March 2005

Profiles of Success

Seena D. Stein, B.S. 1963, Biological Sciences

Seena Stein was not the typical freshman when she arrived at Purdue from New York City. Already married, she lived not in a residence hall but in an apartment in Married Student Housing. Her reason for choosing to major in biology was also not typical. “I didn’t want to do what the other women were doing,” she says. “I didn’t want to take courses that everybody said the women should take. Also, biology was an area I was interested in, and my husband was getting his PhD in chemistry, so it was a natural progression for me.” She considered going to medical school, but was discouraged from pursuing that by people who told her she would never succeed without sacrificing time with her child, who had been born “between semesters,” as she says. “So I applied for PhD study in genetics, my favorite field in the biological sciences, at Rutgers. But then I was divorced and had to go to work, so I had to back out of the PhD program.”

Instead, Seena went on to get a Masters in Information Science, followed by an MBA, both from Rutgers University. Her career path led her from science to the library, to the corporate world. Her current position is with Newmark, a commercial real estate company specializing in tenant representation, owner representation, lease negotiation, and investment sales. Seena was the founding partner of Newmark’s New Jersey office. She has more than 25 years of experience in commercial real estate, and has represented such companies as Equitable Life Assurance; Goldman Sachs & Co.; Bristol-Myers Squibb Company; Forest Laboratories, Inc.; Knight Trading Group; St. Paul Insurance Company and USA Network.

Prior to joining Newmark in 1994, Seena was senior vice president and director of sales and leasing for Jacobson, Goldfarb & Tanzman Associates (JGT) for more than eight years. Previously, she was vice president and director of sales and leasing for Helmsley Spear. She has owned her own company, Seena Stein, Inc., which specialized in corporate real estate. Her diverse background also includes a position in risk arbitrage on Wall Street.

Seena is the past president of the New Jersey Chapter of the Society of Industrial and Office Realtors. She is a member, and also serves on the Board of Directors, of the National Association of Industrial & Office Real Estate Association and The New Jersey Division of CoreNet. She is an active member of the National Association of Industrial & Office Parks, and the Urban League Institute, as well as Trustee at Monmouth Real Estate Institute at Monmouth University. Seena is a founding member of Industrial/Commercial Real Estate Women and is listed in Marquis Who’s Who, and Who’s Who of American Women. She has been honored by such organizations as Business News New Jersey’s Who’s Who 2002, NJ Business Leaders, and Women Business Leaders 2001.

Seena’s career path didn’t take her into biology, but she nevertheless feels Purdue’s impact on her life. “First of all, coming to Indiana from Brooklyn certainly widened my horizons. It was a whole new world for me, certainly very different, and it was good for me to be exposed to that.”

Of her Purdue days, Seena says: “I was not like the other undergraduate women in my classes. When all the other girls were sort of giggling and talking about the dresses they were going to wear on Saturday night, I was going home to clean and take care of my baby. It was a different life. I came to West Lafayette from New York, and it became my home. Because my husband was involved in research, we didn’t go home for vacations—we were in West Lafayette all the time. We developed a ‘family’ of friends, other graduate students, at Purdue. I was an undergrad, but because I lived on Ross Ade Drive, many of my friends were the graduate students who lived there. We really felt we were part of the community, not just part of the school.”

Although she didn’t have a traditional undergraduate experience at Purdue, Seena feels strongly connected to the University. It was this connection that led to her involvement on the steering committee for Science Women of Purdue, an event to be held in the fall on the Purdue campus. Science Women of Purdue builds on the success of Women of Purdue events that have been held across the country, offering opportunities for women to come together, share stories, and learn about how women can make a significant impact in many ways at Purdue. The Science Women of Purdue event will help the College connect with its women graduates and engage them more deeply in the College’s strategic plans.

Seena is acutely aware of women’s issues and challenges in the workforce. “I have four daughters, and it’s really not that much easier for them than it was for me. I know it’s supposed to be, and the common belief is that it’s so much easier for women today than 40 years ago, but women today have problems too. Maybe not as severe as 40 years ago, but problems nonetheless. So I’m happy to be involved in the Science Women of Purdue event. It’s not always easy to make the time for a lot of involvement in anything outside the job, but this event is important and I’m happy to be a part of it.”

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