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September 24, 2025 • 53 mins
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(00:01):
Welcome to WAHNcast, the official podcast of the Women's Affordable Housing Network.
This is our space to connect, get real, and talk about what's really happening in housing.
From bold leadership to resident stories that ground us in purpose.
We're here to amplify voices, strengthen each other, and share the conversations you'd have with a friend who gets it.

(00:21):
Because when our voices are amplified, our communities grow stronger, and so do we.
Welcome back to WAHNcast, the podcast of the Women's Affordable Housing Network.
I'm Ashley Northcutt, president and CEO of WAHN, and today I'm joined by my co-host, Angie Truitt, our VP of communications.
Hi Ashley.
Hi everyone.
We love using this space to highlight leaders who are making an impact in affordable housing and showing up as true allies in our industry.

(00:48):
And boy, do we have one for you today.
Isn't that the truth? And if you've been around this industry for any length of time, chances are you've heard someone sing the praises of today's guest.
We're so excited to welcome Glen Hops, CFO of R4.
Glen isn't just a respected financial leader.
He's also one of the most admired people in our field.

(01:08):
For his leadership allyship and the genuine kindness he shows to everyone that he works with.
Glenn, we're thrilled to have you on WAHN Cast today.
So welcome.
Thank you so much.
That was an incredible introduction.
It's certainly not the one that I get when I come into the office in the morning.
We'll help you with that.
R4 You listening up.

(01:29):
This is how Glen would like to be welcomed and you all.
Amazing conversation before we hit the record.
So Glen's always a fun time to talk to.
And Glen, I, coming from the accounting industry, I always find it exciting to talk to someone with so much personality and so much fun going on in his life.
Your accounting team is both highly skilled and uniquely diverse.

(01:51):
How do you approach leadership in a way that creates space for everyone to thrive, that you were able to build such a diverse team where everyone feels welcome? One of the, one of the best things, one of the great things, and there are many great things about R4, but one of the great things about R4 is we're always stretching into different aspects of affordable housing.

(02:14):
Whether it's tax exempt bonds, whether it's preservation syndication, we're always growing and we're always.
Adding new assets and it always creates tremendous opportunity for accounting.
And it's really, it's such a great place for people to see a company that's really thriving and growing.

(02:36):
And one of the things I really believe in is I never hire above people.
So if you come in.
At an entry level, you're now part of my family and I'm gonna grow.
You're gonna grow with me, and I'm not going to hire somebody above you if all of a sudden there's a lot more work.

(02:58):
I'm gonna grow you.
I'm gonna mentor you, I'm gonna build you and you're coming with me.
'cause you're part of my team, you're part of my family.
And that is one of the reasons why we have an extremely low turnover rate in the accounting department because people know that they're gonna be treated well.
And.
I know that when you and I first started talking about your team, Glen, I was floored by that.

(03:19):
No turnover on your team.
People are very loyal to you.
You make it a great place to work.
You obviously make them feel seen.
You give them opportunities to develop and grow and that's incredible and I loved how.
You shared that many of the people on your team might not have looked on paper like the ideal candidate, but you saw something in them and you loved something about their story, and you said, I'll teach you the accounting side.

(03:42):
You're just gonna be a valued member of my team.
And I can tell you're a good human being and I just, I absolutely love that.
So tell us a little bit about what values guide you when you're managing and supporting your team.
Well, before we leave, the first concept, I just want to add when I was at Centerline, we hired a woman and a, on a personal level, I liked her, but professionally she was late all the time.

(04:04):
She would forget things.
Her immediate supervisor just kept telling me how unhappy they were with her.
And, eventually we wound up letting her go.
Fast forward, like five years later, and I'm in the subway and this person comes up at me and she gives me a kiss and I have no idea where she is.
She says, you don't remember me.
You fired me.

(04:25):
You changed my life.
I said to myself, if a nice guy like Glenn can fire me, it has to be me and not him.
So I went back to school at night and I finished my accounting degree, and now I'm a tax manager, one of the largest accounting firms in the nation, and I owe it to you.

(04:47):
Lemme tell you something.
You don't think that you're gonna make somebody's life better by firing them, but once in a lifetime, if it happens, you're like, wow.
She was this person who I had no idea who they were, remembered who I was, and told me that I made a fundamental change in their life.
That was incredibly gratifying, even that they would recognize me and share it with me, which was just.

(05:11):
Just blew me away.
But that felt great, as you can imagine.
But anyway, tell me your question again, Angie.
What values guide you when you're managing and supporting your team? Always be kind.
Always be kind to people.
Praise people, often praise people in front of other departments.
It's so important if you have to criticize somebody, if.

(05:34):
You should really have a high threshold for any criticism to begin with.
But if you do it, it has to be one-on-one.
It has to be over the phone, not speaker, or if it's gonna be over zoom or something like that.
it has to be private.
It has to be somewhere where the rest of the team's not gonna hear you saying, how could you make that mistake? Or How did you do that? Everybody makes mistakes.

(05:55):
We're human, we make mistakes, in my mind.
I'm always thinking everybody is trying to do their best.
There's nobody on the team that says, what? I wanna screw this up till Glenn gets yelled at today.
There's nobody says that.
And yeah, keep a high threshold on mistakes.
Have a short memory.
Forget, somebody made a mistake on Tuesday, forget it by Wednesday.

(06:17):
They're human.
We're gonna make mistakes, give chances, show people trust.
Say, what? Every once in a while I'm going to let you handle it.
And you handle it, you roll with it, you give it to Mark, you give it to Jason, you give it to the senior level people, you can CC me or you cannot CC me.
But they're gonna learn that I have a lot of great people just besides me and they're gonna start to rely on you.

