Smeal To Host Real Estate Lecture
Penn State's Smeal College of Business will host the Advance Realty Group Real Estate Lecture at 4:30 p.m. on November 17 in the Business Building's Struthers Auditorium. Joe Riggs, group president of K. Hovnanian Companies, will discuss the diverse opportunities offered by the real estate industry and its importance in our nation's future.
Smeal To Host Real Estate Lecture
UNIVERSITY PARK, PA (November 16, 2005)—Penn State's Smeal College of Business will host the Advance Realty Group Real Estate Lecture at 4:30 p.m. on November 17 in the Business Building's Struthers Auditorium. Joe Riggs, group president of K. Hovnanian Companies, will discuss the diverse opportunities offered by the real estate industry and its importance in our nation's future.
In his role at K. Hovnanian, Riggs is responsible for the company's homebuilding operations in Illinois, Minnesota, Ohio, New Jersey, New York, and Pennsylvania. He joined the company in 1993 as division president and was named group president in 2002. This year, Riggs' 1,400 associates are projected to deliver more than 4,100 homes accounting for $1.5 billion in revenue and $203 million in profit.
The Advance Realty lectureship was established in 2004 to recognize the generosity of Peter and Sharon Cocoziello and to provide a platform at Smeal for leading real estate professionals to discuss the issues facing the field.
Peter Cocoziello formed Advance Realty Group in 1979 in Bedminster, N.J., six years after graduating from Smeal with a bachelor's degree in finance. He serves as president and CEO of the company, which specializes in real estate development, construction, and property management and has grown into the Boston, New Jersey, and Washington, D.C. markets.
In 2004, he and his wife, Sharon, pledged $1 million to support construction of Smeal's new Business Building.
REPORTERS & EDITORS: For more information, please contact Wyatt DuBois in the Smeal College of Business Media Relations Office at 814-863-3798 or wed112@psu.edu.
Penn State's Smeal College of Business offers highly ranked undergraduate, MBA, executive MBA, Ph.D., and executive education opportunities to more than 5,500 students at all levels. Featuring academic departments of accounting, finance, marketing, insurance and real estate, management, and supply chain and information systems, the college is also home to major research centers such as the Center for Supply Chain Research, the Institute for the Study of Business Markets, the Center for Digital Transformation, the Farrell Center for Corporate Innovation and Entrepreneurship, the Center for Global Business Studies, and the Center for the Management of Technological and Organizational Change.
