Mr. Down is a Vice President in the Boston office of Bentall Kennedy, one of the largest global real estate investment advisors. Mr. Down oversees a diverse portfolio of real estate assets located throughout the United States with responsibilities including acquisition and disposition transaction structuring, asset/strategy management, value add and development oversight, and identifying new business opportunities for the firm’s various clients and fund strategies. In addition, Mr. Down focuses on the healthcare sector and works on identifying various real estate investments strategies to take advantage of the aging demographics and a shift to more convenient and cost effective outpatient services.

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.

Megan has more than 13 years of experience in the construction industry, starting her career in the field and rising through the ranks to project manager. She joined HITT in 2013 as a Director of Corporate Business Development, overseeing the company’s business development strategy, client engagement, and research platform. In 2018, Megan was promoted to Vice President and is responsible for HITT’s national business development strategy, including identifying new business markets and service lines to support the growth of the company. Over her tenure, HITT has expanded coast-to-coast and now has ten offices. As a senior leader at HITT, Megan also leads HITT’s Global Alliance program with our London and Australia based partners, serves as a member of the Executive Governance Council, and was selected to participate in the company’s Corporate Leadership Council in 2014.

Jeff serves as Senior Vice President of Fund Management and Debt Capital Markets at Black Creek Group. He is the portfolio manager for the firm’s build-to-core industrial funds, managing a national development portfolio aggregating over 23 million square feet across major U.S. industrial markets. Additionally, Jeff sources debt financings across the various Black Creek Group industrial platforms having closed over $5.6 billion of corporate-level, secured portfolio, and construction debt financings.

Matt Milich joined Pearlmark in December 2014. Mr. Milich is responsible for deal originations in the Western United States and Texas.

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.

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.

As a real estate development and finance attorney, Mike Strand works closely with clients to provide guidance as they acquire, finance, develop, operate and sell commercial real estate.

Chris Zarek is a founding partner of Form Development in Salt Lake City, Utah. Throughout a multidisciplinary career, Chris has been involved in the design, development, planning and construction of a wide range of projects across three continents, including work in mixed-use, residential, retail, hospitality, healthcare, institutional, industrial, lab and R+D, and urban design sectors.

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.