MBA PROFILE: Mehr Pastakia, Carey MBA Student and Founder of Pratum Greenroofs
Mehr Pastakia, a Carey Business School MBA who has founded a company that repairs and maintains green roofs in the Baltimore Metro, was recently profiled in an article by The Hub, Johns Hopkins University news website.
Pastakia is principal owner of Pratum Greenroofs LLC, a company she founded while a student at Carey in 2012 after identifying a need for a speciality maintenance service to help property owners and managers care for their projects. The company’s site-specific maintenance protocols are made to respond to seasonal fluctuations and microclimates to bring the best value to customers.
Pastakia has enjoyed quite a bit of early success: The company has landed several prominent contracts, including ones with the federal Department of Transportation, the National Institutes of Health in Maryland, the International Monetary Fund, the American Society of Landscape Architects, and various commercial properties.
“Right now we want to deliver on these new big projects. It’s been a great year,” Pastakia told The Hub. “Word of mouth has spread, and it’s fun and exciting. I like to think it’s all built on trust. People trust you know what you’re doing, and that you will do your utmost to take care of the roof for them.”
Interestingly enough, Pastakia’s first project was with Harbor East Property Management Group for the Carey School’s Legg Mason Tower in downtown Baltimore. She got the gig thanks to some good Karma during her MBA interview. As the Hub article states, “Pastakia sat down with Mary Somers, the school’s associate director of admissions. After learning of Pastakia’s background in horticulture, Somers told the prospective student about Legg Mason building’s green roof, which needed some love. The roof’s vegetation, planted in trays, had turned mostly brown and weedy due to neglect and lack of access to water.”
“I thought she was amazing the second I started talking with her,” Somers said. “I then got to know her better. She’s a perfectionist, in a good way. And she’s very good at building a network. When she hears about an opportunity or lead, she follows through with it. People feel very comfortable around her and trust her, which is a wonderful quality to have. She identified a niche trend and went after it.”
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Max Pulcini
Max Pulcini is a Philadelphia-based writer and reporter. He has an affinity for Philly sports teams, Super Smash Bros. and cured meats and cheeses. Max has written for Philadelphia-based publications such as Spirit News, Philadelphia City Paper, and Billy Penn, as well as national news outlets like The Daily Beast.
