Oakland's Future of Office

Tomas Schoenberg joined The Swig Company in 2005 and was promoted to Executive Vice President in 2014. With over three decades of institutional commercial real estate experience, he spearheads the Company’s new investment and capital sourcing efforts. Over the course of his career, Mr. Schoenberg has participated as a principal in transactions approaching $2 billion dollars of value, and comprising over 12 million square feet and over 3,000 multifamily units. Prior to joining The Swig Company, Mr. Schoenberg was Director of Real Estate for a Berkeley-based, private family real estate company, and Director of Investments for Peninsula-based developer, SARES-REGIS. He also previously held senior real estate officer positions with Kemper Real Estate Management, Integrated Resources and Metropolitan Life. Mr. Schoenberg is a graduate of the University of California, Berkeley. He sits on the Board of ULI’s San Francisco District Council and is very active in mentoring younger real estate professionals through ULI and the UC Berkeley Haas School of Business. He is a licensed Real Estate Broker in the State of California.

Tom Stubbs joined TMG Partners in 1998 working on the award-winning renovation of The Landmark @ One Market and a number of other properties in the San Francisco SOMA sub-market. Mr. Stubbs left in 2002 to build a family wine business and returned to TMG in the spring of 2010. Mr. Stubbs has over 40 years’ experience in brokerage and development in the UK, Calgary, Denver, Toronto and San Francisco. His current focus at TMG Partners is on acquisitions and leasing in San Francisco and the East Bay. Prior to TMG: Mr. Stubbs was co-owner and founder (1988) of Stubbs, Collenette and Associates Inc., a boutique brokerage firm specializing in the acquisition, sale and leasing of commercial property in downtown San Francisco. The firm was a major presence in San Francisco commercial brokerage until its sale to Grubb & Ellis in 1996. Prior to that, Mr. Stubbs was President of Knowlton Realty Ltd, an international brokerage firm with offices across Canada and the Western United States. Mr. Stubbs graduated from the University of Reading, UK, in 1975 with a BSc in Estate Management.

J. Christopher Lytle, Executive Director of the Port of Oakland, California, was named to the Port's top management position on July 22, 2013, by the Oakland Board of Port Commissioners, the Port's seven-member governing body. Prior to assuming the position at the Port of Oakland, Mr. Lytle served as the Executive Director at the Port of Long Beach. A longtime shipping industry veteran, Mr. Lytle served as the Deputy Executive Director and Chief Operating Officer from 2008 to 2011 for the Port of Long Beach. He joined the Port in September 2006 as Managing Director of the Port's Trade Relations and Port Operations Bureau. Before joining the Port, Mr. Lytle served as Vice President of West Coast Operations for the French-based shipping line CMA CGM, which has significant marine and terminal operations at the ports of Long Beach, Oakland and Seattle. Mr. Lytle has also held executive positions at P&O Ports North America, Denmark-based APM (Maersk) Terminals, and Sea-Land Service, Inc. Mr. Lytle has been affiliated with several associations serving the maritime industry, including the Pacific Maritime Association, and the Pacific Merchant Shipping Association, where he was on the Board of Directors. He also has served on the boards of the Steamship Association of Southern California, the Propeller Club of Los Angeles and Long Beach, and the Marine Exchange of Southern California, and was a member of the Executive Committee for the Center for International Trade and Transportation. He currently is on the board of the University of Denver's Intermodal Transportation Institute. Also, he served as a trustee with the Long Beach Ronald McDonald House, a charity organization. Mr. Lytle holds a master's degree in business administration from the University of Puget Sound, and a bachelor's degree in business administration from Central Washington University. He served as an Infantry Officer in the U.S. Army and has traveled extensively during his career in the maritime industry, including positions in Europe, Asia and the Middle East. Mr. Lytle, his wife, Stephanie, and their three sons live in the Bay Area.

Mr. Abid has over 15 years of real estate acquisitions and asset management experience, and helps oversee and manage deal sourcing, asset management, and day to day operations for the firm's Northern California Office. Prior to joining HP Investors, Mr. Abid helped acquire, structure, and manage over $2B in West Coast real estate assets for AIG Global Real Estate in San Francisco. In this role, Mr. Abid helped analyze, structure, and manage investments across the project lifecycle, including entitlement, ground-up development, asset repositioning, and lease-up. He has direct experience in the office, retail, for-sale residential, and multifamily sectors. Mr. Abid has also served as private equity associate at The LeFrak Organization, a New York based developer, and as a corporate strategy consultant at Deloitte. Mr. Abid holds an MBA and MS in Urban Planning from Columbia University, and a BA from UCLA.