(06:40):
And what's more empowering than that? saying, people trust me to, to do important things.
And again, just to go back to olden times, back in.
1993 when we closed our first tax credit equity fund, the time our CFO was looking for somebody to do the accounting for it.

(07:01):
I happened to be working late that night on something else and he walked through the hallway.
He is like, Hey, Glenn, you're still here.
You want to do the accounting for our new tax credit fund? And I said, Hey, sure, Alan.
What the heck? That's how I get started doing these funds.
But some I had left.
We had 110 funds.
I believe somebody reminded me in something like 1400 properties, but his words to me, which I still remember every single day, and which guide me are, run it like it's your own business and if you screw it up, we'll yell at you.

(07:31):
They didn't say, we'll fire you and say, we'll kick you out and say they'll replace you.
I said, we'll yell at you.
And then well forget it, And, and that's, that's the guiding principle of my management style and, and I owe it to my CFO at related.
Glen, I love your stories and I'm over here giggling.
'cause when I was at Kon Resnick, I feel like you trained me on that.

(07:54):
And we didn't even know each other at the time.
But when Glen Hops called from Centerline.
All of con Resnick shut down until Glen got what he needed.
But I love how you touched on, I think good leaders, they all trust their team and they're good people inside.
That's how you become a good leader.
Like you want the best for everyone.
You think everyone's trying to do their best, like you just said, no one's like, how can I mess up today to get.

(08:17):
Glen yelled at, and I just wanted to share one story about you because similar to the girl on the subway, I have not kissed you and I won't be kissing you 'cause I respect your wife and my husband.
But I met you Glen because I had started at a new firm and we were going up to New York and I had looked up some people and I was like, Glen Hops, I remember that name.
I'm gonna reach out to him.

(08:37):
So we did not know each other, but I reached out to Glenn and asked.
Hey, do you wanna grab lunch with me and a couple partners? We're doing this new firm and would love to tell you about it.
And Glen was like, yeah, sure.
So my favorite part of that though, and you have been so impactful.
I tell this story a lot.
I introduced you to my senior partners and they were two men, and we had a amazing launch, had a lot of fun.

(08:58):
And from that day forward, you called me every time, and that doesn't sound like a big deal, except that's not common where like once you introduce.
To, a more senior partner or maybe you feel more comfortable talking to men.
The person that made the introduction sometimes gets left out and until the day I left accounting when Glen needed something from my firm, Glen called me.

(09:21):
And that's just a huge show of respect.
It exhibits what a great leader you are in that and giving me the chance, even as a younger partner.
So I always appreciate that, Glen.
It's the answer to one of the later questions, but I always say this thing, look through the resume and into the person and try to look into the heart of the person.

(09:42):
And when I met you and the other two people who I don't remember their names offhand, but I think they may have been former resident employees.
They, they seemed a little bit like not absolutely thrilled about being there, but you seemed like you were, and I couldn't even tell you how many cost segregations.
Threw your way.

(10:03):
And the thing about it is opportunity arrives, an opportunity can be taken advantage of, or opportunity can be ignored.
Right? And Ashley, every single time I threw something to her, she turned it around quickly.
she exceeded my expectations and, the numbers were where we wanted them to be after a while, although I knew that Cone Resnick had a huge cost segregation practice.

(10:27):
I was dealing with Ashley every time I needed a cost segregation, and I was telling all of my developer clients, use Tidwell.
You will not be disappointed.
And they weren't disappointed.
And probably other than historic deals, probably every property needs a cost segregation at some point.
And I really think that you and I built out a nice revenue stream for your company just by really a somewhat random introduction.

(10:53):
And and I think that's a wonderful story.
I do too, Glen.
No.
And yes, and I appreciate all that opportunity and we definitely did build out a great practice.
I learned a lot from it.
We also got to enjoy some baseball games together in some late time with the families.
So that was always fun, Glen.
I appreciate that.
So building on this, the technical demands of being a CFO.

(11:14):
The strain of that.
We all know, sometimes I call Glenn, he's like, the 15th is next week I'm gonna call you back.
I'm like, oh yeah, I forgot.
How do you balance that, those demands and that stress with the people centered work of nurturing a team? So they wanna continue to show up and do this work.
I thought about this question quite a bit and I keep coming back to how blessed I am to have Maria in my life.

(11:37):
I hired Maria.
I don't know if I should get into the data, but yeah.
I am an accountant.
She was 26 years old when I hired her in 1997, and she's still with me today, meaning that her and I have basically worked shoulder to shoulder longer than half of her life.
And along with Maria, I have Audrey.

(11:58):
And Audrey I know since the late 1990s.
I have Andy who I hired in 2002, and I believe he was 22 years old.
I might be a little bit off on the numbers, but what I'm trying to say is those three people are amazing, incredible industry experts who've been doing this for a long, long, long, long, long time, and people that I can rely on, people that have been doing quarterly and annual.

(12:28):
For most of their lives.
So it's worked its way into our DNA every single year.
Tax laws are changing.
We're sunsetting depreciation.
We're not sunsetting depreciation, we're making historic credits over five years.
we're, we're getting rid of energy credits.
We're a getting rid of solar credits, we're adding state credits instead of soft money.
It's everything all the time.

(12:49):
And I don't know about you, but most people when they go to college, or at least when I went to college, they studied incredibly hard for a test.
They left it all on a piece of paper and they completely forgot anything related to what they had studied the day after.
And it's almost how tax season can be sometimes.
'cause it's such a fire drill.

