Austin State of the Market

Jennifer Wiebrand is Director of Development for Gables Residential overseeing new construction and investment activities in Austin. She has over a decade of experience in the field, the most recent 8 years with Gables. In her time with Gables, she has delivered over a thousand apartments and over 50,000sf of retail consisting of over $300M in market capitalization. Additionally, Jennifer is on the Board of Directors for the Downtown Austin Alliance, a partnership devoted to preserving and enhancing the value and vitality of downtown Austin.

Patton K. Jones, executive managing director, ARA, A Newmark Company Central Texas office. Mr. Jones is responsible for the Austin and San Antonio conventional multifamily business, the ARA Newmark National Student Housing Group, and the ARA Newmark National Manufactured Housing Group. Mr. Jones oversees business development, market research, and all aspects of property disposition. The collective business lines produce roughly $800MM in sales annually. Prior to joining ARA Newmark, Mr. Jones was co-founder of an aviation parts company. He lived and worked in London and Hong Kong and was responsible for sales in 33 countries. The company grew 9,200% in 3 years and was winner of numerous business awards - ranked # 1 in "Houston's 100 Fastest-Growing Businesses" in 1999 by the Houston Chronicle, ranked # 7 in Dun & Bradstreet and Entrepreneur Magazine's "Hot 100, America's Fastest-Growing New Businesses 1999," and scored one of the Aviation Industries' best web sites rated by Forbes Magazine in 2000. Additionally, Mr. Jones's past work experience includes single-family patio home development, energy trading, and serving as an international sales manager for a Fortune 500 tech firm. Pat received his Political Science degree at the University of Texas at Austin.

Brant Smith joined the Austin mortgage banking office of Berkadia Commercial Mortgage as branch manager in February 2010. Prior to moving to Austin Mr. Smith spent a number of years in the Houston office of Capmark Finance Inc the predecessor company of Berkadia. Since joining Capmark in November of 2005, Mr. Smith has originated in excess of $1 billion in debt financing and equityplacement for commercial properties across the United States. Mr. Smith has been named a “Top Producer” by the company in 2007 and 2008. Mr. Smith was previously a Director in the Houston office of Holliday Fenoglio Fowler (“HFF”) where he began his carrier in commercial mortgage banking in March of 1998, and originated over $500 million in commercial real estate financings. Prior to his tenure with HFF, Mr. Smith was an investment advisor with Fidelity Investments where he obtained his Series 7 and Series 63 licenses. Mr. Smith is a graduate of Texas A&M University with a Bachelor of Science in Economics. He is active in the Mortgage Bankers Association, the National Multi-Housing Council and the Urban Land Institute. Mr. Smith and his wife, Lesli, reside in Austin and have two children: Shepherd (age 13) and Braden (age 11). - See more at: http://www.austin-acres.com/speakers/#sthash.8mNJQUal.dpuf

Mr. Kasturi joined the firm's Dallas office in 2002 as a Project Engineer and was subsequently promoted to Assistant Project Manager, Project Manager and then Senior Project Manager. Mr. Kasturi was then named Vice President – General Manager of Cadence McShane's Central Texas Region to provide executive leadership, operational management and extensive sales expertise for this growing construction services region. His initial responsibility was the executive management of the design and construction of a new two-building, Class A office development for a large technology tenant at Riata Vista, totaling 281,632 square feet. He also pursues new business opportunities for Cadence McShane and manage all aspects of the Austin office’s operations. As Vice President Vice President – General Manager, Central Texas, Mr. Kasturi is also responsible for the comprehensive management and implementation of the firm’s general construction, design/build and construction management business operations in Austin and San Antonio. He provides leadership and direction for developing and augmenting Cadence McShane’s presence in major markets such as education, institutional, healthcare, office, multi-family, retail, hospitality and the industrial sector. He spearheads the firm’s continued expansion into the growing technology market in Austin to create additional opportunities for Cadence McShane within this focused area. Mr. Kasturi is also involved with the strategic positioning of the firm on both a short- and long-term basis.

