Jo Marie Ziegler

DTN Management Company

By Yardi Blog Staff on Jun 28, 2012 in People

You never know where life’s journey will take you. Jo Marie Ziegler didn’t start life as a Michigan resident or envision a career in the property management industry, but that’s 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.  22 years later, Jo Marie has become a veteran property professional.

Based in Lansing, DTN Management Company’s portfolio includes 6800 residential units, mainly in the Lansing and East Lansing area.  This includes a significant number of properties serving Michigan State University students.

A “can do attitude” is at the forefront of the DTN company values, and it’s a quality that Jo Marie exemplifies. She’s always ready to pitch in no matter what the need.  For student housing providers, move-out and move-in is an “all hands on deck” time of year. Jo Marie described it as, “long hours and you’re constantly busy but it feels really good when you’re all done.” 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.

The rest of the year, Jo Marie’s job has a very different focus. A self-described “Yardi Guru” who helps with Yardi support and internal training, she has a natural knack for databases. Here’s how it started: “When 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.”

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’s made a point to reintroduce herself.

“After 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.”

Traditions are important in Jo Marie’s personal life as well. In 2004, the Ziegler’s adopted a beautiful baby girl, Zoe XinLin, from China. It’s 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 (FCC Lansing). The group formed as a playgroup for families with adopted children from China, who wanted their children to meet and socialize. It’s also become a support venue for parents adopting from China, who are able to gain insight and advice from the group’s 30 member families.

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’s Dragon Boat Festival of Lansing.

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.

“We want to make sure she has a connection with her Chinese roots,” Jo Marie said of her daughter, whose homemade family tree includes her biological Chinese parents as well as the Ziegler’s.

Though Zoe may be too young to understand today, her adopted mother’s journey is just one example of how where you come from may not be the place you make your life.

*MSU.edu News Source: http://news.msu.edu/story/9758/

 

Learn more about Jo Marie:

What is your favorite type of music?

Any 70’s music played on LP’s.

What is your favorite book of all time and (optional: why)?

The classic series of Nancy Drew Mysteries.  I live vicariously through the heroine.

If you have an hour of free time to spare, what do you do with it?

1st – call my best friend in NY to catch up.  2nd – work on a jigsaw puzzle.

What kinds of food do you like?

Do Peeps count?  I’m a blatant peeps-aholic.

What do you like best about your job? 

That I enjoy going to work every day.

If you could have dinner with anyone, alive or historical, who would it be?

Benjamin Franklin.

What do you want to be when you grow up?

As happy as I am now.

Do you speak any other languages, and which ones?

No L  I should add that to my bucket list.

If you could own one piece of famous art, sculpture, memorabilia or historic artifact, what would the item be?

Renoir’s painting of A Girl with a Watering Can.

What are some things on your bucket list?

Lemur safari in Madagascar, write a bestseller, attend the Olympics, visit the Galapagos.

What was your last Do It Yourself project?

Watching the handyman fix my last do it yourself project.

What athlete or sports figure do you most admire?

Sparty.  Go Green, Go White, Go MSU!

What online sites do you visit?

Lately it has been Pinterest.

What’s something about you that few people know?

I announced the ski jumps at Bear Mountain State Park.