I wrote a profile for The Stamford Advocate of Courtney Nelthropp, who left a successful career at IBM to start his own business as the owner of a printing services franchise. Most importantly, Nelthropp has changed the landscape of Stamford, Connecticut's public housing by chairing Charter Oak Communities' board for the last dozen years and leading the authority in taking down its old high-rise housing in favor of state-of-the-art town homes.
A story excerpt:
Courtney Nelthropp spent 20 years in the corporate world. He says had very little opportunity to do anything to give back to the community as an IBM company man.
But that changed when Nelthropp went into business for himself as the owner of a Sir Speedy printing and marketing services franchise in downtown Stamford.
An old IBM colleague and Stamford resident, Bob Harris, suggested that Nelthropp seek a mayoral appointment to join the board of commissioners for Stamford's public housing authority. GovernorDannel P. Malloy, then mayor of Stamford, appointed Nelthropp to the board. Nelthropp now has been the chair of Charter Oak Communities' board for the last dozen years and has led the authority in taking down its old high-rise housing in favor of state-of-the-art town homes.
Nelthropp's contributions to Stamford have inspired recognition this fall. He was the first person honored by the Truglia Thumbelina Fund for his volunteer work. And he was one of the honorees at the Stamford NAACP's annual Freedom Fund Dinner.
One of Nelthropp's biggest accomplishments, Charter Oak Communities' chief executive officer Vincent J. Tufo said, was his leadership in getting the housing authority to take on the role of developing and revitalizing all its new housing stock itself. The first project the housing authority undertook after Nelthropp joined the board was done with an outside developer. But every project since then Charter Oak has developed itself.
Nelthropp chose this strategy because he was convinced that it was impossible to rely only on financing from the federal and state government and still provide very high-quality housing.
"Very early on we started thinking about how we could be more entrepreneurial and produce more revenue and still do it within the charter of a quasi-public organization," Nelthropp said.
The result was new developments with residents who pay full market price living along side residents in affordable-rate units, Tufo said.
Only five to 10 percent of housing authorities handle all the development of new housing or revitalized housing internally, Tufo said.
Changing Charter Oak from a traditional housing authority managing affordable housing to developing its own housing stock required "a long-range vision and a steady hand" from Nelthropp, Tufo said.
Other housing authorities would have wavered, Tufo said.
The end of `projects'
Christel Truglia, a former state representative and founder of the Truglia Thumbelina Fund that helps Stamford's impoverished children, said that whenever she visited the old Southfield Village housing project -- one of the city's dilapidated public housing projects -- she "just felt sad that anyone's children would have to live in that kind of atmosphere."
That housing project was torn down in 1997 after the shooting of a little girl attending a birthday party there, prompting the city and the residents association to agree on what would replace it.
Now Truglia is so proud of Charter Oak's developments that she takes out-of-town guests to see them.
"You really need true leadership and vision and a passion and that's exactly what Courtney has had," Truglia said.
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