www.reforum.com OCTOBER 2012 REAL ESTATE FORUM 67

By Paul Bubny

In reading through the profiles of this year’s 40 Under

40 honorees, it becomes apparent that commercial

real estate offers a breadth of experience unmatched by

many other industries. No two of this year’s honorees

are alike in terms of their responsibilities, their

backgrounds or their accomplishments.

A few represent the latest generation of real estate

families, while others rose through the ranks at their

firms. REAL ESTATE FORUM editors selected the 40 rising

stars that are highighted over the next nine pages from

among more than 250 nominations. As diverse a group

as this year’s honorees are, what all 40 have in

common is a commitment to real estate excellence and

to making an impact on their chosen fields.

68 REAL ESTATE FORUM OCTOBER 2012 www.reforum.com

BEAU BEERY, 36

President

Coldwell Banker

Commercial M.M.

Parrish

Gainesville, FL

Beery ranks as the top salesman for volume in

the Gainesville, FL market. Over a nine-month period, he grew the market share of the Coldwell Banker M.M. Parrish office from 16% to 24%, as it garnered exclusive representation for the top five owner/developers in the area and became the top firm in Gainesville for the first time in more than 12 years. Beery won the “Dean of Commercial Real Estate Award” from the Gainesville-Alachua County Association of Realtors in both 2009 and 2010, and in 2010 become the youngest recipient of the National Associat ion of Realtors’ National Commercial Award, which recognizes only 20 brokers across the US per year.

JAMES CASSIDY, 38

Managing Director

Cassidy Turley

Washington, DC

Son of Patrick Cassidy, who co-founded one of his current employer’s predecessor firms, Cassidy has more than 15 years of

commercial real estate experience in both leasing and investment sales. As a member of the capital markets group at Cassidy Turley’s Washington, DC office, he provides institutional owners with disposition ser-vices for office buildings and land, as well as joint venture structuring, recapitalization and equity placement. Over the past seven years, Cassidy has participated in more than $9 billion of sales transactions, including $3.7 billion worth of deals over the past 18 months. He has appeared in top 10 broker rankings by the Greater Washington Commercial Association of Realtors every year since 2008.

CHAD

CHRISTENSEN, 39

Chairman and President

Cottonwood Residential

Salt Lake City

At age 39, Christensen is a founding partner of one of the country’s fast-est-growing multifamily

companies. Cottonwood Residential owns and manages more than 28,000 apart-ment units at properties across 24 states, and Christensen has built the business against the backdrop of one of the most challenging economic environments in recent memory. He’s done this by taking individually syndicated multifamily invest-ments and converting them into a REIT portfolio structure. Cottonwood has also been a leader in taking over portfolios of multifamily properties from failing spon-sors and aggregating them under its spon-sorship. Christensen built the firm’s prop-erty and asset management business from the ground up starting in 2006.

NICHOLAS COO, 37

Senior Managing Director

Faris Lee Investments

Irvine, CA

A founding member of Faris Lee in 1997, Coo has now amassed a total of more than $1.6 billion in sales and closed advi-

sory projects over the past 15 years with the firm. That includes more than $150 million in transactional volume year-to-date in 2012. He tells Real Estate Forum that the team structure utilized by com-pany founders Joe Faris and David Lee strongly appealed to him when deciding on his career path. “In addition, invest-ment brokerage is one of the only career paths that combines marketing, finance and sales within the scope of an individu-al’s duties.”

MARK COSENZA, 38

Vice President

Inland Real Estate

Acquisitions Inc.

Oak Brook, IL

Highlights of a career that has seen Cosenza close 83 deals totaling 14 million square feet include a $424-

million acquisition of 16 shopping centers, totaling 3.5 million square feet, from a joint venture between TIAA-CREF and Developers Diversified Realty in March 2010. A year earlier he was integral in the purchase of 19 US shopping centers for the discounted price of $264.1 million from Australia-based Macquarie CountryWide Trust. Although a stint as a market maker for the Chicago Board Options Exchange eventually convinced him that the trading

industry wasn’t for him, he counts his time in the trading pits as invaluable for develop-ing his problem-solving skills.