(13:10):
I'm here nine to nine or eight to eight to nine or and I, I stay in the city sometimes because.
I'm like a dog chasing after their tail.
I'm working till 10 o'clock at night.
I have to be back here at eight o'clock in the morning and sleep, and commute two hours each way to my house.
it's crazy.
It's the challenge and.

(13:31):
I don't have to worry as much about the corporate side.
I don't have to worry about the preservation side.
I don't have to worry about the multi-family the tax exempt bond side because I have Maria, because I have Audrey.
Because I have Andy.
But that's the reality of my job.,
That's the bricks and sticks of it.
Glen, thank you for reminding me.

(13:51):
Why I am so happy I'm no longer a tax partner, actually with the upcoming year of tax changes, but I am super excited for everyone about the a hundred percent bonus depreciation.
I am as the only non accountant on the call.
I'm gonna pivot just a little bit for a minute, but when you talked about your team, Glen, when you and I first talked, and I know that you and Ashley have a long history and that actually your relationship is a reason that you and I know one another, so I'm super grateful for that.

(14:18):
But when we first met to talk about a need you had on your team, one of the things that I loved about our conversation was when you were describing your team and the diversity on your team.
So you have 10, soon to be 11.
Out of the 10, soon to be 11.
You have one guy, Andy, who you've been with a long time, who I've met, and he's, he is a gem.

(14:39):
But you've told me that you have not only just women on your team, but women of color and that, a lot of the, a lot of the conversations you've had with them when you talked with Ashley about seeing through the resume to the person, that was exactly how you built your team.
So let's talk a little bit about.
Cultivating a team where representation and opportunity matter for everybody because obviously that's a big tenet of what we do here at one and why you're such a strong ally.

(15:07):
Before there was an ally committee and there was an ally conversation, like you were just living as an ally to women and especially women of color too, on your team.
What role has mentorship played in your own career and tell us how you're paying that forward with the team that you've built.
I can tell you that.
Mentorship has made me the person that I am today, and it really starts with Mark.

(15:34):
Mark Schnitzer.
Our CEO mark and I have worked together since 1990 or 1991, and we know each other a really long time.
Mark is a master at, at being a CEO.
He's extremely detail oriented.
He gets in the weeds with every department, asset management.
Underwriting fund management, the bond tag, exempt bond.

(15:57):
he's super detail oriented and he's super, super smart and, he created this industry to a large degree.
His hands are in everything and he, that really keeps you on your toes because somebody's.
Watching you, who at some point you, you think you got it, but somebody's always watching you and saying, what about this? Or what about that? And it really sharpens you and keeps you sharp and, yeah.

(16:24):
Mark.
Um, according to the story, when Mark was getting this company off the ground, David Resnick had played a part in, in the original creation of the company, and David had told Mark that if he was serious, he should really give me a call.
And David said, I actually know where he works because he works just down the block from you.

(16:45):
And he also uses Cone Resnick as a, as a, as an accounting firm.
And it was an easy yes for me to say to Mark, it was an easy yes because I know who he is.
I know what he, I know he's great at what he does.
I know he is really smart and I know he is very successful and I know that he knows.

(17:06):
How to build a great company and I left the job that that was a good job.
It was hard being a developer.
It's harder being a developer than it's being a indicator.
I'm sure any developer will tell you that.
But it was an, like I say, it was an easy yes.
And when we first started here, mark would say, my ambition is to be a a little boutiquey firm and do X amount of business a year.

(17:30):
That flew out the window maybe five years in.
Yeah, we're, we're big.
We're growing big.
We have more employees I probably than Mark could ever expect.
And we've been successful beyond anything I ever expected.
And I can't tell you how fulfilling it is to do this twice, because.
At Center line and we had, we, ouR4 capital became center line.

(17:52):
We started out at with zero funds, and in 1993 we did our first fund.
And for 15 years that's what I did.
And to come here and not only do the fund accounting, but to be the CFO and and touch every aspect of the company, it's been incredibly fulfilling.
But to get to your point, is he, to a certain degree, is interested in who you hire, but to a certain degree, he's also hands off and.

(18:19):
He loved the idea of hiring Maria and Maria's beyond Word.
Fantastic.
Andy was an easy Yes.
Audrey was an easy yes, and that was great, and he is his management stylist.
Something to be mirrored in a large degree, he doesn't, if you're doing everything right, you don't hear from him.

(18:41):
And I feel that's the same way that.
I wanna run my show and yeah, I can sit next to Andy for an entire day and not say anything except hi and goodbye.
'cause I know Andy's on it.
He doesn't need me to look over his shoulder.
But yeah, to me, Mark's been probably the number one mentor of my career.
And yeah, I really admire him tremendously.

(19:02):
But I do wanna talk about, of course, David Resnick when I started doing tax credit funds in 1993.
I had an audit partner who was an amazing guy.
His name was Les Canis, and he was wonderful.
He came to my cubicle and he said, I'm here to do the order of the fund.
And I said, who? Who the hell are you? I didn't call anybody to contact me.

(19:24):
He said, oh, the CFO told me so I should come today and you'd be ready.
I had no idea.
No idea.
But he also had a tax partner named Terry.
Kim Terry.
Unbelievable encyclopedic knowledge of tax credit law.
just.
Brilliant and two brilliant guys who basically mentored me and dragged me through it and said, this is how you gotta do it and this is what you have to get done.

