstein Properties) that if I did my job right, I would be dispensable," Mittlemann told The Herald in July. "As the situation has progressed downtown, it became clear that I could consider moving on."
"We were sorry to see Joe leave, but happy that he is returning to his first love of teaching," Dara McQuillan, a spokesman for Silverstein Properties, told The Herald in July.
As COO of Silverstein Properties, Mittlemann analyzed and worked to improve the company's internal structure. His goal was to ensure that Silverstein made "as much progress and (experienced as much) long-term stability as possible," he said. Mittlemann's position afforded him unique insight into all of Silverstein's projects, including the plans for construction at the former site of the World Trade Center in Lower Manhattan.
"Silverstein is obligated to build on the leased property," which includes space for office buildings and is separate from the area reserved for the symbolic Freedom Tower, Mittlemann said.
Due to confidentiality concerns, Mittlemann could not release any of Silverstein's specific plans for the World Trade Center space.
"We as the private sector were focused mostly on getting the area rebuilt," Mittlemann said of Silverstein's general role in the reconstruction process. Silverstein spent months debating with the public sector - specifically the Port Authority of New York and New Jersey, which owns the property - over the land's proper use.
"In the long run it worked out," Mittlemann said of the agreement that was reached. "It's an interesting case study," he said. "It was great. It was a positive experience."
Indeed, Mittlemann has used the World Trade Center reconstruction project as an example of organization, politics, entrepreneurship and business practice for his engineering classes. Students in EN 194, Sec. 6: "Entrepreneurship and Good Work: Engineering Dreams," a course commonly known as EGW, had the opportunity to visit New York City and tour the World Trade Center and the Silverstein Properties offices. There they met several prominent Manhattan businessmen and saw firsthand the rebuilding project's progress. Meanwhile, students in EN 194, Sec. 25: "Land Use and the Urban and Suburban Built Environments," studied the World Trade Center project and used it to glean insight relating to the land use and entrepreneurial aspects of the project.
"It was one of the best experiences of the class," Jamie Sholem '06 told The Herald in July. Sholem took EGW and was a teaching assistant for Mittlemann's EN 9: "Management of Industrial and Nonprofit Organizations" and EN 90: "Managerial Decision Making." He also completed a Group Independent Study Project under Mittlemann's guidance.
"Professor Mittlemann was my greatest mentor in college," Sholem said. He praised Mittlemann's ability to bring real-world issues, such as the World Trade Center reconstruction, into the classroom.
"He would tell a lot of stories," Sholem said of Mittlemann's classroom presence in EGW. The discussion-based class, which, according to Sholem, centers on "finding a way to balance work life and happiness after college," is capped at 24 students, though about 100 apply every semester.
Mittlemann plans to offer the class, along with the course on land use, in Spring 2007. He will teach a module of a new engineering program in September before taking a sabbatical for the rest of the semester to travel to China and Southeast Asia to study business models there.
Mittlemann is also currently working on two books. One stems from the goals of the EGW course and addresses "the need for meaning and purpose to be a part of the undergraduate curriculum." The second looks at the role of adjunct teachers in a university setting, specifically in business-oriented fields.
"He doesn't sleep much," Sholem said of Mittlemann.
