New Jersey Office & Workplace of the Future

Ralph Zucker is President of Somerset Development, one of the New York Metropolitan region’s foremost pioneers of New Urbanism and Traditional Neighborhood Design development. Throughout his career, Zucker has worked hands-on in every facet of the building and development process, and has demonstrated a commitment to working with municipalities to create innovative communities based on the principles of New Urbanism. Zucker is perhaps best known for Bell Works, the two-million-square-foot redevelopment of the former Bell Labs property in Holmdel, N.J., where he and the Somerset Development team successfully transformed the iconic Saarinen-designed research facility into a “metroburb,” a term that Somerset coined to describe the suburban building’s revival into a blossoming, downtown-style ecosystem of technology, traditional office, retail, dining and hospitality. Today, Zucker and his team are in the midst of redeveloping The Ameritech Center in Hoffman Estates, Illinois, originally built as the former AT&T research facility, into Bell Works Chicagoland. The 1.65-million square foot building, which has already welcomed retail and office tenants, is quickly transforming into another successful metroburb. Under Zucker’s leadership, Somerset and its projects have earned numerous industry awards and recognition for their contributions to furthering responsible development practices, including the New Jersey Future Smart Growth Award for Wesmont Station, Somerset's 70-acre transit-oriented mixed-use redevelopment located in Wood-Ridge, N.J., where Somerset partnered with NJ TRANSIT to build a brand new train station that provides access to Manhattan.

As President of Solar Landscape, Mark F. Schottinger oversees the company's transactions (including leases, power purchase agreements, and financing), project development, regulatory matters, and public policy. Prior to joining Solar Landscape, Mark practiced law at Kirkland & Ellis LLP in Washington, DC. He earned his law and undergraduate degrees from the University of Virginia. Mark grew up in New Jersey with Solar Landscape’s founders and is passionate about bringing clean energy to low-income communities.

Melanie Ciriaco is the Fabric Care Group Scent Design Manager at IFF’s Bell Works, Holmdel NJ location. She leads the Scent Design product development for a Global account focusing on cross-fabric care formats, leading a team of 5 Scent Design managers located in Brazil, Singapore, and the Netherlands. Melanie also manages a team of 6 regional Scent Design Managers covering North America. Melanie has enjoyed 18 years of experience in the Fragrance industry, all of which have been at IFF. Her career at IFF started with an entry position as a cosmetic bench chemist and after 3 years joined a pilot program to become an evaluator trainee in the IFF NY Perfumery School, training alongside trainee Perfumers. Melanie graduated from the Olfactive Excellence Program in 2007, and began working on cross-category scent development projects. In the last 10 years, Melanie has had experience partnering with Creative Perfumers to deliver superior scent solutions for brands such as Axe, Palmolive, Glade, Purex, Persil, Snuggle, Suavitel, Lenor, Downy, Ariel, and Tide as well as a direct role in commercializing IFF’s delivery scent technology to market across several regions. As an SDM, Melanie’s role is to bridge the gap between the perfumery creation and the consumer, leading the translation of consumer language and usage behavior to directly guide creativity for Perfumers, which ultimately will meet consumer expectations. Connecting and collaborating directly with consumers around the world as they experience scent through the products they buy and use in the home has enabled Melanie to capture a multiregional knowledge expertise, which in turn, helps to deliver the right consumer benefit needs via fragrance in each market. Melanie holds a BS in Biology and an MS in Cosmetic Science, both from Fairleigh Dickinson University in NJ.

Mr. DeSane has more than 14 years of experience within the Engineering and Construction industry in the New York Metro area. Jeremy began his career focused on construction in this competitive region at the young age of 18 becoming a commercial carpenter with an open-shop firm in New Jersey. After one year learning critical skills, he applied and was accepted as a Journeyman Carpenter with the New York City District Council of Carpenters where he quickly climbed the ranks to Foreman and, later, General Foreman. As his career progressed, Jeremy quickly mastered managing and coordinating a staff of builders, engineers, architects, multiple subcontractor trades, client relations, as well as project-related scopes such as site management, specifications and shop drawings, site logistics, work flow and MEPS. Gaining the attention of executives for the quality of his management of staff and projects, Jeremy continued his nearly vertical career trajectory, by entering an industry leading construction management organization as a Superintendent, quickly being promoted to Senior Superintendent which was followed by the responsibility of managing the complete field operation of the firm’s interior portfolio. In this management position, Jeremy and his team excelled on projects spanning multiple market sectors including corporate interior build-outs for Fortune 500 clients, hospitality, education and construction of magnificent high-rise residential towers. During his career as a Construction Manager, he has received his certification as an OSHA 30 trained safety professional as well as 40-hour certified Site Safety Manager. His passionate managerial style of partnership has led to team and personal award nominations and media publications. Jeremy was nominated by The Commercial Observer in the Top 25 Under 35 rankings for construction professionals in the northeast region of the United States as well as receiving media recognition in Manhattan Magazine for his collaboration with Handel Architects, representing FENDI Casa at Architecture Digest’s 2015 DIFFA “Dining by Design” charity event. As the Director of Operations for Construction Services, Mr. DeSane is responsible for managing Hillmann Consulting’s day to day construction service operations. With an impressive background and expertise on a wide variety of construction projects, he brings a unique set of skills to benefit our clients in an owner’s representative role. By extending this service, our team will guide the preconstruction and construction phases of a project, acting in the owner’s interest and proving to be a higher valued asset to the process and our clients. His focus and passion is the continued delivery of the firm's exceptional construction consulting capabilities for our partners. The Construction Services team is equipped to further take the representation role and our client’s best interests to an unmatched level through the team's combined executive and senior field management background in design, engineering, pre-construction, construction and closeout of high-end commercial interiors as well as core and shell construction in the CM capacity throughout the NYC market. Jeremy takes pride in executing a refreshing, experienced and informed perspective to the owner and developers round table; which is an exciting perspective to share and has proven to be paramount in successful schedule execution, cost savings and project delivery for our clients.

