Former Cushman & Wakefield Baltimore Market Leader Dies At 74
David Gillece, who served as an economic development leader in Baltimore before becoming a top real estate executive in the region, has died at 74.
Gillece died of Parkinson's disease at the University of Maryland Shore Medical Center in Easton, Maryland, on Aug. 17, The Baltimore Sun first reported Sunday.
After joining the commercial real estate industry in the 1990s, he rose through a series of brokerage roles to become the managing principal leading Cushman & Wakefield's Baltimore office. He stepped down from that role in 2018.
Previously, he had been a top broker and executive for W.C. Pinkard, Colliers Pinkard, Cassidy Turley and DTZ, which combined in a series of mergers to form Cushman & Wakefield.
"One of the great things about him is he would revel in the success of somebody else," Cushman & Wakefield senior adviser Wally Pinkard, who hired Gillece in 1994 at W.C. Pinkard, told Bisnow in an interview Monday.
"He would create an opportunity for a younger person. He would get the meeting set up, create the strategy and let the younger person get the glory. And what the younger person got was two things: They got the glory and they got the experience. And that’s one of the reasons we were so successful."
Cushman & Wakefield was the largest commercial brokerage in Baltimore in 2018 — the year Gillece stepped back — with 56 local brokers, the Baltimore Business Journal reported at the time. Clients that Gillece worked with included some of the biggest names in Baltimore's business community, according to Pinkard: Under Armour, M&T Bank, Johns Hopkins University and Legg Mason.
Pinkard said Gillece helped maintain the culture of a small brokerage shop even as the firm continued to grow through mergers.
"He had such a good sense of what made sense, how we could motivate young people, attract young people, keep people, not feel like we’re part of a 53,000-person company but still be a locally driven business," Pinkard said. "He was phenomenal at making that happen."
Before joining Pinkard in 1994, Gillece served in leadership roles at local economic development groups, including the Center City-Inner Harbor Development Corp., the Greater Baltimore Committee and the Baltimore Economic Development Corp.
"It was in his gut and his heart to try and drive the success of Baltimore forward, whether that was in an economic development role or working with us, that’s David," Pinkard said. "And he did so without having to get acclaim."
Mackenzie Commercial Real Estate Senior Vice President Owen Rouse, a longtime Baltimore commercial real estate broker, said Gillece had a positive reputation across the industry.
"He was a good guy, he had a sturdy background in economic development, he mentored a lot of people in the industry, just an upstanding guy in the business," Rouse said. "He’s a guy everybody would want to have on their team."
Gillece is survived by his wife Nancy Roberts, his children, Patrick Gillece and Casey Gordon, two sisters and five grandchildren, according to The Baltimore Sun.
"He left his mark on Baltimore," Roberts told The Sun. "Baltimore was his hobby."
