Pat Connaughton plays basketball for a living. But with these students, he's teaching real estate development.
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Pat Connaughton stood before 18 high school students and recent graduates tucked inside Straz Hall, home of the College of Business Administration at Marquette University.
Having had just finished his talk, and was inviting questions. He suggested that if they needed an ice-breaker, they could ask him something about the Milwaukee Bucks, where he is a shooting guard.
No one did.
Instead, they peppered Connaughton with questions about real estate, business, and how to start investing.
For the people who brought Connaughton to campus, the exchange was ideal.
The students were at Marquette as part of the weeklong MKE CRE Summer Immersion Program, which brings in students of color and from underrepresented backgrounds to learn about career opportunities in commercial real estate.
The program is put on by NAIOP Wisconsin — the Commercial Real Estate Development Association — and the Marquette University College of Business Administration's Center for Real Estate. Students stay on campus for the week and take field trips to development sites. They learn from professors and real estate professionals about what goes into designing, building, managing, owning and selling commercial real estate.
"This program wouldn't exist without it being all about students of color and getting them into an industry that really doesn't have a lot of diversity," said Andy Hunt, who serves as the Vieth Director for the Center for Real Estate at the university. "This is a community; you can be successful."
About twice as many students applied for the program as could be accepted. There was no cost to those who were selected; expenses were picked up by sponsors, including Physicians Realty Trust, Mandel Group, Northwestern Mutual and TriCity National Bank.
"We thought it was really important to expose these students to really high quality stuff, without having to pay any money to do it," Hunt said. "We want to set them up for whatever they want to do in the future and not having to pay is a way to help get them going."
This is the second year of the program but the first time it's been held in person as last year's was done virtually due to COVID-19 restrictions.
"It's truly encouraging to see what they're doing here at Marquette," Connaughton said. "Finding ways to make sure that these kids have the opportunity to learn from people within the real estate space. That's been my bread and butter. I know I'm not the smartest guy in the room, but I know I can hopefully learn from the smartest guy in the room, and try and pick out one or two things here and there, and I thought these kids did a phenomenal job with it."
Connaughton came with Joe Stanton, his lifelong best friend and co-founder of Three Leaf Partners, an Elm Grove company dedicated to connecting professional athletes, business executives, and community partners through real estate.
Hunt saw Connaughton as the perfect kick-off to the program — a recognizable presence who also is immersed in real estate development.
"It was shocking when I saw him," said Nelson Hooker, a recent graduate of Nicolet High School who is going to study business at Rust College, a historically Black college in Mississippi. "It was good because he does the basketball and I didn't know he does rentals. It's good coming from him seeing how he controls his time and stuff because I want to do business."
Connaughton told students he was able to start his company with his signing bonus after being selected as a pitcher by the Baltimore Orioles in the Major League Baseball draft.
That piqued Miles Campbell's interest. He asked Connaughton about how to start investing in properties without the money Connaughton had to start his business.
Connaughton compared the process to a runway. You need to learn as much as you can and get to a point where you can take off and start small. He said his runway was just a little shorter than normal because of the signing bonus, but reiterated it's possible for everyone.
"Meet the right people, but follow up with the right people. Ask the questions, like don't be afraid to ask questions no matter what the question is," Connaughton said. "Make sure you shake everyone's hand, make sure you thank them for their time, make sure you do those little things because you never know what it will turn into. You never know if it'll turn into an internship a job opportunity, a mentor for life — like those sorts of little things — and then take advantage of all 24 hours in the day."
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This article originally appeared on Milwaukee Journal Sentinel: Marquette business camp for students features Bucks' Pat Connaughton
