The Woda Group Makes Additions
The Woda Group, a leading affordable housing firm headquartered in Westerville, Ohio, has made several personnel moves in recent months.
Chris LaGrand joined the firm as senior vice president and corporate counsel. He is responsible for supporting and directing development activity with a focus on legal, policy, and process issues. He will also be assisting with deal selection, housing credit application and administration issues, and deal closing matters/activities. Finally, he will lead the pre-construction team and process.
LaGrand previously spent 10 years with the Michigan State Housing Development Authority (MSHDA), most recently as chief housing investment officer. He also served as an attorney and director of legal affairs at MSHDA.
Ed Zatezalo is the new director of accounting—development. He joined Woda after spending 13 years with National Church Residences, where he held several positions, including procurement specialist and accounting manager.
Donna Ferrell is the new director of accounting—construction. She was the owner of Cannon Construction Services from 2009 to 2014. Prior to that, she was controller for Sunesis Construction Co.
Jamboree Builds Business Development Team
Jamboree Housing Corp., a major nonprofit affordable housing firm headquartered in Irvine, Calif., has expanded its business development team with the hiring of several new members.
Scott Riordan, former economic development manager for the city of Buena Park, Calif., has become business development manager. He will help the company move into new geographic markets as it grows throughout California.
Also joining the business development team as part of its strategic expansion are Helen Cameron and Brandon Pyle. Cameron moves to business development as an analyst from Jamboree’s Resident Services Group. In her new position, she will utilize her experience providing housing for people with special needs to research, analyze, and pursue supportive housing opportunities, a key element of the company’s mission.
Pyle, a graduate of California State University San Marcos, is pursuing his master’s in business finance at California State University Fullerton. He will serve as the development financial analyst, providing financial perspective and input to the team on structuring new housing opportunities including requests for proposals.
Jamboree is one of California’s largest affordable housing developers with $320 million in its development pipeline and a $1.1 billion asset portfolio that includes the development of more than 8,200 homes in 88 communities in the state.
CHP Adds to Team
Community Housing Partnership, a San Francisco–based nonprofit, has added two members to its leadership team.
Christy Saxton has been named chief programs officer, overseeing the organization’s clinical and building-based supportive services, data-driven learning and evaluation culture, and other programs. Before joining CHP, Saxton was the director of contracts and partnerships at First Place for Youth in Oakland, Calif.
Maryann Leshin will be joining CHP as chief housing officer, overseeing the organization’s real estate development, property operations, asset management, business development, and public policy work. During her career, she has been a vice president at Enterprise Community Partners, program director at CSH, and associate director for development at Eden Housing.
Mission First Housing Names CEO
Alfredo de la Peña will become CEO of Mission First Housing Group in Philadelphia, effective July 1. He has been with the organization for two decades as COO.
De la Peña succeeds Walt Kubiak who served in the role of CEO for 22 years. He is poised to build on Kubiak’s work, deepening Mission First's commitments in Philadelphia and Washington, D.C., while expanding the organization's efforts to new areas throughout its Mid-Atlantic footprint.
Mission First provides affordable housing to more than 4,000 people in over 3,000 units. It has 370 units of affordable housing in construction and 780 affordable housing units in the pipeline.
Dominium Announces Promotion
Terry Sween has been promoted to development associate at Dominium, a leading apartment development and management company headquartered in Plymouth, Minn. He was recently a staff associate.
In his new role, Sween will be responsible for overseeing design, construction, and financing of new and existing apartment communities throughout the United States.
Love Funding Names Director of Originations
Kate Murray has become director of originations at Love Funding, a leading provider of Federal Housing Administration (FHA) multifamily, affordable, and health-care financing.
She is based in Tampa, Fla., and will focus on developing new business to feed the company’s bridge and FHA finance platforms. She brings to Love Funding strong borrower relationships and years of experience with the FHA multifamily and health-care programs.
Murray previously served as deputy director of the Department of Housing and Urban Development’s (HUD’s) Office of Residential Care Facilities, where she was instrumental in developing the Sec. 232 LEAN loan insurance program. She left HUD in 2012 to become the FHA closing director at Prudential Mortgage Capital Co. Murray then moved on to provide consulting services for FHA borrowers and most recently served as an FHA loan originator at Centennial Mortgage.
