The Community Preservation Corporation (CPC) announced the election of Robert J. Duffy, President and CEO of the Rochester Business Alliance, to the CPC board of directors.
Duffy, who has previously served as the Mayor of Rochester for multiple terms and as Lieutenant Governor of New York from 2010 to 2014 alongside Governor Andrew Cuomo, brings over 40 years of experience serving the State of New York.
He has received significant recognition for his efforts over the course of his career. To commend his work as Lieutenant Governor, during which time he chaired the Regional Economic Development Council with the aim of rebuilding the state’s economy and positioning New York as a global economic leader, the National Ethnic Coalition of Organizations awarded Duffy the Ellis Island Medal of Honor.
This prestigious award goes to notable American citizens who demonstrate a lifelong commitment to community service.
Duffy’s career in public service began when he joined the Rochester Police Department in 1976.
After a distinguished 28-year career on his city’s force, during which time he was promoted to chief of police, ffy resigned to run for mayor of Rochester.
He won the election and went on to serve multiple terms as Mayor of Rochester until he was tapped by Governor Andrew Cuomo to serve as his running mate in the 2010 Gubernatorial Election.
On January 1st, 2015, Duffy began serving as President and Chief Executive Officer of the Rochester Business Alliance.
•••
Colliers International announced that Cesare Berardi has joined its New Jersey operations as director of project management.
The industry veteran with more than 40 years of experience in project management — ranging from real estate planning, design, and construction to the strategic capital planning of projects in both the public and private sector — will focus on enhancing Colliers’ project management practice in New Jersey, while also working closely with the project management team in New York.
Previously, Berardi served as vice president of project management for Foit-Albert Associates where he was responsible for overseeing all aspects of project management in the development of the Port Authority of New York & New Jersey’s headquarters and police department at the World Trade Center.
He also managed the overall renovation of Verizon’s 1.4 million-square-foot facility in Basking Ridge, New Jersey.Prior to that, he served as Vice President of Global Real Estate for JP Morgan Chase, where he managed capital projects with a $100 to $200 million annual budget.
•••
Savanna has hired Kerry Powers as an associate with responsibilities that include acquisition underwriting and due diligence, financial modeling, deal structuring, and closing transactions.
Post closing, she will work on managing the execution of the business plan and ongoing asset management.
Prior to joining Savanna, Powers was a senior associate at CBRE Group, Inc. where she represented commercial real estate owners in the marketing, sourcing, structuring and negotiation of commercial leases in Manhattan.
She received an MBA from the McCombs School of Business at the University of Texas and a BA from Bucknell University.
At McCombs, she served as the Co-President of the Graduate Real Estate Society, Portfolio Manager on the REIT Fund and Co-Founder of the McCombs Private Equity Fund.
•••
The New York State Land Title Association (NYSLTA) announced its newly elected officers for the 2015-16 membership year.
Newly elected president, Marianne Mathieu, of Fidelity National Title, previously served as president-elect, working closely on the Executive Committee with outgoing president Rafael Castellanos, of Expert Title Insurance Agency.
Joining Mathieu and Castellanos as officers are Bill Collins, of Frontier Abstract and Research as president-elect and John Martinico of Security Title Guarantee Corporation of Baltimore as Treasurer.
The title section will be chaired by Marvin Bagwell of Old Republic Title Insurance Company with Mary Jane Keyse of Fidelity National Title Group as Vice-chair.
The abstracter and agent section chair is Richard Giliotti of The Judicial Title Insurance Company; vice-chair is DeAnna Stancanelli of National Granite Title Insurance Agency.
Mathieu previously she served as NYSLTA treasurer, and is a member of the Association of Real Estate Women (AREW) and the New York chapter of Commercial Real Estate Women (CREW).
•••
DLA Piper announced that Kerry Johnson has joined the firm’s Finance and Real Estate Capital Markets practices as a partner in New York.
Johnson’s practice is focused on securities offerings, M&A, corporate governance and general corporate law, primarily involving exchange-listed REITs and underwriters.
She also advises public companies on corporate governance and compliance matters, in addition to capital raising, investment and other strategic transactions.
Johnson arrives from Hunton & Williams LLP, where she was a partner. Prior to that, she was based in DLA Piper’s Raleigh office.
She earned her J.D. from Wake Forest University School of Law and her B.A. from University of Pennsylvania.
•••
Goulston & Storrs announced that Stephen Schweiger has joined the firm’s Real Estate practice in its New York office.
He joins the firm as a director and will co-chair the Real Estate Capital Markets/Debt group along with directors Adam Curry and James Lerner.
Schweiger joins the firm from Riemer & Braunstein LLP. His practice focuses on representing financial institutions in connection with construction, mezzanine and permanent financing projects and credit enhancement for the issuance of taxable and tax exempt bonding.
