Innovations in Southern California Healthcare

Peter Becronis RPM, AMFP is the Managing Director of ShareMD Asset Management, and a founding Partner of Inception Property Group. ShareMD Asset Management (2019-present) has offices in Los Angeles, CA, and Jacksonville, FL, with satellite offices in Encinitas, CA and Miami, FL, and manages ShareMD’s ever-growing ~990,000 sq.ft, fifteen-property medical and medical/professional portfolio on both coasts, including property management, construction management and facility spaceplanning. ShareMD Asset Management is jointly owned by Inception Property Group and by the owners of ShareMD, a private equity-backed healthcare environment provider. Inception Property Group (2014-present), with offices in downtown Los Angeles and in the Pacific Northwest, focuses on investment, design, development, management and leasing across the continuum of care. Inception’s recent developments include Ostium Medical Hub (formerly Downtown West Medical), a 380,000 square foot, ground-up outpatient healthcare campus in downtown Los Angeles. Ostium Medical Hub has been featured in The Wall Street Journal, on the front page of the Los Angeles Business Journal, has been toured by the American Institute of Architects, and was the 2020 Gold Award Winner for Best Medical Development by the Los Angeles Business Journal. Inception Property Group additionally advises care providers on their portfolio growth strategies and methodologies, and is an investor in childcare and residential construction. Prior to forming Inception’s predecessor firm, Peter managed the real estate strategy and resultant transactions for Kaiser Permanente (2008-2014) for half of the south portion of California, with over 9.9 million square feet of assets under management. While at Kaiser Permanente, Peter managed 29 capital acquisitions of land and buildings totaling 924,000 sq.ft with a value of $168 million dollars, from the initial strategy through close of escrow. Peter was on the internal development teams of several of Kaiser’s hospital campus developments as well as six off-campus medical office developments and three major adaptive reuse projects. Peter also lead Kaiser’s national design/build initiative. Peter was the recipient of multiple cost- savings and performance excellence awards. Prior to Kaiser Permanente, Peter served as Vice President of Asset Management for Apex Realty (2001-2006), a general partner and manager of over 20 real estate properties in several states, as well as being as a developer of healthcare, multifamily and retail. Peter managed Apex’s development of an 80-unit multifamily luxury apartment building in downtown Los Angeles (through groundbreaking), a 17-provider build-to-suit medical office building for San Bernardino County’s Arrowhead Regional Medical Center, several freestanding retail developments and over fifteen commercial tenant improvement projects. Prior to Apex Realty, Peter managed the operations of Asbury Properties (1991-2001), a private real estate syndicate invested in commercial and multifamily properties, where Peter lead Asbury’s internal asset management and leasing operations. In the late 1990’s, Peter was elected to two terms of office on the City of Los Angeles’ Community Development Agency’s Project Area Committee for the Westlake/Pico-Union areas. Peter is a recognized expert in healthcare facility development, having served on and/or moderated development panels at Connect, Interface, RealShare, Bisnow, Healthcare Project Delivery Conference and other national and regional healthcare summit events. Peter has also been interviewed on healthcare development trends on National Public Radio. Peter holds an RPM (Registered Property Manager) accreditation from the International Real Estate Institute, and is an admitted member in the Association of Medical Facility Professionals. In 2020, Peter was admitted into Lambda Alpha International a land economics honor society.

Alison Birnie is a seasoned leader with over 30 years of experience. Currently she is the Clinical Director for multiple service lines at Huntington Hospital, a level II Trauma center in southern California. Among her responsibilities is primary oversight for all clinical operations for the hospital’s inpatient and outpatient behavioral health units. Under her leadership the outpatient programs successfully transitioned to telehealth during the pandemic meeting the needs of our patients and offering group therapy outside of the normal service area. She has a varied resume which includes, clinical risk management, quality, performance improvement and patient safety. Additionally, she worked as a critical care, hospice, home health and transport nurse. Alison has a Masters in Healthcare Administration and is currently enrolled in a dual MBA/DNP program.

Andrew Struve is a member of the Health Care and Litigation practice groups in the Firm’s Orange County office. Mr. Struve focuses his practice on complex healthcare litigation and unfair competition actions as well as regulatory compliance matters. He has particular expertise in provider and plan representation, private equity, insurance, and the defense of consumer suits. An experienced litigator in the healthcare field, Mr. Struve has litigated both provider and health plan disputes, class and other representative actions, federal and state qui tam litigation, antitrust suits, RICO actions, managed care contracting suits, earnout disputes, partnership actions, bad faith claims, and payment disputes. He has also conducted numerous sensitive internal investigations and compliance audits, as well as responses to governmental and commercial billing/coding challenges. Mr. Struve’s additional litigation experience encompasses many other areas of the law. In the managed care and insurance fields, he has litigated numerous fraud and other class actions in addition to individual unfair business practices suits, bad faith actions and rescission litigations. He has represented clients in significant matters related to real estate, title insurance, intellectual property, false advertising, employment, misappropriation of trade secrets, product liability, professional liability, partnerships, indemnity, contribution, subrogation, and other areas of the law. In addition to leading litigation teams in healthcare disputes in federal and state courts across the United States, Mr. Struve serves as national governance, regulatory, and compliance counsel for a number of companies and many healthcare clients. Mr. Struve is an Elected Member of the American Law Institute, and is rated AV-Preeminent by Martindale-Hubbell, the highest rating it confers.

