Vice Chair, Elected: 2019
Elected to the Board: 2013
Voting Trustee
Edward J. Pettinella is former president, chief executive officer and director of Home Properties Inc., a large-apartment real estate investment trust (REIT) traded on the New York Stock Exchange (NYSE). The REIT has acquired, developed and operated apartment communities in the Northeast and Mid-Atlantic markets. Home Properties was purchased by Lone Star Funds.
Prior to joining Home Properties in 2001, Pettinella had a successful career in banking. He served as president of Charter One Financial Inc. (NYSE:COFI). He also held several management positions at Rochester Community Savings Bank (NYSE:RCSB), including chief operating officer, chief financial officer and chief investment officer. Previously, he worked in the treasurer’s office at Ford Motor Credit, headquartered in Dearborn, Mich.
Pettinella serves on the board of directors of Manning and Napier (NYSE:MN), a publicly traded investment management firm, and LifeStorage (NYSE:LSI), a publicly traded REIT. He is an independent director of the board of directors of Royal Oak Realty Trust, a private, net lease REIT that acquires office and industrial properties. He has served on the board of directors of both the National Association of Real Estate Investment Trusts and the National Multifamily Housing Council and was a member of the Urban Land Institute.
Pettinella earned a bachelor’s degree in management from State University of New York at Geneseo in 1973 and an MBA in finance from Syracuse University’s Martin J. Whitman School of Management in 1976.
He is a vice chair of the Board as well as chair of the Board Audit and Risk Committee through early May 2023. Pettinella also serves on the Executive, Finance, Facilities, and Board Organization and Nominating Committees, and the Academic Affairs Working Group. He chaired the Budget Committee from 2015-19, served on the Academic Planning, Real Estate Strategy and Steam Station Ad Hoc Workgroups and the West Campus District Project. In 2016, he received the Dritz Rookie Trustee of the Year Award and in 2017, he received the Dritz Trustee of the Year Award. In 2013 he received the Whitman School’s Jonathan J. Holtz Alumnus of the Year Award. His Syracuse University service includes membership on the Whitman Advisory Council and the Advisory Board of the Whitman School’s James D. Kuhn Real Estate Center. He served on the 2022 chief financial officer search committee and the search committee for the chief financial officer from 2016-17.
He and his wife, Ann Pettinella, established the Edward Pettinella Assistant or Associate Professorship in Business, the Edward J. Pettinella Endowed Professorship and the Edward J. Pettinella Athletic Graduate Endowed Scholarship. They have supported other initiatives in the Maxwell School, the Whitman School and Syracuse University Athletics.
Updated: July 20, 2022