Hunt Mortgage Acquires Staff of 1410 Partners
Hunt Mortgage Group announced it has acquired the staff of 1410 Partners, an adviser to private and nonprofit development firms for the financing of multifamily housing projects. The move expands the firm’s West Coast affordable housing team.
John McAlister joins Hunt Mortgage as managing director, West Coast team leader, and Sean Spear has been named managing director. They will be based in a newly formed Pasadena, Calif., office.
McAlister was the founder and principal of 1410 Partners, and Spear served as a managing director.
The new affiliation with Hunt Mortgage Group enables them to expand their capabilities and offerings via direct access to Fannie Mae, Freddie Mac, FHA lending programs, and balance sheet loan capabilities.
For Hunt, a leader in financing commercial real estate, the move supports the company’s work in the West, an important growth area for affordable housing.
McAlister has served for nearly 20 years as consultant, adviser, or underwriter on more than 250 different tax-exempt or taxable bond transactions. Prior to 1410 Partners, he was a founder and principal of M Squared Partners.
Spear also brings extensive experience, including serving as executive director of the California Debt Limit Allocation Committee. In addition to working at Fannie Mae, he has also served as director of major projects for the Los Angeles Housing Department.
Arbor Bolsters FHA Platform
Arbor Commercial Mortgage has appointed two executives to enhance its HUD/FHA Lending Group—Jeffrey Allshouse, senior vice president of FHA sales, and Jeffrey Ross, senior vice president and chief underwriter.
With more than 30 years of commercial mortgage originations experience, Allshouse is responsible for growing Arbor’s nationwide HUD/FHA loan originations platform. Prior to joining Arbor, he held senior leadership positions at Prudential Mortgage Capital’s HUD multifamily/health-care lending unit. More recently, he spearheaded HUD-insured hospital originations at Wells Fargo Multifamily Capital. Allshouse is based in Arbor’s Atlanta office.
A 30-year commercial real estate veteran, Ross is responsible for managing Arbor's FHA multifamily, senior housing, and health-care operational staff for Multifamily Accelerated Processing (MAP) and LEAN (senior housing/health-care) loan production. He will also supervise the coordination of the Arbor FHA multifamily, senior housing, and health-care underwriting strategy and the integration of Arbor's Bridge-to-HUD loan program. Prior to joining Arbor, Ross worked for Wells Fargo Multifamily Capital, where he was most recently the director of FHA screening. Prior to Wells Fargo, he was COO and chief underwriter for Great Lakes Financial Group. He is based in Arbor’s Cleveland office.
ULI Names CEO for the Americas Region
Jeanne R. Myerson has been named CEO for the Americas region of the Urban Land Institute (ULI).
The position, a new one for the institute, was created as part of ULI’s global evolution initiative that is being implemented to enable the institute to more effectively serve its membership of 38,000-plus land-use and real estate experts worldwide. The Americas region includes the United States, Canada, and Latin America.
Myerson was the founder and principal of The Belgrave Group in San Francisco, a consulting firm specializing in family-owned company governance; generational transitions; investment company business plans; and capitalization strategies. From 1997 to 2014, Myerson served as president and CEO of The Swig Co., a private real estate investment firm in San Francisco.
She has a long history of involvement with ULI, participating for years in the institute’s product council program as a member of the Urban Development and Mixed-Use Council and the Industrial and Office Park Development Council. She has also served as a volunteer for UrbanPlan, ULI’s highly popular urban development course for high school and undergraduate students.
FOURMIDABLE Announces Key Promotions
FOURMIDABLE, a Bingham Farms, Mich.–based real estate management and brokerage company, has promoted Jeri Hays to CEO, Michael Schocker to president, and Sheldon Olson to vice president.
Hays, who joined FOURMIDABLE in 1986, recently served as executive vice president, a position she held for 12 years. Schocker has been director of real estate services and business development as well as regional property supervisor for FOURMIDABLE since 2008. Olson was most recently the company’s vice president of IT services.
