Mayor Liccardo is a long-time San Josean, and the 65th Mayor of our city. Since taking office in 2015, he has worked diligently to build a safer, stronger, and more prosperous city. In 2018, San Jose residents re-elected Sam to serve San Jose for four more years.

In Sam’s prior public service, he prosecuted a range of felony cases as a federal and local criminal prosecutor, from sexual assault and child exploitation to international narcotrafficking. In 2006, voters elected Sam to the first of his two terms on the City Council, where he led efforts to revitalize its downtown, preserve San José’s hillsides and open space, create an inclusionary housing policy to boost funding for affordable housing, and open a world-class soccer stadium for the San José Earthquakes. He served as a founding board member of Cristo Rey San Jose High School, an innovative Jesuit school that propels students from low-income immigrant families to college and beyond.

Sam serves on a number of boards, including the Metropolitan Transportation Commission and the Valley Transit Authority (twice as Chairperson), and serves as co-chair for Joint Venture Silicon Valley. He is a senior fellow for the American Leadership Forum-Silicon Valley, and is a Rodel Fellow at the Aspen Institute.

Sam graduated from San José’s Bellarmine College Prep and from Georgetown University, where he was captain of the heavyweight crew. He received a law degree from Harvard Law School, and a master’s degree from Harvard’s John F. Kennedy School of Government.

Sam and his wife, Jessica, live in the Northside neighborhood, north of Downtown. They live within blocks of Jessica’s childhood home, the home of three of Sam’s grandparents, and the neighborhood grocery store that Sam’s grandparents owned and operated in the 1950’s. Sam descended from Sicilian and Irish immigrants, as well as from the first Mexican settlers in the Bay Area.

Jaja has over 12 years of experience in multifamily real estate development and property management, most recently as the President of Emerald Property Management, a division of Emerald Fund, Inc. Throughout his career, Jaja has managed thousands of luxury apartment and condominium units in the San Francisco Bay Area. Equally important is Jaja’s background in technology: He co-founded Mascot Network, a $23 million dollar “Facebook for Colleges” after graduating from Harvard Business School in 1999, and was named one of the 25 most influential African Americans in technology in 2001 by Black Enterprise Magazine. Jaja’s depth of experience in asset management and internet technology lead him to Airbnb in 2015, where he now leads Airbnb’s global landlord partnership strategy. Jaja holds a BA in Government from Harvard College, and a MBA from Harvard Business School.

Headquartered in San Francisco, Calvano Development, Inc. is a privately held development company specializing in urban infill projects in the Bay Area.

Our Bay Area focus allows us better to understand market trends allowing us to be responsive to opportunistic projects that contribute to the communities we serve. As a privately held firm, together with creative problem solving, we can take on complex projects that others cannot.

A native of Silicon Valley, Mark Calvano started his real estate career at Marcus and Millichap in 1986. Over the last 35 years, Calvano has been involved in the sale, leasing, and development of projects totaling over 1.8 million square feet of office, retail, and R&D projects valued at over one billion dollars.

Mark Calvano graduated from S.F.S.U. with a bachelor’s degree in Business Administration. Calvano serves as a member of the Silicon Valley branch of the National Association of Industrial and Office Parks (NAIOP) and is a member of Bay Area Council.

Mr. Sobrato is the third generation to be involved with the family-owned firm where he has worked since his teens. As CEO, he has primary responsibility for the strategic direction of the firm's portfolio of over 15 million square feet of commercial and residential income properties as well as the company's investments in global marketable securities. Mr. Sobrato graduated from Santa Clara University in 1983 with a BSC. He is very involved in the local community and recently completed his terms as Chair of the Board of Directors of the Silicon Valley Community Foundation, and Chair of the Board of Trustees of Bellarmine College Preparatory. He has also served as past chair or past president of KTEH Public Television, Santa Clara University Board of Regents, Catholic Charities of San Jose, the San Jose Repertory Theater, Charities Housing Development Corporation and the Board of Fellows of Santa Clara University.

Patrick Gilligan serves as the Senior Executive Vice President for Lincoln Property Company’s Pacific Northwest and Mountain West regions, and is responsible for all business operations throughout Oregon, Washington, Idaho and Utah. This includes the implementation of all service lines and oversight for all acquisition, development, and redevelopment activities. He has over 20 years of experience in real estate investment and development, and has been a part of Lincoln since 2006, completing over $5.5 billion in transactions.

