Mahlon "Sandy" Apgar IV (January 14, 1941 – December 11, 2023) was an American government and business consultant. He served as a housing, infrastructure, and real estate consultant to global corporations and government agencies, and a non-resident Senior Advisor at the

Center for Strategic and International Studies The Center for Strategic and International Studies (CSIS) is an American think tank based in Washington, D.C. From its founding in 1962 until 1987, it was an affiliate of Georgetown University, initially named the Center for Strategic and Inte ...

(CSIS). He is known as the "father" of the

United States Army The United States Army (USA) is the primary Land warfare, land service branch of the United States Department of Defense. It is designated as the Army of the United States in the United States Constitution.Article II, section 2, clause 1 of th ...

's housing privatization program, the largest such public-private partnership program in the Department of Defense. He was a partner and senior advisor at the Boston Consulting Group (BCG), and a partner at McKinsey & Company where he led its operations in Saudi Arabia, and a Senior Scholar at the Woodrow Wilson International Center for Scholars where he wrote the playbook on public-private partnerships.

Education and military service

Born in

Paterson, New Jersey Paterson ( ) is the largest City (New Jersey), city in and the county seat of Passaic County, New Jersey, Passaic County, in the U.S. state of New Jersey. Apgar graduated from Blair Academy in 1958, and in 1962 received a BA in Sociology from

Dartmouth College Dartmouth College ( ) is a Private university, private Ivy League research university in Hanover, New Hampshire, United States. Established in 1769 by Eleazar Wheelock, Dartmouth is one of the nine colonial colleges chartered before the America ...

, where he was a Choate Scholar and a Distinguished Military Graduate of Army ROTC. He spent his senior year with the Dartmouth-MIT Program In Urban Studies, examining Boston's cultural institutions as paths to upward mobility. As a member of Delta Tau Delta fraternity, he helped lead the chapter's break from the national organization due to its discriminatory admissions policy. In 1962, he was commissioned in the US Army and served as an intelligence officer covering the East-West German border until 1965. The following year, he studied the British New Towns program at Oxford University. In 1968, he received an MBA from the

Harvard Business School Harvard Business School (HBS) is the graduate school, graduate business school of Harvard University, a Private university, private Ivy League research university. Located in Allston, Massachusetts, HBS owns Harvard Business Publishing, which p ...

, as a National Fellow and Executive Editor of ''The MBA'' magazine.

Consulting career

Apgar began his real estate career with the developer James W. Rouse, and assisted in opening the new city of

Columbia, Maryland Columbia is a planned community in Howard County, Maryland, United States, consisting of 10 self-contained villages. With a population of 104,681 at the 2020 United States census, 2020 census, it is the second-most-populous community in Maryland ...

. In 1968, he joined McKinsey, transferring to London in 1970, where he consulted on British and European housing, real estate, urban development, and local government issues. He wrote policy guidelines called ''The Sunderland Study: Tackling Urban Problems'' for the UK government, and advised private firms on real estate strategy. In 1974, he began a five-year engagement in

Saudi Arabia Saudi Arabia, officially the Kingdom of Saudi Arabia (KSA), is a country in West Asia. Located in the centre of the Middle East, it covers the bulk of the Arabian Peninsula and has a land area of about , making it the List of Asian countries ...

, leading planning teams for

Saudi Aramco Saudi Aramco ( ') or Aramco (formerly Arabian-American Oil Company), officially the Saudi Arabian Oil Company, is a majority state-owned petroleum and natural gas company that is the national oil company of Saudi Arabia. , it is the fourth- l ...

's large-scale community development and infrastructure expansion, and co-authoring a blueprint for the Saudi government's national urbanization strategy. In 1980, he founded Apgar & Company, an advisory firm specializing in large-scale corporate real estate strategy and management. In 1997, he patented a corporate real estate evaluation system known as the Apgar Real Estate Score. In 1998, President

Bill Clinton William Jefferson Clinton (né Blythe III; born August 19, 1946) is an American politician and lawyer who was the 42nd president of the United States from 1993 to 2001. A member of the Democratic Party (United States), Democratic Party, ...

appointed him Assistant Secretary of the Army for Installations and Environment, with global responsibility for the Army's housing, real estate and facilities. In that role, he established the Residential Communities Initiative (RCI) to privatize military housing, and led negotiations for the Army with the National Trust for Historic Preservation to restructure the management of 70,000 historic military properties. From 2002 to 2006, Apgar was a partner and director of BCG, where he established the Infrastructure and Real Estate practice. He was the firm's senior advisor on real estate from 2007 to 2011. He has advised over 200 companies, institutions and governments in 13 countries on some 600 projects, including Irvine and Playa Vista, California; Brandermill, Virginia; Disney World; Hull,

London London is the Capital city, capital and List of urban areas in the United Kingdom, largest city of both England and the United Kingdom, with a population of in . London metropolitan area, Its wider metropolitan area is the largest in Wester ...