SETH DAVENPORT, 33

Senior Vice President

Voit Real Estate Services

Anaheim, CA

A nine-year veteran in Voit Real Estate Services’ A n a h e i m o f f i c e , Davenport earned the nickname “Mr. Incredible”

from his colleagues for being one of the youngest members of the firm to take on such a high volume of transactions at age 24. To date, Davenport has leased and sold over 7.2 million square feet of commercial real estate, playing a key role in the comple-tion of more than 100 transactions annu-ally, on average. Recently he completed a grueling 50-mile trail run on behalf of the Wounded Warrior Project, taking on the training necessary for the 13.5-hour course although he’d never been a runner before.

PATRICK DENNIS, 40

Director

Wood Partners

Irvine, CA

Thanks in large measure to Dennis’ efforts, Wood Partners in the Western Region has had a suc-cessful run of completing

projects that stymied other developers. With the help of a proprietary budget-ing/contracting/delivery program that he developed for the company, Dennis has been able to deliver projects on a tighter schedule and at lower cost. As a case in point, Dennis developed a com-pletion strategy for the 40% complete Oakland City Walk, which sat idle for three years before Wood Partners took it over, that shaved eight months off the construction schedule.

PETER DICORPO, 40

President, US Managed

Accounts Group

CBRE Global Investors

Los Angeles

D i C o r p o o r i g i n a l l y wanted to follow in his father’s footsteps and run a chain of hot dog

stands in Connecticut, but the elder DiCorpo dissuaded him, saying he should

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RealShare Real Estate 2012—produced by the RealShare Conference series, sister organization to Forum—Crittenden National Real Estate Conference and Jewish Foundation conference.

RYAN KRATZ, 36

Executive Managing

Director

Colliers International

Tampa Bay, Central

Florida, Southwest

Florida

Clearwater, FL

Since joining Colliers in 2010, Kratz has marked himself as a ris-ing star. He grew the region’s revenue by more than 23% in 2011 and is currently operating 21% ahead of last year, with the expectation that it will surpass last year’s growth. Kratz has hired 18 brokers in the past 15 months and brought on an additional seven marketing executives to help bolster the Colliers brand in the local market. He successfully reorga-nized the marketing department to be

responsive to brokers and the company, and has joined forces with the office’s property management operations to win new business.

EDWARD V.

LAPUMA, 39

Co-Founder and

Managing Partner

LCN Capital Partners

New York City

Based in New York and London, LCN is a sale-leaseback-focused invest-

ment management company that LaPuma cofounded in 2010. It’s a natu-ral extension of LaPuma’s more than 15 years of experience in sale-leaseback investing, including several years at W.P. Carey & Co. At WPC, he co-founded and led its international affiliate, W.P. Carey International, which he grew from zero to more than $3 billion of assets under management, and was responsible for all investments, operations and strategy out-side the US. In addition, he served as

president of two successful sale-lease-back-focused REITs. LCN is the second strategically focused business that LaPuma has co-founded, following WPCI.

AMY LERSETH, 39

SVP, Asset Management &

Real Estate Services

The Buzz Oates

Group of Cos.

Sacramento

Lerseth, who counts a college internship at

Grubb & Ellis as the start of her commercial real estate career, is responsible for the execution of the investment strategy and business plan for a $1.5-billion portfolio of industrial, office and retail assets. She manages Buzz Oates Real Estate and Buzz Oates Management Services, which provide real estate bro-kerage and asset/property management services to a 17-million-square-foot port-folio of properties across four western states. “In the competitive commercial

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Beau Beery

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Congratulations on being recognized as one of Real Estate

Forum’s Top 40 under 40