About Us
The Boston Land Company is a full service real estate development, investment, syndication and property management firm with offices in Boston and Waltham, Massachusetts. Robert Kargman and Arthur Ullian founded the company in 1978, bringing it to its pinnacle of operations of just under 3,000 units of housing, and 40,000 square feet of retail and office space, located in five states.
The Boston Land Company builds relationships of trust, standing by the principles of quality, integrity and communication and dedication to keeping their employees the best in their field.
Our People
Robert Kargman
President
Robert Kargman has always focused on hiring the most qualified people to manage the properties and enabling them to excel through continued education and industry association involvement. Empowering the site staffs to treat the properties they manage as if they were owners, Bob encourages them to excel at their positions and, as a result, a great many of them remain with the company year after year. Of the BLC eighty seven employees, thirty five percent of them have been with the company over fifteen years with twenty nine percent over twenty years of employment.
His concern for employee satisfaction and growth spills over to how we treat our residents. Bob has been a deeply committed advocate of affordable housing for seniors. His knowledge of state and federal programs for seniors has allowed the company to create a ‘service enriched’ living environment at all of our senior developments.
Mr. Kargman currently serves on the Board of the Rental Housing Association of the Greater Boston Real Estate Board; the Program in Education, Afterschool and Resiliency (PEAR) of McLean Hospital and Harvard Medical School; is a Trustee of the Washington Institute for Near East Policy; and is also a member of the Major Gifts Committee of Harvard University, and the National Board of Directors of the American Israel Public Affairs Committee (AIPAC).
His educational background includes: Harvard University, A.B.; Harvard Graduate School of Education, M.A.T.; The Hebrew University of Jerusalem; Research Associate in American History; University of Chicago Law School, J.D.
This video by the Rental Housing Association honors Robert Kargman.
Arthur Ullian
Founding Partner
Arthur Ullian attended Lawrence College and the London School of Economics, prior to managing a small residential hotel with a large population of active elderly residents seeking the services that a hotel could provide; i.e. housekeeping, telephone service, front desk, security, and dining availability. This experience provided an opportunity to understand the needs of the elderly before forming a partnership with Bob Kargman to build federally subsidized elderly housing.
Realizing that such services were essential to the well-being of an elderly population, plus particular design requirements the elderly needed in order to better facilitate independent living, the elderly housing that they built and manage included features not normally included in that kind of housing at the time. The design re-created the environment of a hotel, where upon entering you would find a front desk, manned by volunteer residents who would be able to announce your visitor, receive packages, help with transportation and all the other needs that could enhance their comfort. Additionally an overabundance of community space for various activities, such as arts and crafts, a large lounge, a small convenience store also manned by volunteer residents, a carpenter and repair shop for volunteer residents to fix items for residents who were not skilled in that way, not only providing a service, but providing satisfaction to the volunteer, and a library stocked with books the residents brought from home, all incorporated in the design. The meeting rooms were equipped with small catering kitchens, which in some of the buildings could be utilized for a meals on wheels program to serve lunch and perhaps a small breakfast. The additional space created within the buildings during construction made it far easier to add the additional services HUD now allows in their regulations.
In 1991, Mr. Ullian became paralyzed following a bicycling accident, and used his business and entrepreneurial skills to advocate for increased federal funding of biomedical research. He has been widely recognized for his successes in this area. He has testified at numerous congressional hearings and has organized and hosted research-related educational forums and roundtables on Capitol Hill. He led, together with a broad coalition, made up of Research Universities, The AAMC, patient advocacy groups, The Christopher Reeve group, and others, a campaign to successfully double the NIH annual funding over a five year period, ending in 2003, to $30 billion.
Mr. Ullian serves as President of the National Council on Spinal Cord Injury and Chairman of the Task Force on Science, Healthcare & the Economy. He has received numerous awards & honors for his service, and has co-authored several publications in national and international journals. He is married with one son.
Susan Kelly, C.P.M.
Executive Director
Susan Kelly has been with The Boston Land Company for her entire Property Management career. Ms. Kelly started as an administrative assistant at a large project based section 8 elderly/disabled building learning the business and compliance of HUD regulations from the ground up. Over the 25 plus years at The Boston Land Company, Ms. Kelly took lateral positions in the main office to expose herself to the “big picture” of how a management company operates.
Throughout the many years, she held different positions and understood both the site level and corporate way of thinking. Ms. Kelly advanced herself through industry education by first attaining her Accredited Residential Management (ARM), and then received her Certified Property Management certification (CPM) through the Institute of Real Estate Management (IREM). Ms. Kelly has her Certified Professional Of Occupancy (CPO) and is a National Affordable Housing Professional Executive (NAPH-e).
Ms. Kelly is the past President of the New England Affordable Housing Management Association and a Director Emeritus.