Michael Pepper

 I grew up in Lincolnwood, Illinois a suburb just north of Chicago. The neighborhood was filled with families of

the Greatest Generation and their Baby Boomer children. The schools and sports fields were simply wonderful. The teachers were positive and encouraging. My father had a wholesale produce business, waking up at 3am every weekday morning to make the trip to the South Water produce market. My mother practiced and encouraged reading and studies of the arts; music, painting, sculpture. Along with two sisters and over twenty-five cousins everyone in the family enjoyed gatherings with good food and much laughter. 

 

I graduated from Princeton University in 1971, where I majored in architecture and urban planning. Along with all the regalia of graduation I, like many other men in my generation, became subject to the Vietnam War draft. After two years in limbo, I  began my career and never looked back. I enjoy the art of designing, developing, and constructing tall buildings - these days as principal of Pepper Development Services. 

 

My work has taken me from the shores of Lake Michigan to the sands of Waikiki, from the quarries of Italy to the mountains of South America, working with architects, engineers and developers and pushing the envelop of their dreams. I taught at both Kellogg and Booth Graduate Schools of Business and, with their wonderful Swiss-America mother, I helped to raise three incredible daughters.

 

My year after graduation with Elizabeth Lourie, recounted in Royal Edge, remains one of the greatest influences on my life.