(19:49):
And, and like I said, for it to grow.
Centerline from nothing to 110 funds.
When I left, it was incredible amount of work.
There was no automation back then.
We had 55 accountants, including like 12 or 15 in India.
We used to do the work overnight while we slept and we would come in the morning and review it.

(20:09):
But it was amazing.
People faxing you tax returns, mailing you tax returns.
it was.
It was the Stone Age, literally and what it is today.
And those guys especially, obviously Mark, Les, Terry, David Resnick, they, those, they're the reason I can do what I do today.

(20:33):
And that's the reason why, although Ashley came to me and made a very compelling offer, I said, my loyalty stays with Cohen Resnick.
They're the ones who.
Made me to any degree of success that I have, the success that I am, because I learned from the very, very best.
And at the time you don't always see that, but it's, I look back as like, as I'm getting, as I'm getting older and I say, wow, these guys gave so much to a young, disrespectful, brash kid and never gave up on me.

(21:07):
And, and that's.
Amazing.
Beth Mullen.
I did not try and take the Kon Resnick work from, I will give a shout out to Kon Resnick, and I always love hearing David Resnick's name, but that was actually my first foray into affordable housing.
But I found my husband there.
My brother married a person that worked there.

(21:28):
My nephew did a part of an internship there.
So.
Love Cohen Resnick and David Resnick was Josh's my husband's mentor for a very long time, since he was about a first year staff and then actually encouraged him to start what he had done at one time.
I wish you could draw the spokes of all the impact David Resnick had in the world.
Beth Mullen.
She and I were amongst other people who were, together on nine 11 in New York City.

(21:54):
Oh, no way.
I think she was probably fairly new to the business back then, but yes, that was quite a day.
And were you in the financial district? Where were you? We were, our offices were at 58th Street and Madison Avenue.
Oh wow.
But Les was there and Co Resnick was giving some a presentation to the Centerline team that day and we were all there.

(22:16):
It was.
Unforgettable.
But my other side road is the first time I ever met David was at a conference in Sonoma, and David and I are similarly built, height-wise hair.
I don't know if he had glasses at the time, but he came up to me.
Kiss me on both cheeks.
This is my second kiss story in the last 30 minutes.

(22:36):
I was gonna say, a lot of people, listen, Glen, anyway, he said his first words out of his mouth where I love you.
You're my, you're the best client we have.
You always pay on time.
Right.
Okay.
That makes, I put my hands on both shoulders and I pushed his name back so I could see his name tag.
I had no idea where he was.

(22:57):
Oh my God.
David was like our first meeting.
So anyway, that's my two side roads at the, The esteemed people of Knick.
I don't wanna see how many more kiss stories come up before the end of the podcast.
I know, Glen.
That's it.
Other than my wife.
That's it.
It's like a walkin kissing booth over here.
Glen Hops.
I'm laying it all out for you.

(23:18):
This could be my autobiography.
We'll write it and see if we can sell it next.
I met David, in the Charlotte office of Cohn Resnick, and he taught me what a.
He had one of those old things, I can't even think of the name.
Not a calculator, but like an old thing that, oh man, for what did people use back in the day, please? The abacus.
Yes.
And he taught me about that and randomly in the hallway and that was my only interaction with him.

(23:40):
'cause he was visiting the Charlotte office.
So that was right before he retired.
So Glen, I love how you said how Mark has helped you grow as being a mentor because he knew so much and it kept you on your toes, so you always wanted to perform 'cause you're like, what's he gonna ask me next? Can you share another example of when you've seen someone on your team grow that really made you proud? This question was so hard for me because I feel all of my team members have really extraordinary stories, but the one person who I really.

(24:12):
I get a little bit emotional about it, which is embarrassing.
But the one person who is just, to me, the most incredible story is Madilda and I had gone quite a few years without hiring anybody, and I foolishly put an advancement in LinkedIn and I think 250 resumes showed up in about 40 minutes.

(24:34):
Now, this is like selling your car on eBay.
There's probably only one bonafide offer in there, but there's two, there's 250 offers to go to.
So anyway, person after person, after person showed up.
I booked them like every 10 minutes for like three days.
And after three days of no incomes, this lady Madilda and she's dressed the way somebody should dress for an interview.

(25:02):
She's polite.
She sits down for the interview.
She has it.
One of those, I guess they call 'em folios and unzips it and takes out her resume, gives me a copy.
It's beautiful.
No misspellings, and I'm like, it's racking up here, And she hasn't even opened their mouth.

(25:22):
And then as, like I said, we look through the paper into the heart, she tells me the story, how her family came here from, oh excuse, bear with me.
I came here from Honduras and she had a job in a factory, and I don't know if she was a bookkeeper or not, but she went to school at night and she had her bachelor's degree and she decided she didn't wanna stay at the factory anymore.

(25:44):
And she saw this opportunity and she came and she's, I don't know what you pay, but I'm sure it's more though.
I'm getting paid now.
I wanna learn.
I wanna help you.
I wanna be better.
And You could just see it in her face and you could see that she wanted more for her family and she wanted more for herself.
And it was like, all right, the rest of the 200 interviews for today, they're all canceled.

(26:07):
So anyway, I hired her on the spot and she has grown so much.
She's still, five years later, she's like a sponge for information.
She's unbelievable.
She's always.
I use the phrase polishing the apple, which is probably a lousy phrase.
She's always making me look good.

(26:28):
She does almost all the treasury work.
She does almost all the accounts payroll work.
She does a lot of the payroll work.
She's like my corporate right hand and she's unbelievable and she's a great person.
And I can be more thrilled to have Madil, my team.
And I can tell you in my career there have been quite a few.
And it's almost always been women who have said, what? Thank God that you've given me the opportunity.

