So we've been doing over for

now since fall two thousand and ten
we're really excited to have it you know

not only with about Pearson doing this I
believe but also here at the residence.

So to introduce facts Peterson was born
in Seattle and raised in Kansas City.

She attended Kansas State University and
her degrees in home economics and

Spanish with a teaching certificate.

It was there in Manhattan Kansas her
freshman year that she met and married but

Peterson.

Valen but

raised their own four children and nine
foster children in College Station Texas.

She also earned her master's degree
in Spanish at Texas A and M..

She taught Spanish at the junior
college high school and elementary and

preschool loves.

She also taught aerobics for
twenty four years and

is now working on a yoga
teaching certificate.

A little bit envious local

while first lady at the University
of Colorado at Boulder.

She started the Guardian Scholars Program
a scholarship for

students who had aged out
of the foster care system.

She's active in sustainability
efforts on the Georgia Tech campus.

And in the Atlanta community and

she's also involved with
the sustainable Atlanta roundtable.

For the Partners program to a you
the Association of American universities

choose a member of the program.

So please join me in welcoming
Falconer's and thank you everybody.

I always start my speeches on
campus with Hi I'm Val Peterson and

I'm the queen bee at Georgia Tech.

So my husband stole my topic I'm really
really passionate about foster children so

I'm going to have to use my next topic
down but that's a good one because it's

about Georgia Tech so Georgia Tech
is known for her most amazing a lot.

And one of our most amazing alum says
named Mike Messner he grew up in Atlanta

and he's up in New York City right now
he's kind of a hedge fund guy translate.

And he's done very well
he's in New York City but

he really really really cares about.

He's not yet cut that umbilical cord
he grew up here he's very attached.

And he wants it to be better here.

So in.

So few years ago in two thousand and nine
he started a program called Red fields to

green fields to kind of make Atlanta and
the nation a better place and feel free.

So you don't like doing next like this.

Turn your chair around if you want to.

So you can see me and so

he he wants to see less Overstock of
real estate and use real estate and

he wants to see more parks and
that is red fields to green fields.

So he created and
fund of this project and it started

a mere two years ago in two thousand and
nine summer two thousand and nine.

So what's a red field a red
a field Mike master describes as.

It's a property that is in the red
financially it's underutilized it's

abandoned and it's a derelict property and
a red tail might be a house that

someone couldn't afford anymore and
they just walked away from the mortgage.

It could be an old dated mall that they
built a new one right up the road and

people just don't go to the old one
anymore and it's just kind of hanging out.

So what happens to these unproductive
properties they ruin neighborhoods they

are a potential hangout for homeless
people might start to use them criminals

my get into them and
start to take over all bad news.

Definitely don't want
your kids to play there.

So it could be a commercial property
as well that's a red field.

It could be an all business and
all contaminated all business you can you

know don't want to kids
to play there is either.

So red fields are a blight to
the neighborhoods in which they exist.

It doesn't matter how hard
you work to keep your house.

If there's an abandoned property or
for a foreclosed property

that has panned any mind to you
down the road or in your community.

I mean no matter how well
you keep your house up no

matter how you know if you keep your
house really decent doesn't matter if

you have a property that's really really
getting sad looking in your neighborhood.

If you have said it.

Strip shopping center blocks away
in your neighborhood same thing

if it starts to get abandoned if
the weed start to grow up your

your house properties here the properties
of the real estate are going down.

They are going down flat
out cost you money.

It's unsightly and it's costing you money.

Mike master has a solution
to this problem.

He wants to turn red fields into
green fields and I love this project.

He has also put his money
where his mouth is.

He has envisioned it.

He's got the guys to research it or
so from Georgia Tech.

I tell you.

And he's finding it out of his
speed well Foundation which is

his his personal foundation.

And the principal investigators of
this project are Kevin car body and

Joe good one.

Of course are at Georgia Tech.

So Mike wants to take all
of the red fields and

turn them into green fields in Atlanta and
across the nation.

So what's a green field you know what
a red field is what's a green field.

Well it's a park a beautiful park or
just maybe a green space out there.

And beautiful parks people can
enjoy even just a green space so

trees flowers plants grass
they're not just gorgeous.

They're filters.

They clean the air they clean the water
they help with storm runoff instead of

just laying on the asphalt or
the concrete and or the buildings and

just going into the storm drain you
know the plants and the flowers and

stuff they can slow it down.

