RE Industry seminar: Benjamin J. Zaitz, Chairman of Teays River Investments
Date: Thursday, February 5th
When: 4:30-6:30 with reception to follow in the Regents Lounge
Where: Beck 198
The Cornell Real Estate Industry seminar welcomes Benjamin J. Zaitz, Chairman of Teays River Investments, to campus as part of the Cornell Real Estate Industry seminar series this Thursday. Mr. Zaitz has been involved in agriculture his whole life, growing up on the family dairy cattle business in Hightstown, New Jersey that consisted of 3,000 acres of farmland. In 1994, he started Farms.com, the first online marketplace for agriculture cash commodities. Under his leadership, Farms.com partnered with Rabobank and expanded markets for cattle, genetics, crop protection chemicals, feeds and grain. The business continues to operate today as Farms Technology in partnership with Dupont/Pioneer Hybrid and has a client base that includes Hormel Foods, Cenex Harvest States and Verasun. Mr. Zaitz also assembled a farmland portfolio of 18,000 acres primarily in Minnesota and Texas and created long-term triple net production contracts for the Texas operations.
Mr. Zaitz graduated from Cornell University with a BS in agricultural economics in 1977 and, after graduating, operated Carolina Cattle Company in Siler City, N.C. shipping dairy cattle from the Midwest to the Mid-Atlantic States. Today Teays River is uniquely poised at the intersection of private equity real estate investment and agricultural knowledge and expertise.