As Co-Founder, Managing Principal, and Investment Committee officer of Onyx Equities, LLC, Jonathan Schultz oversees the organization’s investor capital raising initiatives, strategic planning, portfolio management, and business development, as well as formulating overall investment strategy. In addition, Jonathan has shepherded the Receivership Services platform of Onyx Equities which, since its commencement, has fast become the largest of its kind in the tri-state area. Jonathan has been responsible for initiating and closing billions of dollars in leasing and commercial real estate sales and acquisitions during his career to date. Prior to forming Onyx Equities, Jonathan was Founder and President of The Schultz Organization. The Schultz Organization and its affiliates provided commercial real estate brokerage and advisory services to institutions, lenders, private owners, and tenants. The Schultz Organization provided third party clients with leasing and/or management services for over 200 commercial properties totaling over 15 million square feet in the tri-state area. Jonathan is a member of the Metro NY chapter of YPO. He is a Founding Board Member of the “Award Of Courage” Foundation, raising significant funds for Memorial Sloane-Kettering Cancer Center, and is a past recipient of their Humanitarian Award. Jonathan has been recognized as one of the “Commercial Brokerage All-Stars,” by Real Estate New York, he was twice named one of “New Jersey’s Most Successful Business Executives under 40” by Business News New Jersey, one of the country’s “Hottest Real Estate Brokers” by Commercial Property News, and one of the “Power Players of the Next Generation” by Real Estate NJ

Jose is a senior managing director and co-office head in the New Jersey office of JLL Capital Markets, Americas. He joins JLL as part of the HFF acquisition and is a member of the firm’s leadership committee. Jose specializes in investment advisory throughout New Jersey, New York and Connecticut and also oversees the day-to-day operations of the firm’s New Jersey office. During the course of his more than 25-year commercial real estate career, he’s been involved in more than $62 billion of office, industrial, retail, multifamily and land sales. Jose started at HFF in March 2010. Before that, he was the executive director of Cushman & Wakefield’s New York area investment sales group where he spent more than 17 years. He began his real estate career as a real estate analyst at PaineWebber, UBS, Inc.

Mr. Wolfe is the Managing Partner in the Property Tax Department at Skoloff & Wolfe, PC, where he focuses his practice on representing taxpayers in significant real estate tax appeals and property tax related matters. He has extensive experience in all types of property tax appeals, including hotel, multi-family, retail, office, and industrial properties. Mr. Wolfe frequently counsels clients on the property tax implications of the development, acquisition, and disposition of significant assets. He also counsels clients with respect to property tax exemptions and PILOT agreements. Mr. Wolfe serves on the Board of the National Association of Property Tax Attorneys (NAPTA) and as the Co-Chair of the Real Property Tax Practice Committee of the New Jersey State Bar Association. Mr. Wolfe has been featured or quoted in a wide variety of local and national publications, including Forbes.com, GlobeSt.com, Marketwatch.com, The Washington Post, The Wall Street Journal, Law.com, Law360.com, The New York Law Journal, and Commerce Magazine. Mr. Wolfe has a track record of obtaining significant assessment reductions on behalf of his clients. Examples of those assessment reductions include: • Reduced hotel assessment from $188 million to $131million; • Reduced multi-family assessment from $116 million to $67 million; • Reduced office assessment from $115.5 million to $90million; • Reduced supermarket anchored center from $66.9 million to $46 million; • Reduced nursing home assessment from $36 million to $10.1million; • Reduced big box retail assessment from $21.3 million to $13.4 million; • Reduced office assessment from $27.8 million to $6.5million. Mr. Wolfe began his career as an associate at the law firm of Davis Polk and Wardwell in New York. While at Davis Polk, he focused his practice on regulatory investigations, securities litigation and banking disputes. Mr. Wolfe is a member of the American Bar Association House of Delegates and is the Co-Chair of the ABA’s Diversity & Inclusion 360 Presidential Commission. As a young lawyer, Mr. Wolfe served as the Chair of the ABA Young Lawyers Division, the ABA’s largest entity with more than 130,000 members. Mr. Wolfe received his J.D. from New York University School of Law, and graduated from Cornell University with distinction in all subjects.

Brian Lovett is a Partner and Team Leader of the Tax and Real Estate Services Teams at Withum. Brian has extensive experience serving the tax needs of both public companies and closely held businesses, including all aspects of tax compliance for partnerships and corporations. He advises clients with regard to the structure and tax consequences of new business ventures, and assists with restructuring existing businesses for increased tax efficiency. On the real estate side, Brian has prior Big 4 experience working closely with large, multinational real estate investment companies. He now works closely with real estate entrepreneurs on acquisition planning and entity structuring, property operation and development and wealth transfer/succession planning. Brian is a licensed Certified Public Accountant in the States of New Jersey and Pennsylvania, licensed to practice law in the State of New Jersey, and a frequent speaker on technical tax topics for national webinars and various industry groups.