AlumNUS | April - June 2011
Profile
Building People, Building Spaces
To be contented and to do whatever I do, no matter how small, well. – Dr Steven Choo on his philosophy of life.
Dr Steven Choo talks about his never-ending building projects – of people and places “To be contented and to do whatever I do, no matter how small, well.” This is Dr Choo’s seemingly simple philosophy in life. Dr Choo is currently the CEO of the Real Estate Developer’s Association of Singapore (REDAS).
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Contentment, the essence of happiness, seems to be the reason for Dr Choo’s breezy style. But beneath this calm persona lies an eagerness and sense of urgency to serve, inspired by the passing of his good friend, the late Dr Amos Koh, also a well-known figure in the real estate industry. Dr Koh was the Executive Director of Knight Frank in Singapore and later the Managing Director of DTZ Leung in Singapore and Indonesia. Dr Choo shared, “Amos and I met in early 1970 and became friends and fellow student leaders at the Lady Hill campus. He was a very popular, talented and caring mentor to young people as a student and as a lecturer. It was uncanny that we had similar academic and career tracks and we were such close buddies that even our Dean and the TV media got us mixed up!” They both graduated from the University of Singapore’s BSc Estate Management programme (Class of ’74) and went on to do their postgraduate studies in the UK and the US. Tragedy struck in November 2000 when Dr Koh passed away suddenly in Jeddah, Saudi Arabia, during a morning run. He was based there, away from his family, to look after the
global investment portfolio of the Saudi Economic Development Company. News of his sudden passing came as a terrible shock to Dr Choo who was hospitalised with severe bronchitis and drug allergy at that time. “It was very hard for me to assist in the funeral arrangement,” Dr Choo admited, “I could hardly speak or even walk without great pain.” Dr Choo and his wife did manage, however, to put together a memorial booklet on Dr Koh, at Mrs Koh’s request.
and nurturing person who had already set up a book prize from his own pocket; not for the best students, but for the ones who made the biggest progress in their studies.” “Realising how fragile life is, one becomes more aware of the need to serve,” said Dr Choo who underwent a heart bypass surgery in October 2010. He has chosen his alma mater to do this for the good memories it has given him.
Dr Choo added, “I remember us crying a lot while going through many moving emails and poems that Amos wrote to his wife and children, and the beautiful photographs he took. That was when I felt we needed to keep alive the memory of this wonderful person and scholar and his spirit of touching lives.” Thus, he set up the Amos Koh Memorial Fund in 2003 to benefit the real estate student body and recognise scholarship with book prizes and gold medals. The first recipient of the Amos Koh Memorial Fund Gold Medal was a Vietnamese student. “I knew we had done the right thing when I saw the pride and joy on the faces of the girl’s family who flew in for her convocation,” he said.
On his affinity for his alma mater, he said, “The genius loci, or the spirit of the place, is determined by how the place, the people and their lives come together. For Dr Choo, his undergraduate days at the Lady Hill campus was the right place at the right time of his life. Recalling his time there he said, “My first impression of the Lady Hill campus was that of a curious amalgamation of an old colonial house, barracks and outward bound school! I liked the intimacy of studying and playing within a small campus and boy, did it nurture many young minds and lives!” “Many marriages were ‘made in Ladyhill’” quipped Dr Choo, “although I ventured further afield and courted my wife at the Bukit Timah campus!”
With the recent demise of another close friend, Dr Milton Tan in November 2010, Dr Choo is once again looking to link up with the University to set up an initiative in memory of Dr Tan who was Head of Architecture and the founding director of DesignSingapore Council. “I wish to help carry on Milton’s legacy,” said Dr Choo. “He was an extremely creative, hospitable
Today, he continues to serve as a nonresident fellow of the King Edward VII Hall and works tirelessly to forge closer links between the University and his industry. In 2010, he pioneered the REDAS-NUS Real Estate Sentiment Index, an authoritative barometer of market sentiments for the Singapore property market. Earlier this year
he jointly developed the REDASNUS Executive Course in Real Estate Development Enterprise with the Department of Real Estate. The first run of the course was in March. And already he is working to launch another executive course with the NUS on real estate development law. Explaining his philosophy of life a little further, he said, “I try to follow the biblical precept - ‘to act justly, love mercy, and walk humbly’ - in my work and relationships. REDAS is a business association representing some 300 members comprising developers, builders, real estate consultancies and allied professionals, bankers and fund managers. An industry veteran with over 35 years of experience, Dr Choo’s contributions to Singapore’s urban development and real estate market included being on the International Advisory Panel for the development of One North at Buona Vista, and serving as the Deputy Chairman of the Land Working Group of the Economic Review Committee for the creation of the Business and Financial Centre at the New Downtown in the Marina Bay area. He was also on CapitaLand’s team that surpervised the launch of Singapore’s first real estate investment trust (REIT) – the CapitaMall Trust. Dr Choo said that through it all, one of his greatest joys was in “saving the Junction 8 office tower from the bulldozer” and helping to make it a rent-free home for many social services organisations today.
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