In Memory of a ULI Leader: Longtime Member and ULI Governor Roy W. Sheargold

ULI governor and honorary member Roy W. Sheargold, 88, of Sydney, Australia, died July 6. Sheargold, chairman of the Sheargold Group, a diversified property investment and development organization based in Brookvale, Sydney, was an active ULI member for more than 40 years. He died as he was returning to Sydney following a month of convalescence in Glasgow, Scotland, where he had suffered a mild heart attack in early June.

Sheargold attended ULI’s 2010 Fall Meeting in Washington, D.C., where he introduced his grandson Michael as representing the next generation of the Sheargold family to be involved in the institute. Both attended the ULI Governors Retreat at St. Michaels, Maryland, following the meeting.

Sheargold was once asked to name his favorite ULI memories. His reply: hosting ULI groups visiting Australia, being selected as a ULI trustee and honorary member, and contributing to ULI’s global expansion and its efforts to “look beyond the shores of North America.”

According to ULI Foundation president Richard Rosan, Sheargold kept in contact with many at ULI while convalescing in Scotland. “He called these communiques ‘epistles from Glasgow.’ In fact, we had just received his last missive hours before his passing,” Rosan said. “Roy touched the lives of many people with his smile, his generosity, and his trademark gifting of koala bears that he fondly distributed to ULI staff and members at the meetings. Our thoughts and sympathies are with Michael and the rest of the Sheargold family.”