He received his A.B. from Stanford University and his J.D. from New York University School of Law.
•••
Mission Capital Advisors announced that Matthew Polci has joined the company’s Debt & Equity practice as a director.
He will be responsible for the origination, structuring, and placement of commercial real estate capital on behalf of owners, investors and developers nationwide.
With nearly a decade of experience in commercial real estate, Polci was formerly a director at Ackman-Ziff, where he structured and closed 72 transactions totaling more than $3.5 billion in debt, mezzanine and joint-venture equity financing.
Prior to his tenure at Ackman-Ziff, Polci was an associate with Avison Young in Toronto, Canada. He has also served as an analyst at Davis-Rea Investment Counsel, a privately held, Toronto-based investment management firm.
Polci holds a Bachelor of Commerce from Queen’s University in Canada (2007), and an M.S. in Real Estate Finance and Investment from New York University (2011).
•••
Biggins Lacy Shapiro & Company, LLC (BLS & Co.) has added Nadia Pasynkova and Kyle Syers to its teams in Princeton and Chicago.
The new consultants will join the firm’s site selection and incentives practices. Specialists in location economics, BLS & Co. provides site selection, incentives advisory, land use, energy and economic development services to clients across the country.
Nadia Pasynkova, based in Princeton, brings five years of experience in the pharmaceutical and software industries.
In her previous role as a data manager, she had frequent interactions with clients during clinical trials, customizing applications to address project protocols and specifications for monitoring data for compliance.
She earned a Bachelor of Arts in Mathematics from The College of New Jersey.
Kyle Syers will work from the firm’s Chicago office. He has held positions at the City of Bloomington, Indiana, and the Chicago Metropolitan Agency for Planning.
He holds a Master of Public Affairs from Indiana University’s School of Public and Environmental Affairs.
•••
Integrated Business Systems (IBS) has expanded its team with two seasoned sales managers.
Jodi Madsen is leading business development for IBS’s Managed IT Services practice.
Madsen brings 17 years of sales experience to her new position, including more than a decade of IT expertise.
Most recently, she held a senior account executive position with Broadview Networks.
Gene Blitz is focusing on the company’s Cloud ERP offering.
Blitz, who has more than two decades of sales experience in the enterprise resource planning (ERP) environment, most recently served as business applications account executive at Net@Work.
•••
Cushman & Wakefield announced the hire of a three-person, Dallas-based industrial investment sales team.
Randy Baird, Jud Clements and Robby Rieke round out Cushman & Wakefield’s national investment sales leadership within – and across – major U.S. industrial hubs.
Randy Baird, who worked for Cushman & Wakefield earlier in his career, has returned to the company as an executive vice president.
Jud Clements and Robby Rieke joined as senior director and director, respectively. They have been partners and leaders together for five years and have a total of 40 years of industrial investment experience and more than $30 billion in completed sales transactions.
The Baird, Clements, Rieke team joining Cushman & Wakefield comes just days after the company’s merger with DTZ. The new organization boasts a combined U.S. industrial investment sales volume of approximately $6 billion annually.
•••
Kramer Levin Naftalis & Frankel LLP announced that Jerold P. Dornbush has joined the firm as Special Counsel in the Real Estate practice.
During his 30-plus year legal career, Dornbush has advised and represented real estate owners, operators, and lenders, in a myriad of transactions.
He spent 14 years working as a real estate partner for local firm Dornbush Schaeffer Strongin & Venaglia.
Dornbush received his B.A. from the University of Michigan, Ann Arbor in 1981. He received his J.D. from the University of Miami School of Law in 1984.
Dornbush is a member of the New York State Bar Association and is a member of the International Council of Shopping Centers (ICSC).
Dornbush is the second senior-level addition to join Kramer Levin’s Real Estate practice this year. In April, Andrew Charles joined the firm as a partner in the Real Estate practice.
•••
David Young has joined L&L Holding Company, LLC, as its associate director of leasing.
Young, a former CBRE Senior Associate, will join L&L’s leasing team headed by executive vice president David Berkey and vice president Andrew Wiener.
In addition to helping lease the firm’s 6.5 million square foot, 13 building portfolio, it is also anticipated that Young will play a role in assisting in the company’s ongoing development, redevelopment and acquisition efforts.
Named CBRE’s “Rookie of the Year” in 2013, Young focuses primarily on corporate tenant real estate advisory and brokerage services, and has been involved in a wide variety of leasing, subleasing, acquisition, and disposition of corporate real estate transactions.
In addition to REITs and private equity investors, his clients have also included Vornado Realty Trust, William Macklowe Company and Madison Capital.
A graduate of the University of Central Florida, where he earned a Bachelor of Arts degree, Young is a member of the Real Estate Board of New York (REBNY), the National Association for Office and Industrial Properties (NAIOP), CoreNet and CCIM Institute.
