Our Team

AREAS OF EXPERTISE:

• Due Diligence
• Underwriting
• Operational Efficiency
• Technology & Software
• Data Integration
• Product Development

EDUCATION:

• B.S., University of Wisconsin-Madison

Areas of Expertise

• Legal counsel
• Contract negotiation
• Intellectual property
• Human resources
• Information technology

Education

• J.D., Chicago-Kent College of Law
• B.A., Finance, Investment, and Banking, University of Wisconsin-Madison
• B.A., Real Estate & Urban Development, University of Wisconsin-Madison

Licenses and Memberships

• Licensed to Practice Law in Illinois
• Member, Rush University Medical Center Associates Board

Mike Phelps currently serves as Realogic’s General Counsel and has over 20 years of commercial real estate experience. In his current role, he supports each of the company’s business lines and provides counsel on corporate, employment and compliance issues. He is also responsible for negotiation of contracts, master service agreements, software licenses and subscriptions and other intellectual property matters.

Additionally, Mike manages Realogic’s relationships with its 3^rd party human resource and information technology providers, as well as contributes to Realogic’s strategic marketing and sales initiatives.

Mike originally joined the firm in 2000 and previously served as Manager in the Financial Analysis Department. His duties included financial modeling/analysis, acquisition/disposition analysis and due diligence, financial proforma development and review, underwriting support and Argus/Dyna training.

Areas of Expertise

• Due diligence
• Lease abstraction
• Project management
• Yardi
• Legal support

Education

• J.D., University of Illinois College of Law
• B.A. in International Relations and Global Affairs, Eckerd College

Associations

• Illinois Bar, 2007

Jessica Cook is a Vice President in Realogic’s Due Diligence department in Chicago, and is the director of Realogic’s Yardi abstraction group. She supports commercial real estate transactions by managing lease abstraction projects locally and nationwide. This includes, among other things, abstraction project management, review and quality control, outside vendor management, process improvements, and various administrative responsibilities. As a valuable member of the Realogic team, she has contributed to real estate transactions of all sizes, and for a mix of office, retail and industrial properties.Jessica, who has over 10 years of experience in commercial real estate, has worked for Realogic since 2017. Prior to joining Realogic, she provided litigation support, e-discovery software consulting, and trial services project management at FTI Consulting, in their Chicago and London offices. She was previously employed as a law clerk for the City of Chicago’s Law Department Collection and Ownership Division and also worked as a project manager for Willis Towers Watson’s global workforce survey practice in Chicago.

Areas of Expertise

• Lease administration
• Due diligence
• Budgeting
• Property management
• Training and development

Education

• B.A., Western Illinois University

Licenses and Designations

• Licensed Illinois Managing Broker, State of Illinois
• Real Property Administrator Designation (RPA), BOMI International

Kathy Fera joined Realogic as Vice President of Lease Administration in 2000. Her primary responsibility is overseeing the lease administration maintenance accounts for approximately 100 million square feet of office, retail and industrial space for clients including Jones Lang LaSalle, Silverstein Properties, Hines, Glenstar and CBRE.

Kathy has over 30 years of experience in commercial real estate and property management. Prior to joining Realogic, she was a self-employed real estate consultant.  Her extended assignments for large real estate firms included serving on due diligence teams for acquisitions, providing temporary management staffing, handling the transition of properties due to acquisitions/dispositions, preparing budgets, performing recoveries, auditing management procedures and analyzing leases.

Prior, Kathy worked in real estate management for several large, well-known firms, including John Buck Company, CBRE and U.S. Equities supporting properties owned by Travelers Insurance and Metropolitan Life Insurance.  Kathy specialized in transitional properties that were recently acquired or were being prepared for sale.

Areas of Expertise

• Lease administration
• Lease abstraction
• Due diligence
• Property management

Education

• B.S., Ball State University

Designations and Memberships

• Certified Public Accountant, State of Illinois
• Member, Illinois CPA Society

Chris Mazur joined the firm as a Manager of Lease Administration in 2004 and was promoted to Vice President of Lease Administration in 2008. He oversees day-to-day lease administration for one of Realogic’s largest clients, who owns approximately 21 million square feet of office and retail space.  Chris’ responsibilities include diligence abstracting, maintaining and updating the client’s accounting and abstracting systems and administering leases for the client’s managed acquisitions.

Chris has over 12 years of experience in commercial real estate. Prior to joining Realogic, Chris was Assistant Controller at CB Richard Ellis, where he was responsible for managing accounting processes for one of the firm’s largest clients. Prior to CB Richard Ellis, Chris held accounting positions with AMLI Residential Properties Trust, an apartment REIT.  He also worked in accounting and property management for Amerihost Properties– later known as Arlington Properties– a hotel development and management firm.

