2018 WLI Prologis Award Winners

The ULI Women’s Leadership Initiative is delighted to announce the recipients of the WLI Prologis Achievement Award for ULI’s Fall Meeting in Washington, DC on September 18 – 21, 2019.

We are pleased to announce our partnership with Prologis for this prestigious program.  Senior women at Prologis created the grassroots group Breakthrough that supports the retention of women and identifies and removes barriers to advancement for Prologis across the globe. Breakthrough’s goals resonate with those of WLI in that Breakthrough strives to create a work environment where women feel connected and empowered, while creating a business culture that offers opportunities for success and recognizes the value of a gender-diverse workforce.

The Scholarship program includes a complimentary registration to the Fall Meeting as well as up to $2,000 in travel expenses. At the Meeting, recipients will be hosted by senior WLI members at a Product Council as well as at all WLI branded Meeting events. Following the Fall Meeting, ULI will post major takeaways from each recipient’s experience.

Chosen from many outstanding applications, the WLI Selection Committee announced the ten recipients of the Fall Meeting Achievement Award:

Robyn Brown, ULI Toronto. Robyn Brown, MA, MPl, is an Urban Planner/Land Economist at IBI Group nearly fifteen years of planning, economic development and ICI market experience. Ms. Brown an Associate and Manger in the Real Estate Economics and Planning team at IBI Group where she uses her extensive knowledge and experience in the real estate market to assist her clients with their planning and real estate needs. Previously to joining IBI Group, Ms. Brown worked as a sales representative at DTZ Barnicke, a nationally represented commercial real estate brokerage. Focusing on in land acquisition and leasing, Robyn worked predominantly in the GTA, helping in the disposition of over 500 acres of development land across the GTA along with portfolio analysis and disposition strategies.

Robyn’s work at IBI Group includes market, economic and development feasibility studies for public and private clients across the GTA, Ontario Western Canada and Saudi Arabia.

Cortney Cole, ULI Houston. Ms. Cole is a Managing Director in the Houston office of JLL Capital Markets, Americas. She joins JLL as part of the HFF acquisition and has 22 years of experience in commercial real estate finance.  She is primarily responsible for originating debt and equity placement transactions throughout the United States across all property types and is a team leader for the Midwest and Texas division of JLL’s Equity Placement Group.  During the course of her career, Ms. Cole has completed in excess of $6.3 billion in commercial real estate transactions.

Ms. Cole received her Bachelor of Arts Degree from the University of Texas at Austin.  She is a member of the Urban Land Institute and serves on the Houston District Council’s Management Committee as well as Steering Committee for the Women’s Leadership Initiative.  She is a member of CREW and a Past President of the Houston chapter.  Ms. Cole also serves on the Board of Trustees of a Houston-based non-profit charity, The Women’s Resource, and previously served as President of its Board.

Alison Jarvis, ULI Houston. Principal, Jarvis Civil Engineering.

A Florida native and 2004 University of Florida Gator graduate, Alison Jarvis, PE, has called Houston, Texas home for over a decade now. When folks ask what first interested her in civil engineering, she sites her father, a writer for Engineering News Record.  “I was fortunate to grow up hearing about fascinating civil engineering feats around the world. I’ve also been blessed to have a few outstanding mentors. Calvin Morgan, PE and Dwayne Culp, PE, CFM, PhD have been instrumental advisors along the way.”

Alison founded JARVIS, a boutique Civil Engineering firm, in 2012, and is passionate about her clients, projects and work team.  “I love being creative about how to most efficiently put the puzzle of sites together and add value.  I get to be of service bringing order to the world through projects and can’t imagine doing anything else.”

As Founder, President and Project Manager, she understands site-specific project execution drivers such as coordination with various stakeholders, consultants, ADA considerations, parking, drainage and utilities.  Her core skill set, and expertise includes feasibility analysis, design, permitting and construction administration.  Her strengths include her dedication to clients, communication and exceptional organization skills.

