After almost six months of searching, Penn has chosen the person who will lead the greatest campus expansion project of the last century.
Executive Vice President Craig Carnaroli announced landscape architect Anne Papageorge as the next vice president for Facilities and Real Estate. She is set to begin Oct. 16.
Papageorge comes to Penn from the Lower Manhattan Development Corporation, where she has served as vice president and its memorial-design director since 2004. She has been in city government and planning for almost 21 years.
At the LMDC, Papageorge has been managing the planning, design and construction of the World Trade Center memorial, including the Memorial Museum and related facilities - a project spanning 16 acres with almost $1 billion in costs.
"As the campus is going to grow, it's going to take extensive planning, and I think she has a strong background in being able to do that on a large-scale basis," Carnaroli said.
Papageorge will replace Omar Blaik, who announced his resignation from the position last semester.
She is coming to Penn on the eve of a 24-acre expansion project, as the University prepares to acquire property east of campus next year.
She said that ambitious construction projects for that land are among her priorities.
Papageorge's current colleagues are confident she will thrive at Penn.
"Her leadership and management were tremendous assets to the memorial," said Lynn Rasic, a vice president at LMDC.
To find a person for the job, Carnaroli said the University hired an outside search firm, which screened more than 100 candidates during a six-month national search process for Blaik's replacement.
"It's a challenging position in that it's multi-dimensional," Carnaroli said.
He said they looked at candidates from industry, higher education, the public sector and health care.
Although she has been in New York for the past 20 years, Papageorge said this was not her first time contemplating coming to Philadelphia; she previously considered both graduate schools and jobs here.
"I've been very interested in the educational world, and this opportunity came along," she said.
Papageorge said that although "the timing is never perfect" and she has a bit more work to do on the World Trade Center memorial, it is a good time to come to Penn.
"We're well along in the construction project," she said. "It's a good time to move on to the next challenge."
