ALUMNUS SPOTLIGHT ON STEPHANIE MOURMEN
Twelve years ago, Stephanie Moumen was a real estate professional in the DMV working for a medium-sized construction management firm. Her job was narrowly focused on construction management for boutique buildings around the Nation’s Capital. While raising four elementary school kids, Stephanie found the time to evaluate her career: she was in a highly specialized box with little mobility. She needed to broaden her real estate skills beyond construction management to development.
Changing a Career Trajectory
But it could take years to make such a transition. Perhaps a graduate degree in real estate development could be a career accelerator. She saw an ad on LinkedIn for George Mason’s Master of Science in Real Estate Development (MRED) program and attended an introductory session. She liked the curriculum, which covered the entire development process rather than specialized areas like finance or law. She didn’t want to be trapped in another narrow box. Plus, as a state school with an Arlington campus, it was convenient and fairly priced.
Stephanie applied and was accepted. There followed six consecutive semesters of intense effort: grad student by night, real estate professional by day, and mother of four full-time. The MRED program was particularly intense. In addition to standard coursework, there were complex team exercises, case study project visits, CRE-sponsored networking events with the DMV real estate community, and valuable mentoring through professional associations like NAIOP, ULI, and NVBIA. Stephanie’s plan worked.
Becoming a Real Estate Development Professional
Shortly after MRED graduation, Stephanie was able to achieve the goal of broadening her career trajectory from construction management into development. She was hired by Orr Partners to work in their development arm in a senior position. Orr appreciated her broad expertise in all phases of the development process. Within a short time, she was promoted to VP. Goal achieved but it doesn’t end there.
A Fortune 5 Corporation Comes Calling
Amazon is a Fortune 5 company—an e-commerce behemoth. However, its most profitable division is Amazon Web Services (AWS), which generated over $107 billion in net sales in 2024. AWS is a massive cloud platform that offers over 200 products/services, including computing, storage, networking, and AI machine learning. It is a highly competitive business with success measured by which cloud platform provider can develop the most Data Centers the quickest.
Stephanie Moumen was Amazon’s first hire for their new data center land development division. This new division was created to bring data center land ownership and land development in-house instead of using 3rd party developers and land owners. This new strategy was designed to speed up data center development by taking control from outsiders and contractors and turning land development over to AWS employees capable of quickly moving a raw piece of land through the phases of land development. She would be charged with increasing AWS’s portfolio of data centers using her in-house staff of 12.
Using her MRED training and development experience, Stephanie guides her team through the complex phases needed to transform a raw piece of land into a data center, often against the stiff winds of local politics, unhappy community organizations, and changing economic trends. For each piece of land, the team must: finalize site acquisition; create a site plan for the data center and supporting infrastructure; manage construction of onsite water, utility, and road systems; obtain all entitlements/easements and work closely with local community groups to ensure safe passage politically.
All with an exciting sense of urgency. At any one time, Stephanie works on a handful of data centers in design and another handful that are under construction.
Advice to Would-Be Grad Students
Stephanie’s advice is to do it. If you are a mid-career real estate professional in a low-ceiling job, don’t fear the challenge of earning a master’s in development. It’s hard and time-consuming, but it’s also worth it. She points out that if she can earn the degree at night while working full time and raising four children, then anyone should be able to find the time.