(26:52):
I can't tell you how many places I've worked and I've done a great job, and they've never promoted me.
They've never given me the opportunity.
They've never said, you're at least as good as the man we're promoting.
And those stories are infuriating, right? running a business is about.

(27:14):
The people that are loyal and dedicated to you, rewarding those people.
It's not skin color, it's not gender, it's none of those things.
It's who wants to do the best.
That's who you always have to have.
And that's, that's been what's guided me.
And, and some of that comes from people like Mark, people like Les, people like David Resnick.

(27:38):
That's how they do things, right? look at Coen Resnick today.
It's so diverse.
It's incredible, right? And everybody gets an opportunity there, and that's what it really should be about.
Well, in the, there are many Madildas of the world that don't get that first chance.
And so unfair.
And it is, but you have a gift because you really do see people for who they are and the potential that they bring, and you give them the opportunity.

(28:05):
So even the woman that you fired, who kissed you five years later in the subway, you have an impact on people, but you can see who they are and who they can become, and then you give them the opportunity to do that.
Which is a perfect segue into the next question.
what advice.
Would you give leaders who want to be more intentional about developing the next generation of women and underrepresented professionals? I have to go back to Maria, I believe, first generation in this country.

(28:35):
And her father was a, an accountant in the Dominican Republic.
And when I hired Maria, I told her, you ask me anything at any time.
Just wait until I finish my first cup of coffee, and as soon as she would hear that cup hit the garbage can, she'd be in my office, she'd roll up the chair right next to me and she'd have her pen, she'd have her pen, and sometimes she'd even have pre-written questions.

(29:03):
She'd ask me every day, show me how you do this.
How do you figure out this? What is this? And every single day, so you had the questions every day, weeks, months.
Question every day.
She's in my office from 9 25 until lunchtime every day.
Until one day she didn't show up.

(29:23):
I had to go and look and see.
Maybe she was out sick.
She had it, she was there and she's been there and she is run with it and.
She's a powerhouse and she's independent and she's strong and she's great, but just like people like Liz and people like Terry and people like Mark gave to me when I was first starting out, give, if you want people to succeed, give them what you have.

(29:47):
Give it to 'em, give it to them free.
Hire people you can see through to their heart and you can find out and know that they want to be here and they want to do good and they want, they want the company to succeed.
But if you wanna give people a chance, have an open mind and find those people who have heart and soul and who wanna do, who wanna be great and wanting to be great is more important than anything on your resume.

(30:15):
And that's how I feel though.
I just saw a video with Kendra Scott this week saying that, Glen, are you familiar with her? She's a jewelry designer.
She's pretty, I have no idea who she is, but my, if she designs jewelry, I'm almost certain my wife knows her.
Yeah, she's very generous too.
But she just got engaged to Zach, Zach Brown, the country singer, in case you're wondering if you wanna keep up with that.
Not Taylor Swift and Travis, but this is another coupling, but she talked about how.

(30:40):
She hires for heart as well.
Like you can teach people skills.
Right? And this example that you just shared about Maria is true allyship.
It's someone who.
If someone's willing to learn, you are taking time.
If someone was in your office from eight to noon, that means you're working those four hours later, right? But you're pouring into someone with the hopes that you care about this person, but also it's gonna multiply in the future, which what it has.

(31:01):
When you said all of a sudden she didn't show up, I thought she was sick.
No, it clicked.
And so now not.
You don't have to do that.
She can teach someone else.
And she's also learned about a great leader in having you as that.
And beyond that.
Since the day I met you, you are so complimentary of people that are doing a great job.
You say people's name in rooms, they're not in, you talk about their success, and it's enabled you to build a great team together because you do invest in your people and you cheer them on.

(31:28):
You're a very strong ally.
You're a very strong ally to WAHN, since the day I mentioned to you that I was even involved in WAHN when I was still working full-time as an accountant, you have been nothing but supportive to WAHN and to all the people in your workplace.
What does allyship look to you like to you on a daily basis? Besides that, like how do you view allyship? I think that environments are constantly shifting, right? And just today I was talking with some of the people in our marketing group about what it was like when I was their age and.

(32:03):
Men were expected to wear suits and ties with vests and dress shoes, and women were expected to wear high heels and dresses.
And certainly there is a comparison.
But the bottom line is it really took the woman exponentially longer and was exponentially more painful for the woman to have to conform to the attire standards.

(32:25):
And almost attire was almost 50%, of the, the business relationship.
If a woman didn't look the part, she usually didn't stick around very long.
Most women worked in administrative roles back then.
It's not like that anymore.
We have women in almost every top position.
We have Ally Schnitzer, we have Taran Neal, we have Lindsay Soca.

(32:48):
we have Ronnie Thien, one of the one of.
Most amazing icons in the affordable housing industry as a woman.
she was breaking down barriers in the eighties and nineties.
Who's more incredible than Ronnie? And yeah, I'd like to think that, the Ronnie feelings of the world opened the doors for all these other people and Yeah, look at people like Emily Cadik, right? These are amazing women.

(33:11):
These are role models.
And what? If I can put a Maria as a role model or a Madilda as a role model, or an Audrey as a role model, right? I can show people that not only do we hire women, but we promote women to executive vice presidents, right? And that doesn't happen everywhere, but walk the walk, talk the talk.
When promotion time comes.