So it's kind of more sustainable controls
flooding parks with their flora and

fauna they make people feel
calm they make them happy and

there's not enough of them parks
are visually attractive and

they really boost spirits studies have
even shown that if you get out in nature.

It can kind of chase away the blues kind
of stave off some of the manifestations

of depression.

And then Michelle Obama of course has
been a proponent of childhood obesity and

getting it's moving through
her Let's Move campaign.

I love that idea aerobics teacher for
twenty four years.

So parks can help kids to be healthy but
especially the one in three

who are overweight or who are obese
in this country one in three.

And they need to become more more
active and parks could help do that.

Studies to show that parks and

green green spaces also make
surrounding property values decline.

So when you knock down
old unused buildings and

the building goes down surrounding
property values come up.

And Kevin and Joe as they've done their
research they've discovered that if you

have a part the surrounding
properties around it

will gain value by two hundred
to four hundred percent.

That's huge.

There's even been a red filter
greenfields example on the Georgia Tech

campus there was an old building called
the Ajax building and that was you know.

Bashed down like in two thousand and nine.

I think it was the year
that we got here and

it's a beautiful park like area now
with green space and benches built Tell

me about that when Bill helps me with the
house and I did him today the hell of it.

And so that is you can see that
area that green space south

of the Georgia Tech Police Department
area over there on Hemphill.

So what is Atlanta doing there is this
very cool project that I love to and

it's called the beltline.

And so we were a railroad town Atlanta
was originally called Terminus and

it's because that's where all
of the railroads terminated.

So we're kind of going to rebrand
ourselves by this Belt Line

project that's based on old historic
rails that we're pulling up there kind

of sort of in a circle around Atlanta and
we're going to pull them up.

There's this project palm up it's already
been partially funded they've got the new

or old Fourth Ward project and
that's a park down there.

So it's a line it's linear
parks around the city and

they're redeveloping into great
places that families can recreate and

recreate these linear parks you can
bike there you can walk there and

you can spend time there
they're beautiful places but

not actually one Sunday
morning got up early and

walked in the old Fourth Ward Park drop
dead good looking love it love it.

So there are twenty two miles of this
historic rail near there being pulled

up and and possibly if this splashed.

Tax passes for transportation the Atlanta
beltline might get a chunk of this money

and might be able to put in some light
rail that if you get more connectivity.

Anyway what's happening nationally.

Researchers at Georgia Tech have
studied not just Atlanta and

propose solutions there are ten other
cities that they are that they're

looking at so solutions have been pro

proposed our own Joe Hughes who's the head
of civil engineering at Georgia Tech.

I think he's just about
ready to step down but

he was the first one that worked
on this project actually with Mike

master out in New York and then of
course the principal on this project.

G R I.

Senior scientists Kevin Carr
of audience research partner.

Joe good when they continue to add
cities to the list to study and

see what their particular red fields to
green fields vision can look like and

study and they are also trying to so
they're they're looking for

these transformative solutions around
the nation but they're also looking for

ways to fund it and and they're
spreading the word about this project.

Georgia has had more bank failures
than anyone else in the nation.

Who.

At one point it was one
per week in the middle of

the Great Recession horrible horrible
Many banks who lent aggressively during

the housing boom really suffered
when the bubble burst the and

the commercial real estate business was
growing growing growing and then poof.

So that stopped the economic engine and
that really just brought things to a stop.

Let's knock down the red fields and
get them off of the ailing banks books.

When you compare parkland in Atlanta with
Parkland other cities of the same size.

We only have four point
six percent of Atlanta.

That has been been
preserved into parks and

we are once again on the lower rungs
of the nation as far as parkland.

We need a devil of a lot more.

This Greenfield fields to Greenfield and
help with that.

Job creation locating the land buying
the land doing the environmental

impact studies part construction
green space green white construction.

Taking the old materials hauling
them off recycling them.

Finally Mike maintenance and then
operation of the resulting Greenfield.

All jobs we could use all these jobs.

And the resulting Greenfield all
these all of these would be real jobs

that would be created.

I was reading in the newspaper
yesterday in the A.J.C.

Journal Constitution that our on our
unemployment rate right here in Atlanta

is ten point four percent right now.

Sad.

So how can we accomplish this.

