NJPAC - January/February/March 2020

Ralph Izzo, Chairman and CEO of PSEG, applauds Estabrook at NJPAC’s 2010 Spotlight Gala, which she co-chaired.
Elizabeth port. With Anne on board,
Elberon grew into a powerhouse in
industrial real estate. Her degrees—
with their thorough grounding in
skills like labor negotiations and
organizational behavior—helped
enormously.
“If you can understand what the other
people on your team are thinking, and
why they’re thinking it, you’ll be much
more successful than if you’re just up
there barking orders. It’s all about
working with people, she says.
And throughout her career, she
also became used to being the only
woman at every meeting. It didn’t
really bother her.
“I was the token! That’s just the way it
was,” she says. “I had wonderful male
mentors along the way. I have tried
in turn to mentor both young women
and men as part of what I do today.”
“She’s been breaking glass ceilings
everywhere she saw them,” says
Tim Lizura, NJPAC’s Senior Vice
President of Real Estate and Capital
Projects, who worked with her when
he ran the New Jersey Economic
Development Authority, and she sat
on the statewide group’s board. He
notes that she also sat on the boards
of many banks and water companies,
where she was often, again, the only
woman in the room.
Estabrook eventually took over
the family firm as president and
chairman. Today, Elberon owns and
manages a portfolio of approximately
three million square feet, much of
which consists of warehouse space
in Elizabeth and Newark, all easily
accessible from the cities’ ports.
“I really turned it into a real estate
management company. I bought
some buildings that were already
built and we managed them, and we
financed them. I learned to work with
banks and I learned to work with the
real estate brokers...There was no time
for me to be getting on a ladder out
on the construction site. That wouldn’t
have worked,” she says.
Over the years, she has been
awarded virtually every honor
available to a woman in business—
(continued on next page)
23