Since entering the Pacific Northwest and Mountain West markets in 2014, he has grown Lincoln’s portfolio to over 10 million sq. ft. of office, industrial, retail, and multi-family assets under management, including such notable projects as Pacwest, Wells Fargo Center, The Sutton multi-family development in Portland, OR; Terminal 1 in Vancouver, WA; and Eastport Logistics in Boise, ID. He also played an integral role in securing development rights to The Point in Draper, UT; a 100-acre master-planned mixed-use community that will result in over 3.3M sf of office, retail, entertainment, and residential projects. Prior to running the Pacific Northwest and Mountain West regions, Patrick served as a Vice President in Lincoln’s San Francisco office for nearly a decade.

Mark Tersini oversees the implementation of KT Urban's downtown development strategy and works closely with Silicon Valley cities and its community's members to successfully navigate the challenges faced by urban infill development. Mark won the Silicon Valley Chamber of Commerce “2016 Businessman of the year” award, and is the former President of the Homebuilder’s Association of Northern California (South Bay Division). Mark joined KT Urban in 1989. Mark Tersini has been involved in real estate development and construction since he began his career in 1982. He was born and raised in San Jose and attended San Jose State University.

Bijal Patel is Of Counsel in Lubin Olson's Real Estate and Land Use Practice Groups. She specializes in transactional real estate and land use matters, with a focus on public/private partnerships, project development, land use entitlements, affordable housing, and eminent domain. Ms. Patel has extensive experience representing both private developers and public agencies on complex development projects, from acquisition through entitlements and financing. Ms. Patel also is an expert in transit-oriented development (TOD), from acquisition/disposition of TOD properties to financing and entitlement of TOD projects consisting of both market rate and affordable housing. In addition to transactional expertise associated with private deals, she has considerable experience negotiating and documenting long-term ground lease structures and procuring entitlements for projects involving public partners. In eminent domain, Ms. Patel is an expert with the acquisition of property through the eminent domain process, both California and federal, from the inception of the statutory process through condemnation proceedings, including relocation and goodwill issues related to such acquisitions. Before joining Lubin Olson, Ms. Patel served as Deputy Director, Property Development and Management for the Santa Clara Valley Transportation Authority, where she oversaw the Authority’s acquisition of hundreds of properties in Silicon Valley for its various transportation projects, including the federally funded BART Silicon Valley Project, as well as the formation and implentation of Authority's Joint Development Program. Ms. Patel also served as Deputy City Attorney for the City and County of San Francisco, Port of San Francisco Team, where she advanced the redevelopment of prime San Francisco waterfront properties as lead Port real estate counsel. As a former tax accountant with Deloitte & Touche, Ms. Patel started her legal career as a land use attorney in the San Francisco office of Baker & McKenzie LLP.

With an extensive background in real estate development, construction, and banking, John leverages his robust array of strategies to lead the business development of Teamwrkx Construction.

Prior to joining Teamwrkx, John served as vice president of business development for Heritage Bank of Commerce in San Jose and has more than 25 years of experience in real estate development with prominent Bay Area firms such as Mobile Capital, Westwood Company, Simeon Properties and Cornish and Carey. In addition, as business development manager and partner with South Bay Construction, John helped grow the company’s annual sales from $35 million to $475 million over a seven-year span.

Over the past 20 years, Mr. Pelletier has designed and executed hundreds of subsurface investigations, coordinated several emergency response jobs, and worked on fast-track brownfield redevelopment projects with challenging environmental problems. He assists clients with the development and implementation of numerous remediation programs involving soil excavation, soil vapor extraction, dual-phase extraction, air sparging, bioremediation, phytoremediation, chemical injections, and groundwater pump and treatment. With a focus on practical solutions, Mr. Pelletier works closely with developers, engineers, toxicologists, and regulatory agencies to lead his clients to favorable results.

Leonard has more than 20 years design build experience in mechanical contracting. Prior to joining UMI in early 2014, he served as Vice President in charge of the Northern California Project Group for an established west coast mechanical and plumbing contractor. Starting his career as a designer and project engineer gave Leonard the experience needed to support his successful years managing technical projects. His role as project manager grew to a regional management position responsible for training, recruiting, and executive oversight on a wide variety of projects. Leonard holds a BS in Mechanical Engineering from California Polytechnic State University - Minor in Technical Communications. He is a member of ASHRAE, DBIA, LCI, and Bay Area Council.