Brad Lander
North 1987
Brad Lander graduated from North High in 1987. He received a bachelor's degree from the University of Chicago and has master's degrees in social anthropology from University College, London, and in city and regional planning from the Pratt Institute in New York. He currently resides in Brooklyn, NY. with his wife and two children.
Brad is the director of the Pratt Institute Center for Community and Environmental Development, a leading university based center supporting community development. PICCED supports low-and-moderate-income communities to combat poverty and discrimination through sustainable development and seeks to equip these communities with the resources they need to plan and implement comprehensive community development strategies.
From 1992 to 2003 Brad served as the executive director of the Fifth Avenue Committee, a nationally recognized non-profit community development organization in Brooklyn. Under his leadership, Fifth Avenue Committee developed three hundred units of affordable housing, created innovative job training programs that helped hundreds of low-income people get good jobs, helped recently released prisoners reenter society and worked with social service organizations to develop supportive housing for neighborhood residents with special needs.
In 1999 Brad was awarded the "Do Something Brick Award," sponsored by Rolling Stone magazine, which honors outstanding young leaders under thirty who are building better communities brick by brick. New York Magazine recognized Brad for outstanding public service in 2000, giving him a public service award that goes to only ten outstanding New Yorkers each year. Brad has also received awards from the Ford Foundation, the Fannie Mae Foundation and the University of Chicago.
Brad has been influenced by many in Parkway, including his mother, who has served as a counselor at Claymont Elementary for over 20 years. Regarding his own experience, he said, "So many of my teachers and principals -- at Weber, East Junior, and North High -- instilled in me a sense that it was important both to learn and to take action, to apply one's learning and one's gifts to try to make the world a little better. I am grateful for their teaching and their example, and also for this great honor."
In his 1987 graduation speech at North High, Brad urged his classmates to "get involved" by caring, committing and acting. Since then, Brad has been a voice for justice and has enabled neighborhood voices for affordable housing and fair economic development to be heard loud and clear within and beyond the boundaries of New York City.