Ever since she was seven years old, Keshia Albrecht seemed destined to work in real estate.
Growing up in the Florida panhandle, Albrecht remembers “For Sale” signs sparking her curiosity as she wondered who was buying and selling the vacant swamp lands. When she grew older, she became interested in architecture and noticed how towns developed over time. Her favorite video game was “The Sims,” which let her build her own virtual homes and cities.
“I was always fascinated by watching communities grow,” Albrecht said.
Yet Albrecht, now 38, initially built a successful career doing something else entirely. For nearly 16 years, Albrecht worked in the U.S. Air Force, first as an air traffic controller and later as a mechanic who repaired fighter jets and other military planes. It wasn’t until a medical condition cut that career short that she returned to her childhood passion.
As she prepares to graduate on May 10 from the USC Sol Price School of Public Policy, Albrecht is looking forward to beginning a new career as a real estate market analyst in Detroit.
She’ll work for Berkadia, a joint venture of Berkshire Hathaway and Jefferies Financial Group, analyzing U.S. Department of Housing and Urban Development (HUD) projects and advising her firm on whether to invest in the federal agency’s Midwest multi-family developments.
Albrecht credits the USC Price School for teaching her about the role real estate developers play in communities, from affecting traffic patterns to potentially displacing longtime residents to adding much-needed housing stock.
“Price allowed me to open my eyes,” Albrecht said. “With real estate development being in the policy school, it allowed me to understand the relationship between real estate development, how we develop, what we’re developing, and how that impacts the community as a whole.”
When Albrecht begins her job at Berkadia this summer, it won’t be her first time working in the Motor City. She traveled to Detroit in spring 2023 with eight other USC Price School classmates to complete her capstone course. During the trip, Albrecht met with city officials and constituents and visited project sites in the city’s west side. She learned about a planned recreational pathway aimed at connecting Detroit’s neighborhoods through a combination of new and existing trails and protected bike lanes.
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Find Out More“It made me love the city even more,” said Albrecht, whose husband is from Michigan. The trip to Detroit also gave her a holistic view of what happened in the city over the last 60 years and showed her how important it is for a project to have community involvement.
As an older student, Albrecht emerged as a leader within the student cohort, helping her fellow students gain insights from her observations and comments, said Adjunct Professor Donald Spivack, who organized the trip.
“She expressed both surprise and delight in the progressiveness she saw in what was taking place in some communities and the potential for the recovery of the city,” Spivack said. “That spurred her interest in seeking to return post-graduation to engage in the rebirth of Detroit. It’s great that she will have the opportunity to work and grow in that metropolitan area.”
In addition to a Bachelor of Science in Real Estate Development from the USC Price School, Albrecht will earn a Master’s in Construction Management from the USC Viterbi School of Engineering.
“I was always fascinated by watching communities grow.”
Keshia Albrecht
She sometimes studied with the Veterans Association at USC. “I found the veterans association to be a great place to feel connected with other veterans,” she said. “Everyone was so helpful and the other veterans were more willing to talk because of our military background.”
If successfully pivoting to a new career wasn’t impressive enough, Albrecht accomplished this while juggling parenting and commuting 90 minutes (on a good day) to class three times a week. Albrecht is the mother of two kids – a 14-year-old and 6-month-old – and lives in Rosamond, Calif., about 85 miles from the USC campus.
She had to be out the door at 5:30 a.m. on days when she had an internship before class, getting home at 7:30 p.m. Albrecht managed this while earning high marks; she received the Dean’s Certificate of Merit Award for maintaining a GPA of 3.5 or above.
“I can’t take all the credit for that,” she said, “If it wasn’t for my family – especially my husband who wanted me to focus on school over the two and a half years at USC – this would not have been possible.”