Jerry is the Co-Founder and President of Citrine Advisors, where he oversees all aspects of property acquisition, development, financing, management, investor relations, capital formation, and brokerage. Prior to launching the company, Jerry spent a decade working for a major, national investment brokerage firm in a handful of the company’s offices along the West Coast. Jerry is a graduate of the University of California, Berkeley. He is currently a member of the Urban Land Institute, where he sits on the Small Scale Development Council. Jerry holds a broker’s license (#01321958) in the state of California.

Jay Longo is a Principal at Solomon Cordwell Buenz (SCB) and is part of the firm’s commercial office leadership team. In his 20+ years of design practice, he has built an impressive portfolio of mixed-use and office projects, including international corporate headquarters to multi-tenant creative office developments, and corporate build-to-suit projects for public, private, and governmental clients.   His current projects include two new speculative office buildings in Chicago’s Fulton Market; 210 North Carpenter, a 12-story creative office building, and 310 North Sangamon, a 300,000-square- foot office building proposed to be the largest the Passive House-Certified office building in the country. Prior to joining SCB, Jay’s design work included the LEED Gold Panduit world headquarters in Tinley Park, IL; AMCOL headquarters in Hoffman Estates, IL; and the headquarters for Reinsurance Group of America in Chesterfield, MS. Jay serves on the Alumni Board of Governors at the University of Michigan Taubman College of Architecture and Urban Planning, and is a member of the American Institute of Architects (AIA), U.S. Green Building Council (USGBC), and Urban Land Institute (ULI). He has lectured and given numerous presentations regarding commercial building design and sustainability at the Chicago Architecture Foundation, Chicago History Museum, USGBC Chicago Chapter, Green Build, University of Illinois (Chicago and Champaign-Urbana campuses), and Northwestern University’s Kellogg School of Management. He holds a Bachelor of Science and Master of Architecture from the University of Michigan.

Oakland Resident, Bob Farman, is a Principal/Owner of Excolo Construction Services, a General Contractor and Construction Manager specializing in commercial tenant improvements throughout the Bay Area. With over twenty years of comprehensive experience within the construction industry, Bob works collaboratively with all stakeholders and focuses on building better communities by modernizing interiors in ways that appeal to future tenants and are cost effective for owners. He is currently collaborating with HP Investors on several improvements in the I. Magnin Building. Bob holds a Masters in Business Administration from Drexel University in Philadelphia and a Master of Science in Civil Engineering from Stanford University. Recent Clients include, Steelwave (formerly Legacy Partners), RiverRock Real Estate Group, The Port Workspaces, Wider Circle, and and Innovant

Sean is the co-founder of Truebeck Construction, and serves as Principal. He drives the firm’s strategy and growth as a progressive builder setting the standards in the construction industry. Sean fosters the firm’s entrepreneurial spirit and encourages an innovative culture for a high-performing and high-achieving team. With a background in preconstruction and estimating, Sean’s focus is always on delivering an extraordinary level of detail, reliability and precision. He is dedicated to building a team of best-in-class estimators, engineers, superintendents and executives to keep Truebeck at the forefront of the industry. Sean earned a B.S. in Civil Engineering from Cal Poly San Luis Obispo.

Peter Birkholz is a Principal based in Page & Turnbull’s San Francisco office. The firm specializes in working within the existing built environment supporting its mission to “imagine change in historic environments”. Services provided include: prime and preservation architecture on a variety of building types, materials conservation, planning, and cultural resources assessments. With over 25 years’ experience in the architecture and design industry, Peter has had the opportunity to work on several award winning projects including the Exploratorium, 140 New Montgomery Street, Piers 1-1/2, 3 and 5, and Market Square in San Francisco; and has recently been working on Oakland projects including a historic apartment renovation in the Uptown Area and several projects located in Old Oakland. In addition to work with Page & Turnbull, Peter has been involved in the community working to preserve historic resources in the Waterfront Warehouse District, and is currently part of a group that is trying to prevent displacement of the Artists and Makers in the Uptown Area. Peter also currently serves on the Landmark Preservation Advisory Board.

Todd represents clients in the broad spectrum of land use, real estate and environmental issues in both litigation and administrative proceedings. He works with private clients and public entities, including landowners and developers of residential, infill, commercial and industrial property, as well as local agencies, providing property entitlement processing and local government land use approvals; CEQA compliance and litigation; planning and zoning law advice; and real property litigation. He also has experience with infill project streamlining, density bonus and housing laws, affordable housing and historic preservation regulations, as well as advising clients on public-private partnerships, the Subdivision Map Act, the Williamson Act, and cannabis land use regulations, along with easement and boundary dispute matters. A contributing editor on the 2010 – 2011 edition of State and Local Government Land Use Liability, and a reviewer of the 2012 and 2013 editions of the Municipal Law Handbook, Todd also has spoken throughout the state on land use law, with particular emphasis on CEQA.