{"id":2425,"date":"2012-06-28T05:00:14","date_gmt":"2012-06-28T12:00:14","guid":{"rendered":"http:\/\/www.yardi.com\/blog\/?p=2425"},"modified":"2020-12-24T00:39:20","modified_gmt":"2020-12-24T08:39:20","slug":"jo-marie-ziegler","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/www.yardi.com\/blog\/jo-marie-ziegler\/","title":{"rendered":"Jo Marie Ziegler"},"content":{"rendered":"

You never know where life\u2019s journey will take you. Jo Marie Ziegler didn\u2019t start life as a Michigan resident or envision a career in the property management industry, but that\u2019s where she ended up. In 1990, Jo Marie and her husband, Amos, moved to the Great Lake State so he could study at Michigan State University. \u00a022 years later, Jo Marie has become a veteran property professional.<\/p>\n

Based in Lansing, DTN Management Company<\/a>\u2019s portfolio includes 6800 residential units, mainly in the Lansing and East Lansing area.\u00a0 This includes a significant number of properties serving Michigan State University students.<\/p>\n

A \u201ccan do attitude\u201d is at the forefront of the DTN company values, and it\u2019s a quality that Jo Marie exemplifies. She\u2019s always ready to pitch in no matter what the need.\u00a0 For student housing providers, move-out and move-in is an \u201call hands on deck\u201d time of year. Jo Marie described it as, \u201clong hours and you\u2019re constantly busy but it feels really good when you\u2019re all done.\u201d During move-out, her job transitions to managing the rehab and freshening up of numerous DTN properties. Armed with a spreadsheet and well-versed in how to communicate with contractors, she works to turn the units as quickly as possible.<\/p>\n

The rest of the year, Jo Marie\u2019s job has a very different focus. A self-described \u201cYardi Guru\u201d who helps with Yardi support and internal training, she has a natural knack for databases. Here\u2019s how it started: \u201cWhen we converted our property management software to Yardi, one of the owners asked if I would move from the Cedar Village hub to the corporate office so I could help get that conversion to Enterprise up and running. From there, with the help of our Spartan-Net IT department we progressed from 5.0 to 6.0.\u201d<\/p>\n

Working with Yardi software naturally led to attendance at the annual Yardi Advanced Solutions Conference, which the DTN team attends in Washington D.C. each year. The first time she went to YASC, Jo Marie made it a point to meet Anant Yardi, founder and CEO of Yardi Systems. Each year since, she\u2019s made a point to reintroduce herself.<\/p>\n

\u201cAfter hearing him speak at the conference, I wanted to meet Anant; this is the person who designed the software I use every day and I just wanted to introduce myself and say hello.\u201d<\/p>\n

\"Jo<\/a>Traditions are important in Jo Marie\u2019s personal life as well. In 2004, the Ziegler\u2019s adopted a beautiful baby girl, Zoe XinLin, from China. It\u2019s important to Jo Marie that as Zoe grows, so does the knowledge of her Chinese heritage. Jo Marie is the current President of the Lansing Chapter of Families with Children from China<\/a> (FCC Lansing). The group formed as a playgroup for families with adopted children from China, who wanted their children to meet and socialize. It\u2019s also become a support venue for parents adopting from China, who are able to gain insight and advice from the group\u2019s 30 member families.<\/p>\n

FCC Lansing hosts zoo picnics and movie nights for fun as well as monthly events that will encourage their children to embrace Chinese culture: they celebrate Chinese New Year, Mid-Autumn Moon Festival, and hold a yearly Children\u2019s Dragon Boat Festival of Lansing.<\/p>\n

With help from the MSU Sailing Club, the kids enjoy crafts, rowing and racing in their makeshift dragon boats (canoes). They make their own drums to accompany the boat races, and also craft traditional armbands. Then kids ages 4-17 race across Lake Lansing with the guidance of certified MSU sailing instructors.<\/p>\n

\u201cWe want to make sure she has a connection with her Chinese roots,\u201d Jo Marie said of her daughter, whose homemade family tree includes her biological Chinese parents as well as the Ziegler\u2019s.<\/p>\n

Though Zoe may be too young to understand today, her adopted mother\u2019s journey is just one example of how where you come from may not be the place you make your life.<\/p>\n

*MSU.edu News Source: http:\/\/news.msu.edu\/story\/9758\/<\/a><\/p>\n

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