On an early Monday morning in June, William Cummings, A58, owner by many estimates of approximately 7 million square feet of mostly office space (that's greater than the 4 million total controlled by his alma mater) climbed aboard a bulldozer to help clear a piece of property he is developing outside of Boston.

Cummings gets a kick from bulldozers and likes building things. Serious by nature, more reserved than gregarious when discussing his businesses, he nonetheless breaks into a grin when describing his career of creating new properties and refurbishing major old structures. "I got into real estate because I enjoyed the construction side of the business," he says from his modest office in Cummings Park in Woburn, Mass. "It's like playing with Tonka toys and a very big Erector set. The other half of the day is sometimes like a game of Monopoly."

If life were a Monopoly game, Cummings would be the guy with everything but the railroads, acquiring key properties around the board, while his affiliated Cummings Management collects lease rents from 1,600 thimbles, top hats, race cars and shoes -- the tenant firms employing tens of thousands of Massachusetts workers.

Cummings' Company rebuilt the Choate Medical Center in Woburn into a 130,000 square-foot congregate living center for the elderly and handicapped adults. He did the same for a similar retirement center, New Horizons, in Marlborough, Mass. His current project, one of the company's most enterprising endeavors, is transforming "The Shoe"--a 95-year-old, 1.5 million square-foot concrete-and-steel landmark in Beverly, Mass. -- into a thriving office and research complex.

Risk enters the picture through the financing of the projects and the fickle nature of tenant/landlord relationships. Most of his buildings exist without bank mortgages. Their development appears to be financed through construction loans that are paid off with rental incomes. His firm has had success in finding tenants and making them happy with on-site amenities such as health clubs, day-care centers, restaurants and banks.

"I don't gamble with things I can't control, but certainly in business, we face gambles on a daily basis," he says. (On his office wall hangs a picture of Cummings, grinning wildly, arms outstretched, diving into a New Zealand chasm with a bungee cord attached to his ankles.) "I have to admit I do get a certain satisfaction in risk," he adds.

Cummings Credits Tufts

Before he got into real estate and right after he graduated from Tufts, Cummings worked for Vick Chemical Co. and Gorton's of Gloucester, constantly traveling the country. In 1963 he returned to his hometown of Medford and bought Old Medford Foods for a few thousand dollars. He sold it three years later for a cool million.

"Tufts was an excellent experience that definitely helped me and prepared me for the business world," he says. "I paid my own tuition through Tufts, but I have always felt a major sense of obligation, which is why I have given to the university every year since graduation."

This year, his 40th reunion, Cummings -- a Tufts trustee emeritus and recipient of the university's Distinguished Service Award -- made his largest gift: $1.5 million to create the William and Joyce Cummings Chair in Entrepreneurship and Business Economics. "I have had contact over the years with several students who were very concerned that Tufts only offered a handful of economics courses that had a practical application for them after graduation," Cummings says. "I focused on entrepreneurship because I wanted to establish something that helps students develop the skills that are necessary to run a business and to assist people who seek to own their own business."

Cummings' thinking jibed well with Tufts' own plans for the economics department, says Senior Vice President and Provost Sol Gittleman. He notes that the department created a Business Education Committee in 1996 specifically to address the issue of how to fulfill students' requests for more applied economics courses.

"A Tufts goal for students who are highly motivated to enter the business world is to help them succeed by teaching economics within a strong liberal arts environment," Gittleman said. "What Bill has done through the establishment of this chair is to fortify that goal. I think courses in entrepreneurship and business administration, combined with the department's existing strength in traditional quantitative economics, will embed a challenging and practical business focus into our liberal arts tradition."

A Record of Giving

Cummings directs his philanthropy through the Cummings Properties Foundation. In 1997, the foundation granted its first series of McKeown Scholarships to college-bound high school seniors from communities where Cummings Properties has substantial interests. The scholarship program is named after James L. McKeown, the former president of Cummings Properties who died suddenly at the young age of 41. "I am interested not only in taking care of our [four] children but ensuring also that the 400-plus employees who work here are provided with opportunities," Cummings says. He has fulfilled those two goals with his very successful, ever-expanding company. Now he is spending a little more time traveling and playing golf, or chartering an ocean-going bare foot sailboat every so often with his wife, Joyce. But Cummings has no plans to disengage himself entirely from his work, especially because it provides him the opportunity to "play" with his real-life toys -- bulldozers, cranes and front-end loaders.

"I like what I do, but working just to add more zeros to one's networth sheet is not that fulfilling," he says. "Helping to create this new course of study at Tufts, to educate people able to deal with the changing needs of society, however, is very satisfying."