SAMUEL ZELL

Sam lived on my street,-our moms were friends His parents, Holocaust survivors, would have been amazed by his wealth and good works in the latter part of his life. Sam and I arranged to meet briefly when our paths crossed I our 50s at  the UMich business school. His philanthropic work survives him.

Sam lived on my street,-our moms were friends His parents, Holocaust survivors, would have been proud of and amazed by his wealth and his good works in the latter part of his life.
Sam and I arranged to meet briefly when our paths crossed in our 50s at the UMich business school (I was there to participate in a panel presentation.
His legacy will be the societal impact of his philanthropy  

I crossed paths with Sam 3 or 4 times since High School. Oh Yeah, Sam was a unique individual. Sam loved life and lived it to the fullest. I ran into Sam by accident one day on the Santa Cruz wharf, in Santa Cruz, California on a Saturday afternoon. We both were eating seafood at the same Cafe and did not discuss business, just Highland Park Times, he was in my homeroom and Ted Repsholt was our Teacher. 

I follow Sam for years in the financial world as he was the original Founder of the concept of REIT. It was a unique and quite a safe sound investment, Real Estate Investment Trust, where you could buy shares in a multitude of Comercial Properties and High Rises and as the properties and Buildings appreciated, so did your share price. He made a fortune when he sold after 30 years.

It is amazing how our tastes change in people and friends as life goes on, I never thought of such admiration and deep appreciation we have now with people we used to know. I admired Sam for his uniqueness. I saw a movie once "Motorcycle Diaries" about and during the Che' Guevara days and it was truly what Sam did, you would never know just how Sam was so Diverse and unique, we had a great class of winners and nice people.

Another one, Marty and now Samual, is such a loss of truly high-quality Men, self-starters, and winners from old HPHS.

The Same goes for our little girls, as I read their life resumes I am astounded to have been surrounded by such super achievers, and lovely Women, greatness is abounding as I get emails from girls I thought I would never meet after we all departed into the great unknown of life. Truthfully, today losing Sam makes me feel weird, wish I could do it again knowing what I know now, but for me, I was a slow starter, the Marines gave me character and a value system of meeting real men for the first time from every state, got advanced education late in life with scholarships due to finances but I just turned in my information to the Veteran Cemetary which is a must, I could only plagiarize, coping Sinatra, "ol blue eyes" HE DID IT HIS WAY"

Bye Sammy and Marty, see you soon Bro's