Goodbye Debra Stein, you will be missed
By P. Michael Saint,
Chairman and CEO, The Saint Consulting Group
Word reached me today that Debra Stein, noted author on NIMBY battles, and founder and CEO of GCA Strategies of San Francisco, has died from complications of a rare disease. See her obit in the San Francisco Chronicle
Debra was always a friend, and sometimes a competitor. We saw each other at every national conference of the Urban Land Institute, usually twice a year, and Debra was usually on a panel or leading one on how to build grassroots support for new real estate projects. Her ideas and advice were spot-on, as far as I am concerned, and we even used some of her old articles as training materials for our own staff.
Debra and I talked of a merger some years ago but our expectations for such an alliance turned out not to be compatible, so we stayed friendly competitors. I knew Debra was always in pain from her disease, but I did not realize it was life threatening. When she failed to show up for ULI in Atlanta in May, I just supposed she had cut back making the cross country trip because of the economy.
I am sorry that we in the world of Land Use Politics have lost a pro.
P. Michael Saint is chairman and CEO of The Saint Consulting Group, email msaint@tscg.biz
[...] Mike Saint, chairman and CEO of The Saint Consulting Group, wrote about Debra Stein in June 2009. [...]