Mrs. Jarvis provides many types of engineering services including site development, land development, water and wastewater, drainage and detention, drainage reports, floodplain mitigation, utilities, and feasibility studies.  She has designed and managed a myriad of projects including: Municipal Utility District Residential Developments, Mixed-Use, Commercial/Retail, Educational, Medical, Office, Industrial, Restaurant and Hotel facilities.  She is an active member of Urban Land Institute where she volunteers in Urban Plan (an outreach program to educate high school students on career paths within the engineering and development industry — her passion project.)

Alison enjoys listening to the “Leading Voices” podcast for inspiration on teambuilding, creating company culture and better understanding industry trends. When she’s not in work mode, Alison and her husband Chris enjoy raising two young boys.  “Finding work-life balance has been a challenge. The trick for me was to get an army of help at work and on the home front.  When you’re working, be present and engaged with work.  When you’re with family, be present and engaged with family.”

She’s thrilled to be attending the ULI Fall Meeting and looking forward to being around so many industry leaders.

Erica Leatham, ULI Triangle. Erica Leatham is the Vice President of Planning and Entitlements for the Raleigh Division at M/I Homes.  Her responsibilities include the oversight of the Division’s acquisition portfolio, as well as managing the entitlement process for land under control and overseeing Land Department milestones.  She has been in homebuilding for several years since relocating from the Washington, DC area where she practiced as a land use attorney for over 15 years.  While in DC, she was named among 2012’s Top 100 Women in Maryland by The Daily Record (Baltimore), in recognition of “high-achieving Maryland women who are making an impact through their leadership, community service, and mentoring.

Lissa Lunt, ULI Chicago. Lissa Lunt is a Vice President with Pritzker Realty Group and oversees the firm’s multifamily investments and financing activities. Lunt joined its predecessor, Pritzker Realty Group, L.P., in 2008 where she was responsible for financial analysis and underwriting activities on a diverse portfolio of assets including senior living, retail, office, parking and industrial properties. Before joining PRG, she worked at Prudential Mortgage Capital Company from 2005 to 2008, serving as a senior analyst on the national accounts team and was involved in the origination of over $900 million in new commercial mortgages to institutional borrowers. Lunt graduated from the University of Illinois at Urbana-Champaign with a Bachelor of Science degree in Finance and was a Bronze Tablet recipient. 

Joy Sinderbrand, ULI New York. Joy Sinderbrand is the Vice President of Recovery and Resilience, NYC Housing Authority. Joy Sinderbrand manages the New York City Housing Authority’s Recovery and Resilience Department. The $3.2 billion program is both repairing lasting damage from Superstorm Sandy and investing in precedent-setting resilience elements protecting structure and infrastructure at 35 developments housing over 60,000 low-income New Yorkers. Her background in major capital projects includes Port Authority of New York and New Jersey efforts to increase capacity at New York’s Penn Station and redevelopment of the World Trade Center. Previously, she worked for Washington Square Partners developing public-private partnerships and for the City of New York at the Department of Transportation and the Office of Management and Budget. She holds a joint Master’s Degree in Public Affairs and Urban & Regional Planning from Princeton University and a Bachelor’s Degree from the University of Maryland Honors College. Joy is raising two 4th generation Brooklynites to love infrastructure investment and lets them use power tools solo while insisting Google requires adult supervision.

Chinar Starck, ULI San Francisco. Chinar Starck is a Senior Vice President at Wells Fargo within the Commercial Real Estate (CRE) Group. Based in San Francisco, Chinar is responsible for originating, underwriting, and managing a $1 billon portfolio of acquisition, construction and bridge loans to institutional developers and operators for all major real estate asset types across the nation. She also serves as the Analyst Manager for the Northern California and Pacific Northwest offices, where she manages a team of 13 analysts and interns.

Prior to this role, Chinar was the Loan Supervisor for the Bay Area and Pacific Northwest region of CRE where she oversaw a portfolio of over $7.5 billion and was responsible for ensuring conformity with company and federal regulatory policies and procedures as well as monitoring the group’s underwriting and credit quality. Chinar has also held various other positions at Wells Fargo within the Commercial Real Estate and the Corporate Banking groups.