(33:32):
Promote them into high levels, right? Put them front and center.
Let them run things autonomously of you so that people can see how great they are on their own.
Not that you molded them or touched what they did, give them the credit, right? People know if they want to get the right answer and I'm not available, or even if I am, ask Maria, she's gonna give you the right answer.

(33:54):
Everybody here knows Maria knows what she's doing.
What's better than that? So walk the walk when you're hiring somebody.
If there's a woman that fits the bill, bring her in.
She's a woman of color and she fits the bill.
That's allyship, right? That's that.
Building the next team of mentors, and that's what you wanna do.
I, I'm gonna be 63 years old.
I'm not gonna be here forever.
I hope a woman runs the accounting department at you.

(34:18):
Probably won't be shocked to hear you guys are still.
Trendsetters in the industry.
Ashley and I talk a lot about different organizations that we may not know as well as we know ouR4, and I can't tell you how many companies I've dug through, and there are still the majority of the women in their org chart are supporting and administrative roles.

(34:41):
And so do take credit for the fact that even though we have made advancements since the 19 hundreds, you guys are still setting the bar very high, and there are still leaders.
In the industry that aren't being seen the way you see them.
And so that's why we love having conversations with you and seeing what you guys are doing over there to help elevate that.

(35:03):
But I know we've talked a bit about this.
Okay.
I wanna get into some of the other cool stuff about you.
You have a reputation for being one of the coolest CFOs, whether it's cheering on the Mets or quoting Mel Brooks movies.
How does showing up as yourself influence your leadership style? Thank you for saying that.

(35:24):
I don't know how true it is, but it's nice to hear it anyway.
But I think I think ultimately, I, I don't think anything is scarier than a tense nervous CFO except maybe an incredibly laid back.
Nothing ever phases them CFO, and I have to say, I've worked for both.
There's a balance, right? Ultimately, you have to be the person who can basically say whatever happened, whatever went wrong.

(35:50):
We can figure it out.
And when I was at Centerline, I was not a CFO, but our CFO used to tell me very firmly, we've done everything wrong multiple times, so we know now how to do it right.
Only because we've found every other way to do it wrong.
And nothing teaches you like mistakes.
Nothing teaches you like failure.

(36:11):
Like I'm never gonna do that again.
That part of it.
Part of it is look at somebody like Mel Brooks, right? the guy's 99 years old, right? He's been through adversity, he's been through a rough life.
But that man has got, he's got a billion dollar funny bone.
This hysterical guy, his, the way he looks at the world and the way he looks and the jokes and the humor that are in his movies.,

(36:34):
He is just, shouldn't everybody have that a.
Attitude toward life.
like life is God's ultimate gift, right? You should really savor it.
it's like, it's the finest wine, A beautiful sunset, a beautiful sunrise, a crisp fall day.
there's so much to savor in life.

(36:55):
There's nothing can be a fatal error, right? you're always gonna be able to find a way to fixate.
I think that's what makes a good CFO.
You've seen a lot of things and you remember them, and you remember what went wrong, and you step in front of it so that that it's not gonna go wrong again I would like to think that Mark knows that about me, that in my 35 years he knows that, we've had some, some bad things have happened, no question.

(37:23):
I can't imagine anybody who worked together for half their life who didn't.
But, we've always managed to work it out and the company's always been very successful.
But, that being said.
You can't build enough internal controls.
you just have to be ready to roll with it.
And not that's necessarily the question, but when it comes to baseball, being a Mets fan is the definition of knowing what frustration is.

(37:47):
We always think we're gonna be great.
We always wind up being lousy and.
I always call them the wet nose mutts.
And I think everybody has a little bit of a wet nose butt in them.
And, the head touch their inner mutts sometimes and realize that in every, and I, and I, I've said it hundred times in every building and every floor there's a CFO, right? And every building and every floor there's an accounting staff, right? You're just, you're, you are one of thousands.

(38:14):
There's successful bus businesses on every single floor and every, I rise in Manhattan and all over the world.
you, you want to think that what you're doing is unique and fantastic and incredible.
What's unique is, is what we bring to people who really need it, right? We bring affordable housing a better place to live a.

(38:36):
A better quality of life, a safer way to live.
That's the value.
And there's, of all these floors that are here, there's very few I think that can really say they do something that in their heart, they really feel is a humanitarian thing.
And that's the difference in affordable housing.
And that's why so many people stay in affordable housing.
And that's why I knew Beth Mullen in 1990, and I know her in 2025, so many.

(39:01):
Hundreds of other people, right? the whole DOZ crew.
A lot of the Nova grad people.
we, we stay here because I think we know at the end of the day we're doing something really good for a lot of people and that feels good.
But that being said, the Mets, imagine a sport where you play the same, you do the same thing 162 days in a row with an eye towards doing it even longer.

(39:26):
it seems like the definition of insanity, right? So the best team's gonna get to play in the playoffs and then division finals, and then the World Series.
So if you're really good at what you do, instead of playing 162 games, you play 180, but I'm doing the same thing.
I guess maybe that's what work is, but I don't know.
To me, it just seems the grinder, the reputation wouldn't be for me.

(39:49):
Anyway.
I hope I answered your question, Glen, your love of the Mets and I'm a Yankees fan, that because we saw this game together, but when you talk about the 182 games, you didn't really account for those ones that are in 103 degrees that go on for 16 innings while you're eating hot sausage and peppers in the you.
Was that your game in New York? I went up for a refreshing weather and it was not what happened with Glenn and his son Michael.

