Theresa Greenfield can trace her interest in real estate and development back to her days growing up on a farm near the small Minnesota town of Bricelyn, just north of the Iowa border.

On Sept. 8, she started the next chapter in her career as the new executive director of Invest DSM, which works alongside property owners to strengthen older neighborhoods in Des Moines through a variety of programs for improvements to homes and businesses.

Growing up on a farm, Greenfield, 62, said she has always been interested in the outdoors and geography. And that passion was cemented during annual family school shopping trips to Minneapolis where she saw the city’s skyline open up before her. She would go on to attend Iowa Lakes Community College in Estherville before transferring to Iowa State University.

It was there that she took some regional planning and historic preservation classes that helped her discover a path forward for her passion and interests. She later attended Minnesota State University in Mankato where she earned her bachelor’s degree.

Her first job was as a planner for a civil engineering company in Minneapolis. Her next job was a director of real estate position for Rottlund Homes, a homebuilding company in Minneapolis. She later moved to Des Moines to lead their homebuilding company here.

When the homebuilding crisis hit, she joined Colby Management Co. working in commercial property management and development. After an unsuccessful bid for the U.S. Senate in 2020, she was asked to join the Biden administration and the USDA as state director for rural development.

With the change in administrations this year, Greenfield said she was looking for her next opportunity, which landed her the role of executive director for Invest DSM.

“I really wanted to just find a place where I can continue my passion, some of my purpose of continuing the work of public service and making a difference in a community that I care deeply about,” she said.

The Business Record sat down with Greenfield recently to learn more about her and the role she now serves leading Invest DSM. Her responses have been lightly edited for clarity and brevity.

Where did your interest in real estate and development begin?

I always liked being outside more than inside. I really appreciated the built environment. Our geography. The hills. The views. All of it. And then specifically, my parents would take us up to Minneapolis to go school shopping once a year. That was a big deal as a farm kid from a town of 500 or so. As you go north on Interstate 35, it’s kind of near Burnsville, you come over a big hill and you see the horizon of the city, and I remember just being fascinated, not only with the landscape where I grew up and knew, but this vast view of opportunity in front of me. 

Looking at your professional background, what is a lesson you’ve learned that you can apply to your current role at Invest DSM?

One of the things I learned and really came to value was all the community input and working with the neighbors across all my roles and my travels. When there are strong, good community leaders, then good things happen for communities and neighborhoods, and folks like me can maybe help bring in the tools. We can help bring in financing. We can help with experts. But if it’s not a community-driven idea, then it generally didn’t work. It couldn’t be top-down. It had to be nurtured from them. So I think I really developed skills and a desire to hear from them and find ways to pull that out of the community. They decide what to do. We just help with the resources. That pattern is really successful when that is put front and center. When that is put front and center — what the community values — those communities are more successful.

What was it about the Invest DSM role that attracted you?

Just the whole mission makes me smile. I’m really proud to be part of Des Moines and I wanted to be part of what they do. Before I applied, I rode my bicycle through Invest DSM  neighborhoods to see the work they are doing firsthand, to see the signs and the pride in the community, and I want to be a part of that. I’ve seen what happens when neighbors can take ownership across the whole state, and I wanted to be a part of that right here in a town where I live, in this town I love, in the little neighborhood shopping areas where I go. It was a little bit personal, but also because how they do it is so successful.

You began your role with Invest DSM in September. What have your first few weeks been like?

It’s just been getting acclimated. The team, they’re fantastic. They love the neighborhoods they work in. They’re proud of what Invest DSM does. It’s been getting to know the people, our team, it’s been traveling the neighborhoods. I’ve been out with our construction specialists. I’ve tagged along with our neighborhood development manager. I’m just taking the time to meet those community leaders, whether they’re city council, county board, our executive board, and I’ll be meeting with neighborhood presidents and leaders. I’ve been meeting with a lot of partners, so just getting immersed in all the work we do and beginning to understand what that is like.

What challenges face Invest DSM?

It’s just part of the continuum of housing and other challenges of housing across the state of Iowa, Polk County and Des Moines. We are just one partner. As I have traveled across the state, housing is always a priority people are talking about, whether it’s affordability, whether it’s aging housing stock. There is more demand than we have resources to do what we do, and the kind of investments we make in home renovations. We have a long list of areas we would like to expand into. If we had more, we could do more. When you look at the numbers you will see the impact we’ve made, not only in numbers of projects, but the dollars we’ve invested. But the city’s big and there’s more neighborhoods we would like to serve, so additional resources would be helpful for that.

What book have you read recently?

It’s been so long since I’ve read the Harry Potter books. I read them with my kids. I started reading them again because of my granddaughter. She’s only 3 and I said to my husband, ‘I wonder when we can start reading those to her,’ and I actually re-read the very first Harry Potter book thinking, ‘OK, I’m going to let her get a little older,’ but that is a book I read this summer and the reason why.