[2] Harold anticipated entering the steel industry from an early age, studying metallurgy at Massachusetts Institute of Technology, from which he graduated in 1944.
[3] He did not wish to compete with his four brothers in the company, however, so in 1950 Harold Schnitzer decided to shift gears, selling his share of the business to provide capital for a new enterprise.
[3] Schnitzer began his career as a real estate developer with the purchase of an old warehouse in downtown Portland and its conversion into office space.
Over the years Schnitzer's company grew to the point where it owned 130 properties with 21,000,000 square feet (2,000,000 m2) of rentable commercial space in five western states, as well as more than 1,000 apartments.
[4] From 1993 until his death in 2011, Harold Schnitzer and his wife Arlene were responsible for $80 million in charitable giving to a wide range of projects.