When the Yankees won it all at their new stadium in Game 6, Deanna Polizzo was there. She was there Opening Day seven months earlier when the Yanks christened the stadium with a loss to the Indians. Polizzo was also there when Derek Jeter bested Lou Gehrig as all-time Yankee hit leader Sept. 11. Few can claim to have seen a perfect game ”“ only 16 have been recorded since 1900; Polizzo has seen two: David Wells on May 17, 1998 and David Cone on July 18, 1999.
Yet Polizzo, 38, could well be the person least likely to assume the sobriquet “bleacher bum.” She is poised and articulate and of 100 percent Italian heritage beneath a mane of straight strawberry hair. Her undergraduate degrees are in finance and accounting. She has “not quite finished” her MBA degree at Fairfield University, currently concentrating on finance, but a switch to a real estate concentration is a possibility.
Polizzo is vice president and senior producer for NorthMarq Capital where she has worked four years. Her commute from Fairfield, Conn., to New York City, she says, gobbles three hours per day and has seriously crimped the time she used to employ staying in playing shape. But she has not let sports slip from her life. Like many standing on those train platforms, she says, “I”™ve had to make adjustments ”“ there just isn”™t enough time.”
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During her college years at Rhode Island”™s Bryant College (now Bryant University), Polizzo played competitive beach volleyball. Now, she plays in the summer when she can. She skis, too, mostly in Vermont and says, “I love it, love it, love it. It”™s my big winter thing.” She golfs and on a recent November Sunday shot 112, confessing, “I”™m horrible, but it”™s such a nice walk.” She has just taken up squash. Running, which is often the busy person”™s first choice for workouts, is off limits for Polizzo: asthma.
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Besides the Yankees ”“ she attended a dozen games this year ”“ Polizzo is a Giants football fan. She roots for the Mets and the Jets on occasion, but she will not root for teams from up Boston way ”“ the Red Sox and the Patriots. She is also a UConn basketball fan ”“ both men”™s and women”™s programs. “I try to stay busy,” she says. “I try to do a lot.”
NorthMarq, says Polizzo, is the largest privately held mortgage banking firm in the country, with 140 loan originators and a $38 billion servicing portfolio. The Minneapolis-based company ”“ owned by the Pohlad family ”“ also runs an investment sales group specializing in real estate.
“The Fairfield, Westchester and New Haven area is where I spend most of my time. It”™s easier and more productive for me to work that footprint, plus I”™m familiar with the area so I know most of the buildings and the properties.”
As president of the Suburban New York-Connecticut chapter of NAIOP (National Association of Industrial and Office Properties), Polizzo recently greeted 75-plus attendees at NAIOP”™s Winged Foot Golf Club awards gala in Mamaroneck. She says NAIOP is working to define the live-work-play concept in developments. She calls such mixed use “the wave of the future,” calling for the sort of flexible space that can accommodate offices, retail and living.
Between the sports and the real estate, Polizzo maintains another passion: nieces Megan and Julia, the daughters of her brother Robert and his wife, Lisa. “They”™re my world,” she says. “We could not be prouder of them.”
