Joan Sapinsley

Joan Sapinsley has 35 years of commercial real estate, primarily debt, experience. Notably, she spent 15 years at TIAA, purchasing and structuring commercial mortgage backed securities (CMBS). She recently retired after 11 years at a mortgage REIT, Resource Capital Corp., where she was responsible for not only CMBS but also led its capital markets efforts. Joan was a board member and officer of CREFC, the trade organization for real estate finance, for many years including not only governance, but its DC lobbying efforts, and she was a founding member of its Women’s Initiative. Ms Sapinsley serves as an Adjunct Instructor at Fordham where she teaches Real Estate Capital Markets and CMBS in its Master’s in Real Estate Program. She also currently serves as a mentor/job coach to women who are in the First Step Program, through which the Coalition for the Homeless provides job training to women seeking to re-enter the workforce. Joan has an MBA in Real Estate and Finance from Columbia University and a BA from Oberlin College. She began her career as an art teacher for 7 years, working in museums and schools in Boston, Cambridge, Philadelphia, and New York, and was certified in Elementary and Art Education in Massachusetts. Joan’s teaching experience has made her a lifelong proponent of arts in education and she was attracted to the model of the Community Word Project because she is convinced that teacher training, especially for those teaching children who have many external distractions and difficulties, is a crucial part of making an artists in residence program a successful influence, and not just an entertaining diversion, in kids’ academic lives.