Chinar joined Wells Fargo in 2002 after graduating from the Marshall School of Business at the University of Southern California. Chinar currently serves as the co-chair for the Urban Land Institute’s Women’s Leadership Initiative (WLI) in the San Francisco. Chinar and her husband live in Burlingame, CA with their two children.

Marina Trejo, ULI New York.

Marina Trejo is a Director of Development at Two Trees Management.  Having joined the firm the day the company closed on the 11-acre Domino Sugar Factory site, much of her role has been related to the project’s large scale redevelopment; seeing it from day one to the public opening of the 6-acre, waterfront, Domino Park.  Her responsibilities have ranged from large-scale entitlements- securing NB permits for 3 million sf of FAR before the 421a expiration in 2015 to TCO for the park’s 800 sf food kiosk for Union Square Hospitality Group’s new taco concept restaurant, Tacocina.

As interim site activations at Domino, she transformed a 1-acre parking lot into a community farm and bike park, now in its 5^th season and worked with Creative Time to host over 130,000 visitors for Kara Walker’s Sugar Baby exhibit in the former Raw Sugar Warehouse.

In addition to her work on Domino, Marina manages small and large scale capital improvement projects for the company’s existing portfolio establishing Certificates of Occupancies on existing buildings – most notably the Clocktower Apartment; producing the sale of Brooklyn’s most expensive condominium to date.

Marina has also worked for the Hudson Companies and the Related Companies. Prior to transitioning to the development side, she practiced architecture at The Kessler Collection, John Simpson and Partners, and Historical Concepts.

She has been actively engaged in ULI New York since 2012 when she became a member of the founding steering committee for ULI New York’s Women’s Leadership Initiative. She is passionate about increasing the visibility and leadership of women in real estate and has spent the past 7 years creating dozens of programs and unique platforms to cultivate the WLI community in her City, which today has 700 members. Marina is currently the Chair of WLI New York.

She holds three masters degrees: one from Columbia University in Real Estate Development, an MBA from Rollins College and a B. Arch and Masters in Architecture from the University of Notre Dame.

Sarah Wick, ULI Chicago. In her role as Senior Associate, Ms. Wick assists with the daily management and coordination of all tasks associated with Related Midwest’s mixed-income and affordable housing development projects throughout the Midwest.

Ms. Wick has roughly fifteen years of experience in affordable housing development specializing in acquisitions, affordable housing finance, asset management and preservation. In her current role, Ms. Wick oversees the Lathrop Homes Project, which is a multi-phase redevelopment of a formerly public housing project located on the near north side of Chicago. Ms. Wick closed on the first phase of Lathrop in October of 2017, which includes the historic renovation and new construction of 414 mixed income units, totaling roughly $200 million in development costs. During her time at Related Midwest, Ms. Wick has also worked on the acquisition, preservation and recapitalization of an additional 4,000 units of affordable housing.

Prior to coming to Related Midwest, Ms. Wick worked for other preeminent affordable housing developers including The Community Builders, Jonathan Rose Companies, and the Cleveland Housing Network.

Ms. Wick received her Master’s in Urban Planning from Pratt Institute and a Bachelor of Arts in History and Political Science from the University of Wisconsin, Madison.

Maggie Hamilton Winship, ULI New York. 

Maggie Hamilton Winship has a Master’s degree in Public Administration from George Washington University. In her shared role at the Village of Williamsville and Town of Amherst, she works with department heads to coordinate and manage all special projects, economic development initiatives, and numerous grant applications as the Director of Strategic Planning.  Previously, Winship worked for the Village of Williamsville as Director of Community Development and has coordinated Village events, special projects, economic development initiatives and grants, and managed all external communication and public relations.  Additionally, Maggie is a Broker and Co-Founder of Build Up Buffalo, a boutique property brokerage firm that specializes in finding real estate for nonprofit organizations and up-and-coming businesses. As a licensed Real Estate Broker in New York State, she has a decade of experience coordinating projects in both the public and private sector.