(40:15):
But real quick, wait, you're leaving At the best part.
We got to the ninth inning.
It was a hundred degrees, a hundred percent humidity, 110 degrees or something.
And four people amongst, I'm sure thousands of others were praying the Mets didn't tie it up.
And at the bottom of the ninth, the Mets tied it up and it one of the X extra innings.
Here's the four of us going, oh my God.
Just, they're either gonna win or I'm gonna faint.

(40:37):
One or the other.
Just end it.
Well, Ashley, I, I have known you for I don't know how many years now, and I never knew you were a Yankees fan and this changes our dynamic pretty significantly.
But I will proudly say as an Astros fan, and I know that y'all hate us, but you guys haven't been back to the World Series since my.
Baseball boyfriend, Jose Altuve took the field, so I'm super proud of that.

(41:01):
We're gonna let you have that.
I'm not a diehard Yankees fan.
It's a little bit different.
I grew up with a bunch of Yankees fans, so that's my baseball team.
I do live in Atlanta, so go graves too.
I'm wearing the diehard Yankee hater.
I would absolutely wear an Altuve jersey.
Thank you.
I'm gonna send you one, it's on the way.
I can get you one, Glen, so I'll bring it to you when we come up.

(41:21):
Glen, for your love of the Mets, do you see a connection between baseball and the way you approach building or coaching your team at work? I had the laugh when I saw that question.
Ultimately, it's about teamwork and at Centerline.
I used to have a, a huge picture in my office and I didn't take it with me.

(41:46):
And it was a picture of the Great Wall of China, and it said many people, many hands.
One goal, teamwork, right? And like every other team, we have our disagreements and our spats.
And when you're under pressure, sometimes you're.
A little sharper than you want to be.

(42:07):
And sometimes your emails are a little more pointed than they should be.
And sometimes you forget to say, please and thank you, and, but at the end of the day, we're a team.
We know we're gonna get it done.
We know we're gonna get it done right.
We know we're gonna make our investors more than satisfied.
Jason, as we talk about often Jason's the head of fund management and a diehard Yankee fan, and I can say with true honesty, I feel that the county team that I have.

(42:33):
Is the New York Yankees of of accounting teams, because I think every single one of them is an all star and I think they're great.
The other thing is they know for a matter of fact that I'm not the manager, one of the players just like them, and I would never, ever ask somebody to do something that I wouldn't do myself and.

(43:00):
That's how I run the show, and I've always run the show since 1993.
That's how it's, I've never asked anybody to do something I wouldn't do myself.
And when I first started here, I used to do every, I printed the first check.
I fixed the copy machines.
I ran the poke machine.
I did it.
I printed the 10 90 nines.
I implemented the general ledger software.

(43:22):
I did everything.
I was the only person here for several years.
I know what every person's job is and I've done it.
I think that's important.
'cause I think they know that I have empathy for their job and I value their job 'cause I've done it anyway.
When you think about your career and life so far, so this is a deep one.

(43:43):
What are the things that keep you grounded and motivated and I, I feel like when you said I'm not the manager, I'm on the team, I wouldn't ask anybody to do anything I wouldn't do.
That Feels like a very grounding principle that you live by, but are there others? The phrase that Mark is used for probably most of the 35 years that I own.

(44:05):
And he always used to say it and he used to always anger me, but ultimately it, it's true on December 31st, you're a hero.
On January 1st, you're a zero, right? So you're always chasing after the next expectation, right? So it's August 28th, we finished all of our Q2 reporting.
It's all gone out the door, and that's a monumental success.

(44:28):
although it happens on time.
Every quarter since I've been here in 2012 until now, everything always goes out on time.
Every investor gets everything.
What they do with it, I have no idea, but they get it on time every quarter, and it's incredibly gratifying.
But I can tell you whether a hundred percent certainty that Maria has already set up the Q3 workbooks.

(44:50):
Maria's already updating July, August activity.
Maria's already doing the pro forma for any new funds that we've closed in the third quarter, and.
That's her way.
Maria is always a hero.
Maria is always ready to go.
Maria always has it.
She runs her entire team that way and that's who she is.
And Andy is chasing down the last of the partnership tax returns that are due on nine 15.

(45:13):
We're gonna have a hundred tax returns come in between now and nine 15.
Andy's gonna review every single one of them and say, I like it, but you need to change this or that.
I have.
A few tax returns that are still gonna come in that I have to still review and look at.
I Cohn resident told me today, you're in states that don't accept electronic filings.
I'm gonna be mailing boxes of tax returns.
Either you're gonna have to sign and bring to the post office.

(45:34):
My post office hates me when I do this every year.
So you can only bring in eight at a time or whatever it is.
But, and I'm the idiot standing on line with this box, photo cards, and these other people are mailing, an Amazon return or something and they're like, oh, I can't believe I'm behind this guy.
And You gotta do it all.
But then, so as your file of it's, Hey, where's the tax projection for next year? What he said is ultimately become the truth, right? You're a hero the day you filed the corporate tax return, but the next day you have to have the tax projection for next year.

(46:01):
And that's what it is.
And that isn't that what life is really ultimately.
one great accomplishment and then you save a couple that's totally forgot, you save a couple thousand bucks and the, and the water heater blows up.
That's how my means.
I'm getting like sweaty sitting here thinking about deadlines and it's funny when I left, how quickly you forget about deadlines like nine 15 coming up.
But I still get texts all the time, including two today about people asking tax.

(46:26):
I stayed in accounting Glen so long because I was in the affordable housing industry because like you said before, there's.
An underlying meaning to what we're doing.
What gives you hope about the future of affordable housing and the people working in it? One of the things I really loved about working at the foundation where I was before I came here was that I really get a chance to visit every asset, every year, every property.

