Melvin Simon

Melvin Simon (1926 - 2009) was the founder and longtime Chairman of Simon Property, the largest shopping mall operator in the United States, as well the nation’s largest retail real estate investment trust. The son of an immigrant tailor in Manhattan's garment district, he was drafted into the U.S. Army after graduating from the City College of New York. While stationed at Fort Benjamin Harrison in Indianapolis, he began selling encyclopedias door-to-door to supplement his meager army pay. He stayed in the Midwest after his service to take a $100-a-week job leasing retail space for a local developer. Soon, he launched his own company and built small neighborhood-based strip malls anchored by supermarkets. He and his company made a national reputation creating gigantic regional shopping centers -- including the monumental Mall of America -- that have become a fixture of the American scene. He helped transform a wasteland of deserted rail yards across the Hudson River from Manhattan into "Newport Centre," the hub of a $10 billion, 600-acre square-foot master-planned community of retail, residential, office, and entertainment facilities. At the time of his death, Simon's company owned 386 properties in North America, Europe and Asia, with 2.8 billion customers each year and sales in excess of $60 billion. Mr. Simon also owned the Indiana Pacers basketball team. In this audio podcast, recorded a the Academy of Achievement's 1988 Summit in Nashville, Tennessee, tells the Academy's student delegates how he first became involved in business. He retraces his path to success and shares the experiences and values that informed his career.