Areas of Expertise

• Lease abstraction
• Lease administration
• Due diligence
• Training
• Property management

Education

• Mundelein College/Loyola University

Gail SanFilippo joined Realogic in 2000 as Vice President of Abstracting Services. She is responsible for managing all due diligence assignments and staff, and has led due diligence projects for numerous Realogic clients, including Hines, Blackstone, Shorenstein, Federal Realty, The John Buck Company and USAA.

Gail has over 40 years of experience in property management and all facets of lease administration for office, industrial and retail properties.  Previously, she was Director of Lease Administration for Kennedy-Wilson Properties (f/kla Heitman Properties, Ltd.), where she oversaw the 12-person lease administration department that supported over 185 office and industrial properties in 35 states constituting approximately 70 million square feet of commercial real estate space. She also oversaw lease administration for Heitman Properties’ extensive portfolio of retail properties, which included numerous malls and strip centers.

Areas of Expertise

• Lease administration
• Due diligence
• Lease abstraction
• Loan abstraction
• Joint venture abstraction
• Legal agreement abstraction

Education

• M.B.A., Finance and Real Estate, Northwestern University
• B.S., Accounting, Northern Illinois University

Designations

• Certified Public Accountant, State of Illinois

Chris Schmuker joined the firm in 1997 as part of Realogic’s lease abstraction team. Her deep commercial real estate knowledge has empowered her team to abstract complex leases and offer more specialized document abstraction including loans, non-standard legal documents, and joint venture agreements. Her expertise in legal documentation and accounting allows her to provide additional bandwidth for the analysis and due diligence teams, especially for non-standard documents. Chris is passionate about working with clients and meeting their individual needs.

Chris has over 25 years of experience in legal document abstraction and negotiation. Prior to joining Realogic, she was with Travelers Realty and Investment Company, holding several positions over her tenure, most recently focusing on troubled debt restructuring and asset management for commercial real estate. Chris is also a Certified Public Accountant in the state of Illinois.

Areas of Expertise

• Financial modeling
• ARGUS Enterprise ®
• Excel ®
• Training
• Due diligence
• Asset management

Education

• B.A. Finance, University of Illinois at Urbana-Champaign

Memberships

• Committee Member, The Goldie Initiative (2017+)
• Member, Real Estate Finance Forum
• Honorary Member, Rho Epsilon (UIUC)

Lecturer/Guest Lecturer

• University of Illinois
• University of Michigan
• University of Wisconsin
• University of North Carolina
• University of Chicago- Booth School of Business
• Northwestern University- Kellogg School of Management
• University of Pennsylvania- Wharton School of Business
• Dartmouth University
• Marquette University
• Roosevelt University
• DePaul University

As Senior Manager, Analysis/Diligence, Ellen provides a broad range of essential services to Realogic’s clients, including financial analysis and modeling, asset and portfolio management, transaction/due diligence, project management and underwriting support. In addition, she oversees Realogic’s commercial real estate training program, serving as the lead instructor, developing the training curriculum and coordinating all public and private classes. To date, over 5,000 students, academics and CRE professionals have participated in Realogic’s training program, which includes intermediate and advanced courses in Excel® and the ARGUS® software suite.

In addition to her management role at Realogic, Ellen serves as an instructor at Roosevelt University and The McCormick School of Engineering at Northwestern University. She has taught professional development technology classes at Roosevelt University since 2010 and since fall 2018 has taught a full-semester class for the school’s undergraduate Real Estate program. In Spring 2018, Ellen began teaching Project Feasibility and Valuation for the Northwestern University Masters of Project Management (MPM) program.

In her previous roles at Realogic, Ellen’s responsibilities included conducting due diligence for large scale acquisitions, performing DCF analysis using the ARGUS® software suite and conducting comprehensive lease audits to support property acquisitions and dispositions. She also has extensive experience in land valuations and site inspections for all asset classes.

A respected and knowledgeable industry leader with over 20 years of commercial real estate experience, Ellen has been invited to be a guest speaker at many of the nation’s top universities and MBA programs, including the Wharton School of Business, the Kellogg School of Management at Northwestern University, The University of Chicago Booth School of Business and the University of Illinois at Urbana-Champaign.

