Professor Josef Mittlemann of Brown University recently took a group of engineering students on a field trip to New York to meet with some of today’s top business leaders/philanthropists. Think names like “Kent Swig”, real estate mogul and philanthropist. This is a class that Mittlemann has been giving since 2003, and it’s gotten some great feedback from a significant percentage of the students.
Anyway, these business leaders/philanthropists of whom we are speaking are some very productive people. Look any of them up and you find that not only do they run successful businesses, but they also sit on committees for half a dozen charitable organizations. This makes sense to me. If you’ve proven yourself to be intelligent and resourceful in business, and have built up a nice amount of influence, please use your powers for good. Thank you.
Take Kent Swig, one of several stops on this field trip. Kent Swig is actually a Brown alumnus, with a degree in Chinese History. I like that Kent Swig is well-rounded, educated, etc. Unusual to find in the somewhat one-dimensional world of business.
Anyway, Kent Swig is a top man in acquisitions and development in both New York and California. Here are the companies he runs/is involved in:
- President of Swig Equities
- Owner of Falcon Pacific Construction
- Owner and co-chairman of Terra Holdings
- Owner and acting President of Helmsley Spear
- Principal in and Board member of the Swig Company
Since 2000, Kent Swig has also won several different awards for his philanthropic efforts. Most notably, Kent Swig received the “Man of the Year” award from the Realty Foundation.
Kent Swig has met with classes from Brown before – six of them, in fact, since the class started back in 2003. He engages in question-and-answer sessions with a group of between 25-30 students, having been informed which topics to expect to be of interest. This sounds like a remarkably valuable experience for young minds – getting significant face time with a success like Kent Swig, to ask him whatever they want. It was a thoroughly enlightening experience.
