Executive Profile

James C. Mastandrea—Chairman and Chief Executive Officer


James C. Mastandrea is chairman and chief executive officer. He has more than thirty years of experience as a real estate investor, manager and developer. Under his direction, the portfolio value of First Union (NYSE:FUR), a real estate equity and investment trust (REIT), increased more than three-fold to $1 billion, its stock more than doubling.

With a master’s degree in economics from Miami University, Oxford, Ohio, Mastandrea began his career at Mellon Bank, Pittsburgh, as a financial analyst. Moving on to Chicago's Continental Bank, he became the bank’s youngest vice president, leading one of its five commercial real estate lending divisions.

In 1977, he stepped in as president of Continental Homes, Chicago, a $30 million home building subsidiary of American Continental Homes, a public home building company. A year later, Mastandrea established his own real estate development firm—Midwest Development Corp.—one of the largest, most successful real estate development companies in suburban Chicago.

Mr. Mastandrea joined First Union, Cleveland, Ohio, a REIT in need of a turnaround. Its portfolio of blue chip commercial, residential and retail property had languished in the real estate downturn of the late 1980s and early 1990s. Under his leadership as chairman, president and chief executive officer, First Union’s troubled commercial real estate portfolio was transformed, its value increasing from less than $300 million to more than $1 billion in four and half years.

Subsequent to First Union, Mr. Mastandrea was chairman and chief executive officer of Paragon REIT, a publicly traded company. He joined Whitestone REIT as independent director in July 2006, and on October 2, 2006, the Board of Trustees appointed him to replace Allen R. Hartman as chairman of the Board and chief executive officer of Whitestone REIT.

He is a director of the Cleveland State University Foundation Board; a director of University Circle Inc., Cleveland, and a member of its Real Estate Committee; and a director of the Calvin Business Alliance Board, Calvin College, Grand Rapids, Michigan. Mr. Mastandrea has either served or chaired numerous civic, educational, and corporate boards.