This three session seminar is designed to introduce new senior managers and executives at CDCs with limited real estate development experience to the broad range of real estate development  activities of CDCs. Topics and themes covered include the development process, major community development and real estate concepts, CDC staff and other professionals involved in various stages of development  and the organizational issues and challenges that  the executive may  confront in overseeing effective and  successful development agenda.  This course is not about “how to be a developer” course, but rather  how to provide leadership, oversight and problem-solving support so that real estate development furthers the CDC’s mission, rather than overtaking it. 

Mat Thall is presently a housing and community development consultant. From 1991 to 2006  he served as  Senior Program Director, for the Greater Boston Program of the  Local Initiatives Support Corporation  (LISC). Previously he served for a decade as the Executive Director of the Fenway CDC in Boston.  Prior to that  he held planning, policy and research positions  with the Cambridge Housing Authority, the court-appointed master in the Perez vs. Boson Housing Authority case and the Laboratory for  Psychosocial Studies at Boston College.  He began his career in housing and community development as a Housing Management Specialist at the Newark Area Office of HUD.  Thall holds a Masters degree in City Planning from MIT and a B.A. from Columbia University.  He is currently a Board member of the Mass. Association of Housing Cooperatives, the Mel King Institute and the Coalition of Occupied Homes in Foreclosure.