Nathan S. Collier

Operating under The Collier Companies and The Paradigm Group umbrellas, headquartered in Gainesville, Florida, founder and chairman Nathan S. Collier has been involved in multifamily acquisition, development, operation, and finance for most of his business life. Beginning with a single duplex purchased while he was in college, Collier has assembled a still-growing portfolio of approximately 8,500 apartments—more than 18,000 bedrooms—in Gainesville, Ocala, Orlando, Tallahassee, Tampa, and other Florida locations, as well as in Norman, Oklahoma.

Collier is the largest multifamily owner in Gainesville, home of the University of Florida, the state’s flagship university. He has built what is probably the largest and most successful student housing portfolio from scratch, and has been recognized by Forbes magazine and the National MultiHousing Council as a leader in the field.

He graduated from the University of Florida with a Bachelor’s Degree in Finance. After a stint with Equitable Life Assurance Company in Manhattan, Collier returned to receive a Master’s in Business Administration. At that time, he also became a Certified Public Accountant, scoring in the top ten  as he passed the CPA exam on his first sitting. Collier earned a J.D. from the University of Florida School of Law and passed the bar exam on his first sitting as well. He is a member of Harvard Business School’s OPM 25 class. Collier is a member of the Florida Bar, and licensed in Florida as a CPA, real estate broker, and building contractor.

Collier has endowed the Nathan S. Collier Master of Science in Real Estate program at University of Florida’s Warrington College of Business. He serves as an adjunct professor for the college, regularly teaching graduate- and undergraduate-level courses for the Department of Finance, Insurance and Real Estate.

Collier is lead author of Construction Funding, The Process of Real Estate Development, Appraisal, and Finance, published in 2002 by John Wiley & Sons; his updated and revised edition will be published in the fall of 2007.

A life member of the board of the University of Florida Foundation, Collier also sits on the board of the U.F. Center for Real Estate Studies and the National MultiHousing Council. He is a member of The Real Estate Roundtable and the National Association of Home Builders Multifamily Council, and is active in World Presidents’ Organization. Collier has spoken to the Commercial Real Estate Investment Conference and National MultiHousing Council Student Housing Conference in Washington, D.C., and he regularly judges student oral arguments for the U.F. Levin College of Law’s Appellate Advocacy program.

A generous supporter of the arts, Collier supports Gainesville’s Hippodrome State Theatre and Dance Alive! National Ballet as well as the University of Florida’s Phillips Center for the Performing Arts, Harn Museum, and Museum of Natural History. He also is a financial patron of New York’s Museum of Modern Art, Guggenheim Museum, and Metropolitan Museum of Art.