Episode 11

full
Published on:

4th Oct 2023

Bill Cummings - Cummings Properties

Bill Cummings is the founder and past president and chairman of Cummings Properties, one of the New England region’s most prominent private real estate investment firms. Since its founding in 1970, Cummings Properties has amassed a staggering portfolio of over 11 million square feet across 11 cities and towns north of Boston, and has built a reputation as a value-oriented, long-term holder of well-located real estate. While Bill is widely associated with this impressive collection of commercial properties (all owned debt-free), he now focuses most of his time and energy on The Cummings Foundation, the charitable juggernaut he oversees with his wife Joyce. Bill and Joyce made headlines as the first Massachusetts family to sign The Giving Pledge, a campaign started by Warren Buffet and Bill and Melinda Gates to encourage billionaires to give away at least half of their fortune to charity. Until then, the Cummings family had been largely flown under the radar, and this news led to many headlines with a “billionaire next door” theme.

Our conversation with Bill starts with his upbringing in Medford and he shares with us anecdotes of the early entrepreneurial bug which never left him. We hear about his career start in sales, his successful journey in the fruit juice business, and his first forays into the real estate investment arena.

He got his start in commercial real estate with just one small building, which he built next door to Old Medford Foods, and then led Cummings Properties' expansion into an 11 million-square-foot portfolio, now managed by more than 350 team members.


In 1986, Bill and his wife, Joyce, established Cummings Foundation, which has grown to be one of the three largest private foundations in New England. The Cummings family today is known widely for their remarkable philanthropy and dedication to improving the communities around them.


Among Bill's many honors are Real Estate Entrepreneur of the Year for New England from Ernst & Young, Edward H. Linde Public Service Award from the National Association of Industrial and Office Properties (NAIOP), and Real Estate Visionary of the Year from Boston Business Journal. He and Joyce were also inducted into the Greater Boston Chamber of Commerce's Academy of Distinguished Bostonians.


In 2020, Bill released the latest edition of his self-written memoir, Starting Small and Making It Big: An Entrepreneur's Journey to Billion-Dollar Philanthropist, which includes thoughtful reflections on the lessons he has learned about business, entrepreneurship, and philanthropy.


Bill’s incredible generosity is legendary in the Boston area, and we feel privileged to have him join us for an episode of Good Dirt.


Tom Greeley

https://www.linkedin.com/in/thomasgreeley/

tom.greeley@nmrk.com


Mike Greeley

https://www.linkedin.com/in/michaelgreeley1/

michael.greeley@nmrk.com

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About the Podcast

Good Dirt: Conversations with Leaders in Real Estate & Beyond
Interviewing Leaders in Real Estate and Beyond
Welcome to Good Dirt: Conversations with Leaders in Real Estate & Beyond - interviews with some of the most interesting and respected players in the commercial real estate industry, with a focus on investors, developers, and equity allocators that are shaping the built world around us. Hosted by Mike Greeley and Tom Greeley, brothers and teammates within the Newmark capital markets platform.

Because the real estate industry is hyper-connected to all sectors of commerce, we will also regularly be hosting friends from “beyond the business”, including luminaries from the private equity and venture capital arenas all the way to restauranteurs, consumer retail entrepreneurs, tech founders and a few politicians.

We look forward to bringing you discussions that profile our guests’ career journeys, investment strategies, building and growing of their businesses and thoughts on current market opportunities, and we’ll also delve into human interest topics, non-work pursuits, daily routines, and (perhaps most importantly) giving back. Join us as we learn from the industry’s best and brightest and have a few laughs along the way!

We hope these discussions will be noteworthy for plenty of people beyond our reach, so please share with friends, colleagues, and clients if an episode is especially topical. We also hope you’ll consider sharing this podcast with aspiring commercial real estate professionals, as each episode will be a case study on its own and in the aggregate, a crash course in this dynamic industry.

Mike Greeley
Michael.greeley@nmrk.com
https://www.linkedin.com/in/michaelgreeley1/

Tom Greeley
Tom.greeley@nmrk.com
https://www.linkedin.com/in/thomasgreeley/

About your host

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Thomas Greeley