Research Foundation Visionaries

Laurel Casey is a Vice President of Investments at GCP targeting new acquisitions and development opportunities on the West Coast with a focus on Southern California. Prior to joining GCP in 2022, she was an Investment Director at Prologis covering various markets in the Southwest US. She has previously held other real estate related roles at Hines, Wells Fargo, and Goldman Sachs. Laurel earned her BA from Yale University and an MBA from UCLA Anderson School of Management. She is a member of the NAIOP Developing Leaders Forum 16, the UCLA Real Estate Alumni Group, and the 2020 NAIOP YPG Class.

Cassie Catania-Hsu is the Managing Director of CBRE in Las Vegas, NV. Cassie oversees all CBRE Advisory lines of business for the Las Vegas valley, including Advisory & Transaction Services, Capital Markets, Debt & Structured Finance, Property Management, and Valuation & Advisory Services. A nearly 30-year resident of Las Vegas, she has more than a decade of experience in local commercial real estate. Ms. Catania-Hsu has a Bachelor of Science in Real Estate from the University of Nevada Las Vegas (UNLV), a Commercial Real Estate Certification from the UNLV LIED Center for Real Estate and is a graduate of the 2018 Developing Leaders Institute from NAIOP Southern Nevada. Ms. Catania-Hsu also serves on the NAIOP Southern Nevada Board of Directors and CREW Las Vegas Board of Directors.

Michael Chukwueke is the Vice President of Asset Management at BentallGreenOak, located in Santa Monica, Ca. BentallGreenOak is a global real estate investment management advisor and a globally recognized provider of real estate services, and in his role Mr. Chukwueke is responsible for overseeing and directing operations, leasing and financing objectives for the Southwest Region. Mr. Chukwueke earned his MBA from Chapman University, BS from Pepperdine University and received certificates in Strategic Financial Analysis and Negotiation from Harvard Business School and the London School of Economics, respectively. He is the current co-chair of NAIOP SoCal’s Diversity Task Force and the Chair of the Young Professionals Group Alumni Association.

John Drachman is responsible for Waterford Property Company’s commercial division and capital raising activities. Since starting his predecessor firm, Stillwater Investment Group, in 2014, Drachman has acquired and been a partner in over $750 million of office, retail, and apartment assets in Southern California. To acquire these assets, he has created and developed joint venture partnerships with high net-worth private investors, family offices and institutional equity funds while leveraging his strong relationships within the brokerage community to source opportunities.

Matt Ela is the Senior Vice President, Operations at Bixby Land Company. In his current role, Mr. Ela is responsible for the implementation of the company’s tactical goals directing portfolio management, property management and construction management. Prior to his role in operations, Mr. Ela directed office and industrial acquisition activity for the company with an emphasis on core-plus and value add strategies in the Southeast. Mr. Ela is member of the NAIOP Capital Markets III National Forum.

Ryan Elazari is the Senior Director at Empire Management, located in New York. He has extensive experience working directly with the CEO, Vice President of Acquisitions, and Director of Construction to establish strategies for acquisitions and development projects. As part of the team, he successfully sourced, underwrote, and closed over $100,000,000 of distressed asset transactions. In addition, he serves as an asset manager for their holdings, commercial and residential. He is also an Adjunct Professor at Baruch College, teaching real estate entrepreneurship to graduate students. He received a Master of Science degree in real estate from Baruch College and is a member of the NAIOP New York City chapter.

Jordan serves as Senior Vice President of Midwest Markets at Faropoint, a real estate private equity firm. She oversees acquisitions and asset management in the Midwest and has completed 17 individual acquisitions totaling over 2 million square feet since joining in April of 2021. Prior to joining Faropoint, Jordan worked as a Vice President of Acquisitions and Asset Management at Lincoln Advisors, a Lincoln Property Company affiliate. During her time at Lincoln, Jordan was involved in over $900 million of industrial and office acquisitions as well as $275 million of dispositions on behalf of two separate account clients. Jordan is a member of IWIRE, REFF, serves on the Developing Leaders board of NAIOP Chicago, and is a NAIOP Forum member. Jordan received a BBA in Real Estate from the University of Wisconsin in Madison.

Kelsey has been with Heitman for seven years and is currently an Assistant Vice President in the firm’s North American Acquisitions group. She is responsible for originating, negotiating, executing, analyzing, and valuing potential investments in direct equity real estate within the United States, focused in the western part of the country.