, and

Sunderland Sunderland () is a port City status in the United Kingdom, city and metropolitan borough in Tyne and Wear, England. It is a port at the mouth of the River Wear on the North Sea, approximately south-east of Newcastle upon Tyne. It is the most p ...

in the

United Kingdom The United Kingdom of Great Britain and Northern Ireland, commonly known as the United Kingdom (UK) or Britain, is a country in Northwestern Europe, off the coast of European mainland, the continental mainland. It comprises England, Scotlan ...

; the ''Villes Nouvelles'' in

France France, officially the French Republic, is a country located primarily in Western Europe. Overseas France, Its overseas regions and territories include French Guiana in South America, Saint Pierre and Miquelon in the Atlantic Ocean#North Atlan ...

; and business new communities in

Japan Japan is an island country in East Asia. Located in the Pacific Ocean off the northeast coast of the Asia, Asian mainland, it is bordered on the west by the Sea of Japan and extends from the Sea of Okhotsk in the north to the East China Sea ...

Affiliations, publications, awards

Apgar is a Counselor of Real Estate, a Member of the Business Executives for National Security Advisory Board, a Fellow of the

Royal Institution of Chartered Surveyors The Royal Institution of Chartered Surveyors (RICS) is a global professional body for those working in the Built Environment, Construction, Land, Property and Real Estate. The RICS was founded in London in 1868. It works at a cross-governmental ...

, the Institute of Directors, and the

Royal Society of Arts The Royal Society for the Encouragement of Arts, Manufactures and Commerce, commonly known as the Royal Society of Arts (RSA), is a learned society that champions innovation and progress across a multitude of sectors by fostering creativity, s ...

, a Trustee of the Urban Land Institute, and a Governor of the ULI Foundation. He has taught courses at

Harvard Harvard University is a private Ivy League research university in Cambridge, Massachusetts, United States. Founded in 1636 and named for its first benefactor, the Puritan clergyman John Harvard, it is the oldest institution of higher lear ...

Oxford Oxford () is a City status in the United Kingdom, cathedral city and non-metropolitan district in Oxfordshire, England, of which it is the county town. The city is home to the University of Oxford, the List of oldest universities in continuou ...

, Princeton, and Yale. He has edited two books, including ''New Perspectives on Community Development'', and authored more than 150 publications, including feature articles for the '' Harvard Business Review''. Apgar received the Army's Decoration for Distinguished Civilian Service, the first Chairman's Award of the President's Advisory Council on Historic Preservation and the Arthur A. May Award of the American Institute of Real Estate Appraisers, now The Appraisal Institute. He received the William S. Ballard Award and is the only two-time recipient of the James Felt Award for Creative Counseling, both from the Counselors of Real Estate. He and his wife, Anne, established a teaching excellence awards program in 1982.

References

* Oxford Said Business School – Associate Fellow Biography * "The Alternative Workplace: Changing Where and How People Work," ''Harvard Business Review'', May–June 1998, Vol. 76, No. 3, pp. 121–136. * "Managing Real Estate to Build Value," ''Harvard Business Review'', November–December 1995, Vol. 73, No. 6, pp. 162–179. * ''Mastering Urban Growth: A Blueprint for Management'', McKinsey International, Inc. for the Ministry of Municipal and Rural Affairs, Riyadh, Saudi Arabia, 1978. * "New Business with the New Military" (with John M. Keane), ''Harvard Business Review'', September 2004, Vol. 82, No. 9, pp. 45–56. * ''New Perspectives on Community Development'', London/New York: McGraw Hill, 1976. Editor. Author of Introduction; Chapter 4, "Guiding the Development Enterprise", pp. 77–98; Chapter 5, "Developing the Project Strategy", pp. 99–128; Chapter 6, "Planning for Community Management", pp. 129–156; Chapter 7, "Mastering Development Economics", pp. 157–187. * ''The Promise of Public-Private Partnerships: Principles and Proposals for the Next President'', Report of the Forum on Privatization and Partnerships, Woodrow Wilson International Center for Scholars, Washington, DC, August 2008. * "Succeeding in Saudi Arabia," ''Harvard Business Review'', January–February 1977, Vol. 55, No. 1. * ''The Sunderland Study: Tackling Urban Problems'' (Volume 1) and ''A Working Guide'' (Volume 2), Her Majesty's Stationery Office, London, 1973. * "Uncovering Your Hidden Occupancy Costs," ''Harvard Business Review'', May–June 1993, Vol. 71, No. 3, pp. 124–136. {{DEFAULTSORT:Apgar, Mahlon IV 1941 births 2023 deaths People from Paterson, New Jersey Blair Academy alumni Dartmouth College alumni United States Army officers Harvard Business School alumni McKinsey & Company people United States Assistant Secretaries of the Army Boston Consulting Group people Assistant Secretaries of the Army for Installations, Energy and Environment Military personnel from Paterson, New Jersey Clinton administration personnel