Steve is Vice President and Chief Financial Manager of Lupe Development. He directs the acquisition, budgeting and finance aspects of the organization. Since 2002, Steve has directed the development and construction of more than 2,000 units of housing and more than 3 million square feet of mixed use, commercial, office and industrial property.
Government & Business… plenty of both
Steve has more than 40 years of real estate development experience and a varied career in state and municipal government. He served on the Minneapolis City Council from 1994-1999 and left his post as Minority Leader to join the Ventura Administration in 1999. Steve was State Commissioner of Public Service in 1999, State Commissioner of Commerce from 2000-2001, Minnesota Environmental Quality Board member from 1999-2001 and a Minneapolis Public Housing Authority Commissioner from 2008-2014. He has served on numerous public tasks forces covering housing, land use, riverfront management, storm water infrastructure, transportation and higher education.
Steve started his real estate career in college, buying a vacant Veterans Administration home for $100 at auction and remodeling over a summer with friends for a tidy profit to retire college debt. Steve was hooked. From duplex to fourplex to 12-plex to large buildings – both remodels and ground-up construction – Steve has been a laborer, carpenter, electrician and bookkeeper working with his family to build the business. The ground-up experience helped Steve form an attention for detail in the work Lupe Development does.
Steve is recognized for his expertise in affordable housing and has implemented a number of creative financing techniques over the years to get to the finish line. Depending upon the project, Steve has assembled closing statements with 15 or more funding sources, or as few as two. No project is the same, and creativity and flexibility are the important values of Lupe Development.
Education
Steve obtained his bachelor’s degree from Syracuse University and holds a master’s in business administration in urban development/finance from the JL Kellogg Graduate School of Management at Northwestern University.
Community Involvement
Steve and Lucy are longstanding supporters of AEON, a nonprofit affordable housing provider; Summit Academy, which provides hands-on training and job readiness-skills in the construction trades; and MicroGrants, a nonprofit making small loans to individuals for business and entrepreneurial endeavors.
Hobbies & Interests
He and Lucy have two adult children, Alexander and Zachary, and a daughter-in-love April, and one grandchild. In warmer weather Steve is an avid tennis player and golfer, though he is not particularly good at either. He sails a small Hobie Cat in the summer and putters around the garage workshop as the designated handyman. His friends know he is likely to have a good bottle of wine handy. In the winter, he loves to ski with the boys, though he has given up the double blacks in favor of saving his knees. He looks forward to teaching his new grandchild how to ski.