CHICAGO—Milton Podolsky, the founder of Podolsky|Circle CORFAC International, passed away peacefully last weekend at the age of 94. He is survived by his wife Lois, his brother Jerry, children Steven, Bonnie and Randy, seven grandchildren and four great grandchildren. His first wife, Phyllis predeceased him.

Podolsky was one of the most highly-recognized individuals in the Chicago business community, and even though he didn't begin his 50-plus year career in commercial real estate until the age of 36, he shaped a large portion of the O'Hare industrial market.

Born in 1921, Podolsky attended DePaul University and studied at John Marshall Law School before serving in the US Army from 1943 to 1946. But it wasn't until 1957, while working at his family's Chicago drugstore at the corner of State and Elm Sts., that a frequent customer impressed with Podolsky's salesmanship encouraged him to consider a real estate career.

After careful deliberation Podolsky decided to take a chance. Over the next five years he worked at two firms in the Chicago market doing primarily industrial brokerage, and not too long after, started developing and managing buildings in what later became known as the O'Hare market. In 1962, Milt co-founded his first entrepreneurial firm. And less than a decade after that, in 1971, he established Podolsky and Associates, Ltd.

He was later joined by his sons, Steven and Randy, and for many years his daughter, Bonnie – and the organization continued to expand and eventually evolved into the nationally-recognized firm Podolsky|Circle CORFAC International.

His professional accomplishments include the development of seven industrial parks and myriad individual industrial and office buildings, as well as Westbrook Corporate Center, a 1.1 million square-foot office complex in Westchester, IL.

The company still operates under his guiding principles, including the notion that “Negotiation isn't war.  Both sides must win.” His approach has proven successful throughout decades of business cycles, and still works because it's a timeless one:  “Relationships are our company's bottom line.”

Known as both as a humanist and a humorist to his family, friends and business associates, Podolsky coyly refuted his altruistic nature in his annual holiday letter from 1996 with a thought he'd originally written in a journal given to him by Bonnie years earlier: “In some ways, I am very selfish – I really try to live my life in such a way that somebody will miss me when I'm gone.”

For information on funeral services and donations in his honor, visit:www.chicagojewishfunerals.com/funeral-notices