Subject: My Son Damon's goal
From: "Alex Karras" <[email-masked]>
To: "'Podesta, John'" <[email-masked]>
Cc: [email-masked]
Date: Tue, 17 Aug 2010 19:47:20 -0400

Dear John,
My son Damon is applying to Columbia Univ. to obtain his MBA. Currently he is working at Citigroup in the Global Transaction Services group and  doing well. He is very bright, has a keen sense of intuition and possesses superb problem solving skills. His interest is to start a real estate development firm specializing in low-income housing and community reinvestment projects. With Columbia as an educational resource he would plan to use this relationship to eventually move into the community reinvestment division of a bank such as Goldman Sachs Urban Investment Group. At this point and moving forward he would obtain the experience from within the banking industry and gain the knowledge and understanding of the characteristics and structure of a successful investment model and transition to a large developer with the ultimate goal of developing an entrepreneurial career in property development. It appears that Columbia has areas of focus in Social Enterprise and Real Estate that would assist him gaining both the theoretical and technical knowledge required in order for him to achieve his goals. It also doesn’t hurt being in the largest real-estate market in the world.
Damon did mention that Joseph Stiglitz who won the Nobel Memorial Prize in Economic Sciences is on the faculty at Columbia. I believe he was Chair of the President’s Clinton’s Council of Economic Advisors (1995-1997).
My interest is communicating this to you is to see if there exists any support you can offer my son to assist in his goal in getting admitted to Columbia U. I would sincerely appreciate any efforts that could be made to ensure that his application receives serious consideration. Attending Columbia has been Damon’s goal even before he graduated from Univ of Pittsburgh. As well as, eventually participating in urban development.
Please let me know if there is any support you can offer to assist Damon in achieving his goal.
Thanks for your attention to this matter and say hello to the family.
 
Alex Karras JD,OTR,CRC,CCM,MSCC
Diplomate ABDA
[email-masked]
Offc.610-993-9941
Fax 610-993-9902
Cell 215-530-5041 

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