Areas of Expertise

• Project management
• Valuation
• Capital Markets
• Financial modeling
• Excel® modeling
• Due diligence
• Strategic planning and analysis
• Underwriting
• Debt origination and structuring

Education

• B.S., Economics, Marquette University
• B.A., Finance, Marquette University

As Director, Jeff Kaveney oversees Realogic’s Financial Analysis Department.  He manages the department’s workflow and provides expert guidance and direction on each consulting assignment, including CRE valuations, underwriting, financial due diligence, strategic analysis, financial modeling and debt analysis projects. In addition, Jeff serves as the primary liaison between Realogic and many of our consulting clients, ensuring our clients are always heard and kept up to date on their projects, and that their needs are always met.

Jeff has over 15 years of experience in commercial real estate and is an expert in debt and all traditional real estate assets, as well as many non-traditional assets.  He has made dozens of presentations to investment and credit committees and boards of directors, and has served as an expert witness on real estate matters in numerous court cases.

This is Jeff’s second stint with Realogic.  During his first he worked in New York for two years with Credit Suisse’s Real Estate Finance and Securitization Group where he conducted initial sizings of CMBS and syndication loans, managed due diligence and final underwriting, and prepared and presented credit memos, pitchbooks and rating agency presentations.

From 2007-2008 Jeff worked in the Originations Group at Eurohypo AG Investment Bank where, while originating deals, his daily responsibilities also included assisting the underwriting, due diligence and legal teams.

Areas of Expertise

• Project Management
• Strategic Planning
• Valuation
• Excel® Modeling
• Due Diligence
• Development
• Capital Markets
• Debt Structuring
• Underwriting
• Equity Waterfall Modeling

Education

• B.S., Applied Mathematical Economics, Marquette University
• B.A., Political Science, Marquette University

Tom Kaveney is Vice President at Realogic.  His primary responsibilities include financial modeling, strategic analysis, financial due diligence, underwriting and analyses supporting acquisitions, dispositions and related debt positions. Tom manages a wide range of CRE projects and works both in-house as well as on-site for clients, as needed.

Tom is also responsible for designing and building most of Realogic’s customized Excel® models, both for clients and our own internal use.  Tom has over 20 years’ experience in commercial real estate and is an expert in all traditional asset types, including hospitality, multifamily and mixed-use properties and development projects.

Areas of Expertise

• Valuation
• Due Diligence
• Underwriting
• Argus Enterprise
• Capital Markets
• Structured Debt
• Closing Support
• Asset Management
• Estoppels

Education

• Bachelor of Interdisciplinary Studies; Emphasis in Business Finance and Communications, Arizona State University

Designations

• NAIOP

Dan Kawahara is a highly skilled and well-rounded commercial real estate professional who brings over 20 years of progressive experience and success to Realogic. As Vice President, Dan is a company leader, overseeing work teams and client relationships while providing essential real estate services to clients, including underwriting, due diligence, financial modeling and analysis, asset management and closing support.

Prior to joining Realogic in 2011, Dan served as Vice President of Acquisitions & Development at The Missner Group, a successful and well-respected contractor and integrated commercial real estate services firm based outside Chicago, where his responsibilities included sourcing investment opportunities, underwriting, due diligence and asset management.  In addition to developing the operating strategy for each asset in his expansive portfolio, Dan oversaw leasing activity, created and managed property budgets and coordinated investor reporting.

Before joining The Missner Group, Dan was Director of Industrial Fund Management for Wrightwood Capital, now part of Ares Management Corporation, where he managed a portfolio of four million square feet of prime industrial properties located throughout the Chicago region. Dan also served for seven years as Director of Due Diligence for Trizec Properties, closing over $5.3 billion in acquisitions and dispositions for the firm, as well as assisting with the company’s $8.9 billion buyout by Brookfield Properties and The Blackstone Group.

Areas of Expertise

• Financial modeling and analysis
• Due diligence
• Underwriting
• Valuation
• Project management

Education

• B.A., Mathematics, with a Certificate in Business Administration, Loyola University

Monica Kelly brings over 20 years of commercial real estate experience and expertise to Realogic.  Her diverse responsibilities include proforma development and review, financial modeling and analysis, project management, due diligence and underwriting support. Monica has worked with all types of commercial real estate assets, including office, retail, industrial, multi-family and hospitality, and has led teams on a wide variety of successful projects.  As Vice President, Monica is the primary contact for many of Realogic’s clients, ranging from smaller commercial brokerage houses to large REITs.

Prior to joining Realogic, Monica was Assistant Vice President of Investments at Podolsky Northstar Realty Partners, focusing on valuation analysis for acquisitions and periodic asset review for potential dispositions.  Previously, Monica was a Six Sigma Quality Black Belt for GE Capital, leading several teams while improving the quality and efficiency of the company’s operations.