As an Executive Director at Devenney Group Ltd., Scott Mackey has over 30 years of experience in the architectural industry and has been providing high quality design and project delivery to a variety of clients with significant focus in the healthcare market. He provides strategic leadership and direction for projects in California. Throughout his career, his philosophy has been to listen, build consensus, and prioritize the client’s needs. His robust experience makes him acutely aware of the lasting impacts of the architectural building industry, integrating sustainable design elements into the built environment. His target is always to deliver a timeless aesthetic that focuses on quality, efficiency and environmentally responsible design solutions. His inspired creativity and forward-thinking design aptitude, foster team collaboration and innovative design solutions. Scott has a strong reputation for delivering quality projects that are not only aesthetically creative but designed around functionality and efficiency.

Mike Conn is the CEO at Meridian, a full-service owner, operator, and investor of real estate focused primarily on healthcare properties in the western U.S. With more than 20 years of experience in construction, real estate, and development, Mr. Conn is responsible for all aspects of development, including site acquisition, joint ventures, deal structuring, and execution. He oversees construction and overall performance of the assets. Prior to joining Meridian, Mr. Conn worked in commercial brokerage at CB Richard Ellis, where he specialized in the sales and leasing of industrial and flex/office product. He has also worked as a developer with Catellus Development Corporation and ProLogis, and as a general contractor with Turner Construction Company. Over the course of his career, Mr. Conn has completed several million square feet of projects with a value of $1 Billion. The projects range from major value-add repositionings to sub-acute adaptive re-use facilities, to dense ground-up urban infill development. Some of the notable healthcare facilities include dialysis centers, biopharmaceutical labs, primary and specialty care medical and dental clinics, and several OSHPD out-patient ambulatory facilities. His clients include major healthcare providers such as Kaiser, Sutter, Stanford, John Muir, UCSF Health, HCA, DaVita, Satellite Healthcare, McKesson, AltaMed, Amgen, Baxter, and many Federally Qualified Health Centers (FQHCs). Mr. Conn holds a Bachelor of Science degree in Mechanical Engineering from the University of California at Santa Barbara and is a licensed California Real Estate Broker, a General Contractor, and LEED Accredited Professional.

Patrick Peterson is executive Vice President for the Southern California region of McCarthy Building Companies, Inc. In his current role Peterson oversees design and construction services on all healthcare projects in Southern California. In addition, Peterson provides leadership to the company’s project executives and implements strategic approaches to new opportunities for McCarthy clients. A 26-year veteran of the construction industry, Peterson has made significant contributions to some of McCarthy’s most successful projects in Southern California. Peterson has participated in the design and construction of over $2 billion in healthcare projects throughout his career. His extensive resume includes notable projects such as Loma Linda University Medical Center Campus Transformation Project, Santa Barbara Cottage Hospital, Mission Hospital Acute Care Tower, Kaiser Permanente Lancaster Medical Office Building, St.Jude Northwest Tower & Central Plant, St. Joseph Hospital Orange Patient Care Center, Torrance Memorial Medical Center-Hunt Cancer Center, Arrowhead Regional Medical Center and St. Joseph Hos-pital Orange Cancer Center. Peterson is a LEED® Green Associate who holds a Bachelor of Science degree in Construction and Construction Engineering Management from Arizona State University.

Eric’s expertise in integrating data analysis, lean process improvements, medical planning, and architecture is founded on a broad range of highly technical projects in both inpatient and outpatient environments from small scale ambulatory surgery centers up to full-campus hospital redevelopments projects. He developed a specialty in surgical, interventional imaging, and diagnostic imaging that includes the full spectrum of project development from business case data analysis through construction. Eric pioneered new lean, integrated project delivery and data analysis along with strategic planning techniques across the firm and industry. He is a frequent speaker at major industry conferences.

Janet Pangman is a Principal at ZGF Architects with over 24 years of experience in the programming, planning, design, and delivery of complex healthcare projects. With communication and care at the core of her leadership style, Janet is a medical planner who designs healthcare facilities with heart. Inspired by creating comfortable, welcoming environments that ease the hardship of illness, Janet takes pleasure in creating a dialogue between clients and users to understand how they work and translating that into spaces that support their goals and workflows. Her keen awareness of medical facility operations and functional requirements allows Janet to simultaneously address the aesthetics, workflow, and technical issues to create healthcare environments that that foster compassion and promote holistic healing. She is a frequent speaker at national conferences and is currently President of Women in Healthcare Greater Los Angeles, a national non-profit organization focused on promoting the professional development of women in the healthcare industry through networking, education, and mentorship.

With over 20 years of experience in design, programming, and project management for healthcare facilities in the U.K. and the U.S., Ferial has focused her design philosophy on creating healing spaces that engage and inspire patients, their loved ones, and caregivers alike. Both her work and reputation illustrate passion, motivation, and a commitment to the clients with whom she partners, rooted in deep project involvement from inception to completion. As an integral team member of HDR’s Los Angeles healthcare studio’s leadership team, Ferial nurtures new client relationships and spearheads project delivery efforts. She is the co-founder and co-chair of the AIAPF Academy of Architecture in Health since 2018.