I grew up on Skokie, IL, a diverse suburb just north of Chicago. After attending Niles North High School I went to Purdue University - graduating in 2003 with a Liberal Arts degree in Communications. After a short stint working for a residential real estate broker, I knew it wasn’t what I wanted for a professional career and turned my focus to the commercial side of real estate. I have always had a passion for real estate and knew that my grandparents, Hal and Gerry Lichterman, were incredibly successful as real estate developers, managers and property owners. I was so inspired by them and decided a job with a small commercial brokerage firm would help me break into that side of the business and build my network. It did - and I began to learn how the commercial side of the business really worked.

In the latter part of 2005, I realized that I was not comfortable with the highs and lows of the brokerage business. I needed something more stable but still related to commercial real estate. So, took a job as a credit analyst with Chicago-based New Century Bank (NCB). NCB was a small community bank with just under half a billion in total assets, but this small bank was known for financing relatively large residential development projects throughout Chicago. I spent nearly four years at NCB, working my way up to become an Assistant Vice President. But in 2009, it became clear that the economic turmoil of the “Great Recession” was going to be too severe for the bank to survive.

In 2009, I left NCB and went to First Chicago Bank and Trust (FCBT). NCB would subsequently fail in 2010, but FCBT only began to realize the extent of losses in their loan portfolio in that year. My position at FCBT quickly changed from a lending role into a workout loan role as their problem loans began to mount. In July of 2011 FCBT failed and their assets were sold to Wintrust Bank.

The biggest takeaways from my experiences at NCB and FCBT were: i) knowing your audience/reader and writing in a manner that leads your audience/reader to a clear conclusion is essential to getting your deal approved, ii) never do a deal just because the person on the other side of the table is your “friend”, iii) be clear and concise in your analysis, iv) a table, chart, or other visual is always better than a wordy paragraph, and v) collateral doesn’t pay you back, people pay you back - lending to the right people makes all the difference.

I began work with Wintrust Bank in their workout loan division as FCBT was the largest failed bank acquisition for Wintrust Bank at the time. I quickly began working triage on the $500 million+ CRE loan portfolio under the leadership of two very talented individuals, Dave Larson and DeAnn O’Donovan. Through them I learned how to properly manage distressed loans. We hired the best attorneys, implemented novel tracking and monitoring programs, and followed the bank regulator guidance to a T. No more were the days of “extend and pretend” when there was insufficient collateral to support the loan balance. I was responsible for overseeing a $150 million portfolio of under performing and non-performing loans (over 60 notes). With an FDIC loss share in place the acquisition of FCBT’s assets ended up being a very lucrative acquisition for Wintrust Bank, as long as we didn’t screw anything up…and we didn’t. However, I did not set out to be a “workout” loan guy for the rest of my career, so in 2014 I moved to “The Line” and became a lender again. In this role I consistently landed in the top 10 for new loan growth at the Bank and oversaw a group of analysts in the banks rotational training program. Over the next few years, I learned a lot about real estate and C&I lending and made a ton of great networking connections. However, I saw that for one reason or another my ceiling was limited at Wintrust, and they continued to hire more and more lenders who would consistently step on each others toes. I also don’t golf and that’s probably the most important activity for a banker to be proficient at (I’m Joking but I’m kind of not joking).

In 2018 I left Wintrust Bank and went to work with a friend at National Data Research, a small market research support company close to home. It was an enticing opportunity for me to come in as President of the company and help him get things in shape. He knew the business very well but couldn’t do it all on his own and needed help. Unfortunately, his personal issues got in the way of work and I had to make a quick exit. The lesson here is that you never really know someone until you go into business with them.

I was lucky enough to have known the principals at American Landmark Properties (ALP) from my Wintrust days and I have been with this great company since 2019. This is where I really cut my chops on financial modeling. I took courses on Argus and rDCF (a superior program to Argus if you ask me) and honed my excel modeling skills. I became passionate about modeling commercial real estate deals and learning about new markets for ALP to explore. To date, through my banking career and my current position at ALP, I have underwritten and modeled very likely over 5 billion in commercial real estate deals.