Wallace Kaufman entered Duke University as a Proctor and Gamble Scholar and graduated magna cum laude. He completed his graduate work as a Marshall Scholar at Oxford University. He has also studied mediation, Russian, and real property valuation.
After nine years of teaching and developing composition curriculum at the University of North Carolina at Chapel Hill, he created a real estate business that both pioneered environmentally sound land development and that broke through racial discrimination and price fixing in the industry.
In the mid 1970s he began to specialize in property valuation, land use disputes, and land use policy. He has served on several county and state level task forces and committees to explore solutions to environmental and housing issues. He also provided expert witness testimony in many property cases that ranged from airport noise impact to professional ethics. As a Realtor he served on grievance and standards and ethics committees.
His knowledge of natural sciences and environmental issues served him well as president of three statewide environmental groups in North Carolina. His broad knowledge of many fields made him an effective team leader of economic survey groups in Eastern Europe and Central Asia, investigating the needs of new manufacturing firms and displaced rural residents.
As resident adviser to the government of Kazakhstan for housing and land reform, he helped the country make its transition from communism to a market system, including organizing home owners' associations and competitive bidding systems.
He began mediating and arbitrating in the 1980s as part of his work in real estate and small business counseling. That work included conflicts arising from business dissolution, divorce settlements, and valuation disputes. He also served as a court appointed commissioner in eminent domain cases.
Throughout his career Wallace Kaufman has continue to write for many publications about environment, real estate, the natural sciences and the former Soviet Union. His ability to clarify, define and explain complex issues has served well in his mediation work.
He is listed on Mediate.com and is a member of the Oregon Mediation Association.
Wkaufman@mediatethrough.com
(Photo by Nik Epanchin)