David A. Stuzin

In 1998, the David A. Stuzin Hall was named in honor of the family patriarch, David A. Stuzin. This building houses four large classrooms where classes for the undergraduate School of Business are held. It is also the home to faculty and department offices for the Finance, Management, and Information Systems and Operations Management departments, the Center for Entrepreneurship and Innovation, the Poe Center for Business Ethics and the Bergstrom Center for Real Estate Studies. Beginning in Spring of 2011, the David F. Miller Center for Retailing Education and Research will be housed on the first floor of Stuzin Hall.

Born in 1915, David Stuzin was a visionary with great understanding of his fellow man and future trends, who recognized the financial opportunities present in the state of Florida following the end of the Great Depression. After graduating from New York University with an accounting degree, he became a certified public accountant and moved to Miami in 1939. Over the next decade he established his own firm which developed into one of the largest independent accounting groups in Florida.

David Stuzin realized the rapid population growth of the state and the demographics of a Sunbelt economy and understood the potential opportunities attainable in financing single family housing through thrift institutions. In 1952, he founded Citizens Federal Savings and Loan, obtaining the first Federal charter granted to a savings institution in Dade County in over 20 years. Based on his leadership, Citizens Federal developed into the largest and most profitable thrift in the State of Florida.

David Stuzin was an entrepreneur who took risks in founding and expanding businesses, but also knew how to manage them prudently. In a mercantile world whose signature is competition, David Stuzin’s signature was integrity. His foresight, creativity, energy and perseverance can be summarized in one of his favorite quotations: “Our doubts are traitors and often make us lose the good we might obtain by fearing to attempt.” David passed away in 1982.