Maria Elena Poyer is currently a Development Manager for Amazon’s North Americas Operations Real Estate Operations. She focuses on supporting the growth of Amazon’s Last Mile (AMZL) operations. Prior to her management role, she supported closing over $4.6B of commercial real estate transactions. Before joining Amazon in 2019, she worked in investment sales at JLL/HFF specializing in Medical Office/Office transactions in California and the Pacific North West. She started her career in commercial real estate in Bank of America Merrill Lynch's Commercial Real Estate Banking division in San Francisco and worked for the firm for over 3 years. Upon moving to Seattle in 2017, she joined NAIOP Washington’s chapter where is she has been the Co-Chair for the NAIOP Washington’s Developer Leaders committee since 2018. She is also currently serving her second year on a Developing Leader NAIOP National Forum and was elected to serve on NAIOP’s national executive committee as their Developing Leader Representative for 2021. She is proud to be an alum and fellow Don from University of San Francisco. Her passions outside of work, include traveling, exploring the food scene, and wine tasting.

Marie Purkert is a Senior Associate and serves as Director of Business Development for christopher consultants, a civil engineering, surveying, land planning and landscape architecture firm founded in 1982. Ms. Purkert started her career at the firm in 2004 and has been an active member of NAIOP Northern Virginia since 2011.

As Assistant General Counsel for the Northwestern Mutual, Mike Riopel represents the company (including Northwestern Mutual Real Estate Investments and its subsidiaries) in all aspects of managing its $49 billion international real estate investment portfolio (composed of approximately 80 percent fixed income and 20 percent equity investments), including permanent and construction financing transactions, equity and joint venture development projects, acquisition and disposition of real estate assets, asset management, and leasing transactions.

Bryan Rosenberg is a Director in the Chicago office of Eastdil Secured with more than 12 years of experience in real estate and finance. He is responsible for advising clients on Real Estate capital markets transactions across the United States with a focus on the Midwest. Throughout his career, Bryan has been involved in more than $11 billion in investment sale and recapitalization transactions. Prior to joining Eastdil Secured in 2019, he was a Director in HFF’s Chicago office. Bryan is a licensed Real Estate Salesperson in the State of Illinois and holds a B.S. in Finance from Miami University. He is a member of the NAIOP Real Estate Investment & Development I National Forum.

Phil Storch is a Vice President with Ancora Real Estate where he oversees all construction activities for the firm. Phil’s experience is across all aspects of design and construction within multiple asset classes, and he has managed projects requiring collaboration with jurisdictions, public utilities, and multiple stakeholders outside of the direct project owners, contractors, and design professionals. Prior to joining Ancora in 2021, Phil was a Senior Director with Washington REIT based in Washington, D.C.

Phil received a Bachelor of Arts in Government and International Relations from George Mason University and a Master of Science in Real Estate Development from George Mason University.

Dan Vickerman is an Assistant Vice President in Heitman’s Investment Research group. He is responsible for analysis of the office and industrial property sectors for Heitman, researching trends in macroeconomics, capital markets and property market fundamentals in order to form investment strategies. At Heitman, he also co-chairs a disruptive technology-related committee. Dan is also currently an Adjunct Professor at Roosevelt University, teaching Real Estate Financial Modeling to a mix of undergraduate and graduate students. Previously, Dan was an analyst in the corporate finance department at Equity Office Properties. Dan received a BBA in Real Estate & Urban Land Economics from the University of Wisconsin – Madison in 2012.

Graham Wahlberg is a Vice President of Investment Management at Goodman and is responsible for strategy, management and performance of GNAP, Goodman’s $5.5bn US Industrial development partnership. With over 10 years of experience in Portfolio Management, Acquisitions, Asset Management and Investor Relations, Graham has held several positions within the Industrial sector executing on investments and portfolio strategy on a national level. Prior to joining Goodman, Graham was responsible for Acquisitions within Avistone, a boutique industrial investment firm and Asset Management within Diversified Development Group, a regional industrial developer.

Graham holds a Master of Real Estate Development from the University of Southern California and a Bachelor of Science in Construction Management from CSU Fresno. He is an active member of NAIOP So Cal and a member the Industrial Acquisitions NAIOP National Forum.

Raymond Zavalla is responsible for building, retaining, and maintaining successful customer and other business development relationships as needed for the company. He identifies, locates and generates new potential business leads and pursuits while understanding and implementing market concepts, positioning, planning and customer relationships.