Quick Facts
Biography
Michael Alter is an American businessman who is the president and owner of the Alter Group, a commercial real estate developer.
Career
Alter's company has developed nearly 100,000,000 square feet (9,300,000 m) of commercial real estate. The group won the Beyond the Box: Exceptional Industrial Projects award for its development of the Thomson Learning Distribution Center.
Alter is founder and president of City Year Chicago, whose signature program is the City Year Youth Service Corps. The goal in the program is to bring together approximately 1,000 people ranging in age from 17–24 from diverse backgrounds and put them through a full-time commitment of a year of community service, leadership development, and civic engagement where they mentor children.
In 2005, he became the principal owner and chairman of the WNBA team: the Chicago Sky.
In 2009, Michael Alter was part of an investment team that purchased The New Republic, one of the nation's oldest political and cultural magazines.
Education
Alter has a Bachelor of Arts degree in government from Harvard University and a J.D. degree from the University of Chicago Law School. He and his wife Ellen are parents of three children. They live in Winnetka, Illinois.