Ming sees numbers in design, and designs in complex financial models that underpin commercial building projects. She leans on decades of finance and commercial real estate experience that started in the 90’s when she raised and structured financing for a start-up to build restaurants. In her current role as President and Co-founder of Vibrant Cities, Ming structured over $300 million in financing in support of their portfolio with well over a dozen projects in Seattle, Washington, and Portland, Oregon. To stay rooted, Ming leads construction for Infinity Shore Club residences -- their flag-ship luxury waterfront condominium project on Alki, Seattle. Ming also supports the next generation of finance and real estate professionals through mentorships and by staying involved with her alma mater: University of Washington, Stanford University, and the CPA community.

With over 20 years of experience owning the full vertical of multi-family and mid-rise housing, Ben Gist has spent his career partnering with clients in cities across the west coast to help them find the perfect solutions to their unique challenges. A passionate champion of the collaboration and open, honest communication, Ben approaches each new project with a solution-oriented mindset, uniting all stakeholders—regardless of where they sit in the process. His years of specialty experience give way to supplementary added value to his clients, such as analyzing a footprint’s square footage to maximize residential units and amenities.

Ben’s deep knowledge and expertise of housing grant him unrivaled insight into the intricacies of all aspects of the industry, from parking and unit layout, to design and materials, all the way through construction and occupancy. Ben finds inspiration in the relationships he builds, the teams he works with, and the possibilities that future challenges hold. When he’s not getting lost in the world of design thinking, you’ll probably find Ben outdoors mountain biking, running, or kicking back with a cold one.

Bryan Copley is CEO and Co-founder at CityBldr. A Seattle native, Bryan's first job at 15 was at a small software company - as its janitor. After continually breaking the company's application during breaks, he was offered a role as a software tester, where he worked for three years. During this time, he became fascinated with automation.

After dropping out of college for the third time, Bryan was offered a position as a pro bono apprentice for a real estate investor, who taught him his first critical lesson in real estate: everything was for sale. Spending his free time after 8 hour work days poring over myriad spreadsheets and non-standardized data sets, Bryan fell in love with the work but lamented the manual, industry-standard nature of data collection and analyzation. In the fall of 2004 he determined to someday automate that process.

After a decade in real estate finance, data arbitrage, technology sales, Wall Street, and after founding 4 other companies including real estate technologies Rebls and Everyhome, he co-founded CityBldr with Devyn Cairns when they built the first real estate arbitrage index. The company was named Innovator of the Month by the Puget Sound Business Journal in September 2017. When he's not working, Bryan enjoys being in the mountains with friends and family.

Bill brings more than a decade of real estate experience and almost twenty years of finance experience to Talon. In his career he has bought and sold over $2 billion in real estate assets and managed assets totaling over $5 billion dollars across the United States with US based and international institutional partners. Along with the other Investment Directors Bill has responsibility for executing the property business plans for Talon assets. In this role Bill is responsible for sourcing acquisitions, managing the asset and its ultimate disposition. Since joining Talon in 2012, Bill has had two primary mandates. He worked on a team that managed, leased up and disposed of a 2.7 million square foot portfolio of 13 projects across the Puget Sound on behalf of an institutional partner. Additionally, he has led the entitlement, financing and development of a 1.2 million square foot mixed use development called Kirkland Urban. Bill joined Talon from Metzler Real Estate. At Metzler Bill had day to day asset management responsibilities for a portfolio of seven trophy class properties located across the United States that were owned by a German separate account and four assets owned by the Metzler US Real Estate Fund (“MUSREF”) located across the United States. Prior to Metzler, Bill interned at Seattle based Schnitzer West. Before business school, Mr. Leedom worked at the investment bank Cascadia Capital as an Associate for four years. While at Cascadia, Bill worked in both the mergers and acquisitions and private placement groups executing transactions on behalf of Cascadia’s clients across the United States. Bill began his career at Freeman & Mills in Los Angeles where he worked in the field of litigation consulting. Bill has an MBA from Columbia Business School and an Economics-Accounting degree from Claremont McKenna College. He lives in Laurelhurst with his wife and two sons.

Sean Thorson is a National Acquisitions Manager for American Capital Group in Bellevue, WA. Sean is credited with over 20 years’ of award winning experience spanning nearly all sectors of the Real Estate Industry; ranging from Finance, SFR and Multifamily Development, Residential, Commercial, and Industrial Real Estate Sales, as well as Land Development. He is a Real Estate Development, Planning, and Finance expert with emphasis on discovering underutilized properties throughout the 10 Western States and beyond. His current professional focus is primarily the PNW and includes, identifying properties for extensive multifamily and value add developments, working with local jurisdictions to achieve Land Use/Building Permit approvals, coordinating TOD developments with transit authorities, and implementation of strategies to qualify new opportunities for our principals and investors. Sean takes full advantage of American Capitals Groups vertically integrated structure allowing him the freedom to participate in new developments from start to finish.

Under Eric’s leadership, Foushée is in its fifth decade of building in the suburbs where a large majority of the firm’s revenue is generated. Eric leans on his 33 years of construction experience to provide critical cost and constructability guidance to developers and owner/occupiers while they navigate the complex permitting and entitlement processes in the Puget Sound Region’s suburbs. Eric is an industry leader in delivering accurate and thoughtful analysis on how parking ratios, building geometry, and site topography impact a project’s budget on a per occupiable square foot basis while laying out simple solutions to mitigate their impacts. Early in his career, Eric was instrumental in the development of Bothell’s Canyon Park Office Market acting as the development community’s go-to resource for construction cost and schedule information. For the past 10 years, Eric has led Foushée’s market share growth in the suburbs focusing on asset classes such as office, warehouse, and automotive dealerships. Eric gives back to the AEC community by serving as the Chairman of the University of Washington’s Construction Industry Advisory Council.

Tony has 19 years of experience in the mechanical engineering field. He has managed multiple disciplines on a variety of multi-million dollar projects, and has extensive experience with working in critical facilities that require 24/7 operation. Tony takes ownership of the systems designs and equipment selection of a project and evaluates the owners’ needs for cost-effective and sustainable systems. Tony’s ability to coordinate MEP systems with other designers and to facilitate the project planning phase make him a valuable asset to any project team. His extensive design-build experience grants Tony the ability to effectively communicate with the architect, subcontractors, owner, and team members, which contributes to improved team cohesion and the project’s successful completion.