Recently, along with President Burwell, I had the honor of meeting Robert Kogod, the business leader and philanthropist whose name graces our business school. Like tens of thousands of students, staff, and faculty who have graced these halls for the past forty-three years since the school was named in recognition of Bob and Arlene Kogod’s generosity, I wanted to learn more: who is Bob Kogod and what makes him tick?
Mr. Kogod’s father escaped persecution and antisemitism in Poland in 1905, seeking a better life in the United States. Mr. Kogod was born in 1931 at the height of the Great Depression, two years before Adolf Hitler came to power. Part of an immigrant family, he grew up in Washington, DC, attended Theodore Roosevelt High School, and graduated from American University with a Bachelor of Science degree in 1962.
In 1959, while in college, he joined his family's small business—then a real estate firm with 11 employees. Over the next few decades, Mr. Kogod’s company created housing for more than 35,000 families in the Washington, DC, region and the Midwest. A visionary and risk taker, in the early 1960s, Mr. Kogod’s company bought what was then a large junkyard and rail yard across the Potomac river and decided to develop the property. People thought he was nuts to make such an investment! Today, that former junkyard, Crystal City, is the home for Amazon’s HQ2. Bob’s company eventually merged with Vornado Realty Trust, one of the largest and most successful real estate firms in the world.