GSR: After becoming chairman, what did you realize was the biggest challenge facing the industry?

Maurin: Obviously, having been in the shopping center business for 30 years and being active in ICSC for about 20, you go into this job thinking, "The reason they gave me this job is because I know all there is." The humbling part of this job is that you come out of it and realize that in that one year how much you didn't know and how much you have learned. It is an eye-opening experience, particularly the travel. Any of us in the business tend to be focused on our backyard, on our country, or whatever. The two biggest eye openers for me, one was more North American and one was more international. On the North American side, it's the role that government continues to play in terms of either trying to interfere with our commerce or our business. Obviously, I was aware of that, but I really got a first-hand look this year talking to developers around North America. On the federal side, the biggest issue is the e-commerce issue where the federal government will not allow a level playing field between traditional shopping center formats and electronic formats. And on the state and local level, the growth-management issues, the big-box legislation, the ballot-box zoning, those become more apparent.

On the international side, every country I went to, I got a chance to meet the developers there and to visit a lot of centers. Internationally, our biggest challenge is also our biggest opportunity. That is the tremendous growth that's occurring in the developing countries of the world, like India and Eastern Europe. It's only been a few years since they had their first shopping center built, and the shopping center, as we know it, was kind of a new thing to consumers in those markets as they emerged and became more affluent. I think ICSC's biggest role is, as shopping center retail emerges in these countries, we've got to be there to serve our developer and retailer members in helping them understand how things work.