Mike Celkis is a partner with the Firm’s tax practice. Based in the Austin office, Mike is responsible for providing domestic tax, financial accounting, and tax consulting services to individuals, corporations, and partnerships in many different industries. He is also responsible for planning and tax compliance reviews for partnerships and corporations with a focus on low-income housing tax credit projects and real estate developers. Mike has broad knowledge of, and experience in, international tax, energy tax credit services, multifamily and commercial real estate, and carryover allocations and is the firm expert on the Texas Franchise Tax and Section 199 (domestic manufacturing deduction). His clients include not-for-profit housing organizations and experienced developers across the United States. His duties include the planning, supervision and review of tax compliance matters for a substantial number of the Austin office's individual, partnership and corporate tax clients.

Mr. Redd is our Executive Vice President and Senior Managing Director for the Austin and Metro DC regions with responsibility for the leasing and marketing, asset management, evaluation of building and land acquisitions and dispositions, third party services and property management of a diversified portfolio consisting of urban and suburban high-rise and mid-rise properties. He joined Brandywine in 1999 as Vice President of our Richmond operations. Formerly, Mr. Redd was a partner from 1988 until 1999 with Childress Klein Properties, a privately-held real estate firm headquartered in Charlotte, North Carolina. From 1985 until 1988, he was with the Trammell Crow Company. In Austin, Mr. Redd serves on the Board of Directors of the Hill Country Conservancy, the Opportunity Austin Economic Development Council, and is a member of the Real Estate Council of Austin (RECA) and ULI Austin. He is also a member of the Virginia Commonwealth University (VCU) Real Estate Circle of Excellence, Greater Richmond Association of Commercial Real Estate (GRACRE), and Richmond Real Estate Group. Mr. Redd earned his law degree from the University of Virginia, and a B.A. degree from Hampden-Sydney College.

Atchison joined HomeAway as Chief Financial Officer in August 2006 and is responsible for managing all financial aspects of the company. She has nearly 30 years of finance and operations experience, including expertise in financial management and reporting, securities filings, facilities management and legal and human resources. This experience earned her the title "CFO of the Year" for large private Austin companies in 2009 and again for public Austin companies in 2014. Prior to HomeAway, Atchison was CFO of Infoglide Software, where during her tenure revenue grew more than 160 percent. Likewise, in her positions as senior vice president and CFO at Hoover’s Online, Atchison helped lead the business from a private to a publicly-owned company, increasing revenues by ten times and was instrumental in the sale of the company to Dun & Bradstreet in 2003. She has also served as vice president and CFO for Travelogix Inc., a senior manager for Ernst & Young LLP and spent time in private practice. Atchison holds a bachelor of business administration degree in accounting from Stephen F. Austin University. She currently serves on the board of directors for Austin Technology Council and RealMassive.

Responsible for implementing all acquisition, development, leasing and management for HPI’s office division, including over 2.8 million square feet of office space that HPI represents. Sam brings over twenty five years of real estate experience to HPI. Prior to joining HPI in 1995, Sam served as project leasing director for Charter Companies in Austin. For more than 4 years he worked as a leasing agent for Capital Associates in Raleigh, N.C. and was a broker at Cushman & Wakefield’s Raleigh office from 1987 to 1989. His first job after graduating Baylor University was in Dallas, where he was a broker for Clarke and Company.

Rhett started his career as a Tenant rep and Landlord broker at JLL in NYC in 2011 where he worked on a team of six including VTS Co-Founder Ryan Masiello and VTS Head of Business Development Andrew Flint. Rhett assisted in the leasing of a 2.5 million square foot portfolio in Downtown and Midtown Manhattan, while also advising technology and financial services clients in their real estate decisions. It was at JLL where Rhett found his love for real estate and technology, and from there he decided to make the jump to the start up world. Rhett officially joined VTS in the spring of 2013 and moved back home to Dallas in January of 2014 to open the Dallas office and oversee the Southeast Region. Rhett resides in Dallas, Texas but is in an airport or on an airplane about 50% of the time.

Carey Gunn Venditti focuses her practice on legal matters related to the acquisition, disposition, development, build-out and administration of commercial, mixed-use, planned community, residential, and condominium projects, including various public-private partnerships. In representing developers of and investors in such projects, she assists with various phases of the development, including, acquisition, disposition, master development agreements, ground leases, marketing and sales, leasing, post-closing agreements, restrictive covenants, master governance structuring, community formation documents, easement, license and title issues, compliance with municipal ordinances or other government or agency regulations, planned unit developments, planned development districts and issues arising during the platting process.