(46:52):
And I really got a chance to see, we had an extremely robust resident services program and.
Wow.
resident services programs are eye openers.
They paid.
We had programs for senior citizens where they were doing yoga.
We had programs for single parents and even, married parents as well.

(47:12):
how to write a resume.
Financial literacy, how to not take a title loan, how to, how to save money, how to open a bank account, how to write a check, how to do a bank reconciliation.
And the programs for kids in the summer.
Right.
They used to have a, a knowledge retention program because they could do studies and show, the kids would forget so much stuff when they were off a summer break and crime rates would go up, and it's incredibly rewarding to go to the sites and not think of it as just an economic investment.

(47:42):
When I was younger, it was just an economic investment.
But when I went to the development, so when I went to develop, we have a developer, he's a fine developer, and he's, he had a fine team and he's, he is based in Rochester Minnesota.
And we went to one of his properties and it was like a, and I'm not gonna be exact, but it was probably like 10 stories, senior building.

(48:04):
And as we went through the building, every building had a different activity for the tenants.
So the 10th floor had, lounge chairs and a, an 80 inch screen, and they screen movies there every day.
The ninth floor was arts and crafts.
The eighth floor was for when the grandkids came to visit, or there was, a party or something.
the seventh floor was a library and every floor something else.

(48:26):
And every time you get into the elevator.
You go to another floor, somebody would say, wow, you're the, you're the people that invested in this building.
this is an amazing building and thank you so much.
And most of these tenants, life hasn't been incredibly great to, to have the opportunity to do something great for somebody who you've never even met, but to know that you're doing something great for so many people, how gratifying.

(48:53):
Yeah.
So I think we've already talked about.
A lot of this, but final thought, is there something that we haven't asked you, a final takeaway you want our listeners, other than I think we've heaped a lot of praise on you 'cause we both really feel that way.
I introduced Glen to one of my partners, Kiana, who's a young recruiter and she's getting just her first taste of affordable housing.

(49:16):
And she mentioned in a team meeting how much she has loved working with Glen.
So that was what she's known him.
What a month? Yeah.
Yeah.
It doesn't take long.
And Kiana, welcome to Affordable Housing.
I'm glad Glen was the first introduction.
I know.
Wow.
And she just said, he's so great.
I love working with all your clients, but Glen is the best.

(49:37):
Even people that you tangentially meet, even people you don't work with every day.
If you have a, just a small interactions with here and there, you're leaving your mark and, obviously have on the two of us, but you just spread joy and good feelings, and that's why we're so excited to have you on today.
Any parting thoughts where it's wisdom? I, I will leave you with this parting thought.

(50:01):
I had a prior CFO and he gave me some words of wisdom, which I keep with me every single day.
And what he told me was this, every single person you interact with is a customer.
Every one of them is keeping a customer satisfaction survey.

(50:23):
So you need to interact with every single person as if they're the most important customer to you.
And those words have lived with me every single day.
And of course, our investors are.
Most important customers by far.
We strive to answer every one of their questions within 24 hours, whether it's sending them 200 pages of 34 68 so they can finish their tax return or information from the National Park Service so they can do their historic credits.

(50:55):
Perfectly correct.
And.
It's gratifying to have them respond to you and say Thank you, for responding to us so quickly.
But everybody's your customer.
The person who was just hired, who has no idea how we do expense reports.
Every single person you interact with, we work with 70 different accounting firms.
Every person that works at every one of those accounting firms.

(51:16):
I look, I have to look at, as a customer, every developer we work with as a customer, you have to treat them like they're the single most important thing to you and.
If you treat people well in theory, they, they may treat you well back.
There's no guarantees, right? But that you've treated them as well as you can treat them and be kind to everybody.

(51:37):
Be nice to everybody.
Treat everybody like they're the most important person you're interacting with.
Make their requests of you a priority and, and make them walk away saying, what, that guy really, he took care of me a hundred percent.
Right? The other person that I wanted to mention was, Jim Sound.
And Jim came here maybe 2000, maybe 2016.

(52:00):
I don't remember anymore, but Jim and I have worked together at Centerline and Jim is a great guy and Jim is just an expert in his business and adding the multifamily aspect to the equity providing aspect of ouR4.
Has just really made the company flourish.
And Jim also works very closely with my son.

(52:20):
My son is part of Jim's team, and Jim has been such a mentor for my son, and Jim's just a wonderful man.
I can't say enough good things about Jim.
He's terrific.
Yes.
He's one of the people that.
I look too for inspiration.
Appreciate your time, love all your stories.
Me as well.
This was an honor and a privilege and and I was waiting for another KISS story, but I thought you were gonna spring one on us.

(52:47):
Give your wife a kiss for me.
I love her.
Ashley is boundless.
Ashley, she's somebody who says I'm gonna do it and does it.
There's a million people that'd say they're gonna do it, and there's five that do it.
Thank you, Glen.
You're living proof.
You walk the walk, you talk the talk.
Glenn, Angie, thank you so much.

(53:07):
Thank you.
All right.
Well it's been a pleasure.
Thanks for being here with us on WAHNcast, the official podcast of the Women's Affordable Housing Network.
Every guest, every story, every listen, helps us keep this space real rooted and resonant, and we're so glad you're a part of it.
Big thanks to our guests for sharing their time and knowledge with us, to our sponsors for making this platform possible and to you for tuning in, sharing and helping us keep this conversation going.

(53:37):
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