Shopping Centers Today is the news magazine of the International Council of Shopping Centers (ICSC)
Issue link: https://sct.epubxp.com/i/400168
After high school he enrolled at the University of Florida to major in chemical engineering. But his internships taught him something he had not expected: The actual work of a chemical engineer bored him to tears. "I enjoyed the field, but the practical application wasn't as exciting as I expected," he said. Moreover, Messing, a gregarious man, enjoys inter- acting with people more than with test tubes. As it happens, in college he took a few finance classes and discovered an in- terest in retail and real estate finance. "I found it just as chal- lenging as figuring out a thermodynamic equation," Mess- ing said. So after graduation he took an MBA in real estate finance and then embarked on a career that has included stints as a Taco Bell real estate manager, a vice president of development for the Eckerd drugstore chain and the presi- dent of a mixed-use real estate development firm. The range of experiences has served him well. In May he became COO of the Ponte Vedra Beach, Fla.–based Fer- ber Co., where he has charge of expanding the real estate development and investment firm's portfolio of net-leased, OT Only IS rETAIl rEAl estate not rocket science, it is, to Steve Messing, a whole lot more in- teresting — or at least a lot more interesting than chemical engineer- ing. Growing up, Messing had always assumed he would become an engineer. After all, his father was an engineer who once headed nASA's White Sands Missile range, in new Mex- ico. Messing was raised on Merritt Island, Fla., home of nASA's Kennedy Space Center, where most of his schoolmates were the children of engineers. freestanding properties throughout Flor- ida, Georgia, the Carolinas and new Jer- sey. This position perfectly knits together his years of experience on both the retail and development sides. "Steve knows a lot of people in the in- dustry," said P. Shields Ferber Jr., presi- dent of Ferber Co. "He knows how to run a retail program and has worked on the developer side as well. He speaks both lan- guages, and in this business that combina- tion is really, really powerful." It was at Taco Bell, his first job after col- lege, that Messing began his practical educa- tion in real estate. "They taught me every- thing from A to Z — from figuring out what properties and demographics to look for, Growth leader New COO Steve meSSiNg iS helpiNg tO exteNd Ferber CO.'S reaCh By Rebecca Meiser n e w s m a k e r s N O v e m b e r 2 0 1 4 / s C T 67 n