Mike Mike Messner has proposed that
cities form land banks that they

form land banks they would either create
parks or create green space to be enjoyed

until the economy a print improves they
could be left like that or they could or

they could just be kind of Chillon
until the economy is better and

then you could do
something else with them.

And get it back on the tax rolls so
ga financial institutions have lost

seventy B. billion dollars worth of assets
now if the federal government can give

money to the banks around
here to to bail them out and

they're still not loaning very much money.

Why not figure out a way
to form a land bank and

with a public private partnership and
invest in these property owners

specifically these land banks would buy
foreclosed properties that a discount.

Everything's on fire sale out there
right now it's cheap stuff is cheap and

been cheap in a long time they would get
the deadbeat properties off of the bank's

roles and clear their debt so
they can feel free to land once again.

This could lead to the creation of
parks with some of the properties and

then just green space with the other
properties and this internal elevate

the property values of the adjacent
communities and neighborhoods.

You could build on a certain
quantity of the purchased land and

then with those homes or
whatever that you sold.

If you could sell and take that money and

put it back into the red fields to
greenfields project and keep the project.

So Kevin car body and Joe Goodwin have
met with the Federal Reserve U.S.

senator Johnny Isaacson the U.S. Chamber
of Commerce the Department of Housing and

Urban Housing and Urban Development and
the Department of Treasury and

recently like within this month even
within the last couple of weeks.

I found out that
Mike Messner has met with.

With the Department of Interior and

with White House staffers like
that within the last several days.

I think I need to meet with Michelle
personally Parks' childhood obesity.

You know sides pillow talk.

Now I know these things.

Redfield greenfields can make Atlanta and
other cities a better place to live.

So if we get this figured out and
get these land banks formed and

all this distressed property purchased we
would be able to be a national model that

other cities around the nation could
emulate this I believe I am so proud of

Georgia Tech our Georgia Tech researchers
and our Georgia Tech alarms and donors.

We just must figure out a way to do this.

Mike master is walking his talk.

And he's doing it in the green spaces and
parks.

That his vision creates.

Thank you.

I wanted to tell you just a little bit
about the residents by that I have been

here for two and a half years
now almost almost three years.

Coming up three years we started
April April Fool's Day of two thousand and

nine this house was built
the president's Rowson it was built and

about sixty one years ago by
President Blake and elevate and

layer and it was always envisioned and
created as a president's residence and

it's just such an honor to be here this is
our third university residence that we've

lived in there were three years at
the University of Colorado at Boulder in

the chancers residence and then patroon
Manor in trying a New York at R.P.I.

We were there for six years by this
provost and so those are four kids

and they're twenty eight thirty thirty two
thirty four when we moved here I was also

sad didn't have any family here didn't
know a soul and so I said but let's pare

kids to move here are right there were
in New York D.C. Houston and California.

You're looking at me like I'm kidding.

Not getting.

So we told our kids.

If you do not have a Masters.

If you don't do NOT have
the advanced degree that you desire.

If you can just move here.

We'll pay for it.

We got our family here.

So the oldest one is on the very right
Sean is thirty four and he's paced.

So I kind of have to whisper
hates when I say that.

But it's cool it's cool.

He graduates he works and he's working on
an executive M.B.A. at Georgia Tech he

graduates in December and then the one
on the top BRENNAN We bought a condo at

the old historic Biltmore Hotel so
he lives on the tenth floor and

his girlfriend will graduate in December
as well with the executive M.B.A. as well.

Jack our daughter is on the bottom.

She lives in trying New York and she's
working on a master's in nutrition and

I hope she'll move here and then the one
on the US in the middle middle child

is our rocket scientist all
the other kids kind of sell stuff.

Before Emily started support and

really started her masters of nutrition
she sold bricks at a hard hat and

everything and so our middle
child is our engineer so he works

at NASA Ames he's on temporary assignment
right now with Lockheed Martin in Denver.

So all four of them just due to
circumstances they might all be moving

within the next four or maybe six months
and I hope they all move to Atlanta.

But they might all go somewhere else.

So I'm like nervous Nellie right now.

And my husband likes to build furniture.

I'm kind of the fiber artist so
I'm a clothes and he builds furniture.

Well he didn't till he got to be
you know President Chancellor and

now he just kind of as email for
his hobby and email for his exercise.

I told him to stop answering them
because people just send more back.

Thanks for.