J. Paul Rhodes
Executive vice president
Vestar
Rhodes, a founding principal of Vestar, oversees construction for its operations.Rhodes has been responsible for the construction of more than 95 shopping centers, in excess of 21.5 million square feet. He graduated from ASU with a degree in civil engineering.Rhodes is a founding member of Executive Council 70, member of the International Council of Shopping Centers, the Phoenix Thunderbirds, and serves on the boards of Phoenix Children’s Hospital Foundation and Valley Partnership.
BUSINESS ADVICE: “Someone in the retail construction Industry needs the experience to succeed. This experience will highlight means and methods and how things are built, and how projects are put together. And just as important are project schedules and budgets and how projects are developed.”
GREATEST ACCOMPLISHMENT: “Development and construction of the Scottsdale Pavilions Shopping Center— now called The Pavilions at Talking Stick Shopping Center — the first power center of its kind in the Southwest in excess of 1.1 million square feet. What made this project so rewarding is it was built in conjunction with the Pima Indian Community and on the Pima Indian Reservation.”
SUPERPOWER: “I would want to have the power of teleportation, so that I could be anywhere at anytime to take advantage of everything that goes on in our world.”
DREAM DINNER: “Dinner with Ronald Reagan. While attending college at ASU, he was elected President of the United States. I believed in what he stood for at that time and I would be very interested in his perspective on the world today, ISIS, the Millennials and their view of the world and why.”
SURPRISING FACT: “I worked as a rough neck on an offshore drilling rig, in the Gulf of Mexico for Nicolas Drilling Company. We were drilling 13 miles into the earth from a platform 90 feet above the ocean and were 80 miles off the coast of Louisiana.”
