Jim Davies is a principal of Talonvest Capital, Inc. and is responsible for sourcing and executing self storage and commercial structured finance and CMBS debt assignments for experienced storage and commercial real estate owners. Jim has a 29 year track record in commercial real estate with experience as a direct lender, advisor and property acquisitions specialist including 8 years as both a shareholder of Buchanan Street Partners and a co-founding principal of Buchanan Storage Capital. Buchanan Storage Capital became one of the most recognized brands in the self storage finance sector with investors that included TCW and Societe Generale, and through exclusive partnerships with firms such as GE Capital and the Royal Bank of Canada. Jim has developed a reputation as a leading storage finance expert over a 20 year period that includes the closing of over $3 billion of transactions while with Talonvest Capital, Buchanan Storage Capital and Belgravia Capital. Jim has arranged several billion dollars of capitalizations in all phases of the investment cycle including bridge loans, permanent loans, mezzanine debt, joint venture equity, construction financing and property dispositions.

Jim is a frequent speaker at industry conferences, served for 7 years on the Board of Directors of the California Self Storage Association, is the founder of the popular Self Storage Owners Summit held each July in Newport Beach and served on the national Self Storage Association’s Foundation Board. He also serves on the board of the Band of Brothers Foundation which is a non-profit organization of professionals combining their money and resources to give back to less fortunate children in the U.S. and around the world.

Terrell F. Gates III founded Virtus Financial Group in 2004 to provide America’s most successful entrepreneurs and their families with optimal wealth management solutions while facilitating the success of the next generation entrepreneur. Mr. Gates’ experiences, personal and professional, led him to believe that it takes an entrepreneur to understand an entrepreneur. Born to a family of highly successful entrepreneurs whose wealth later suffered from poorly leveraged holdings, Mr. Gates became passionate about ensuring that such losses did not befall other families.

Following degrees in Spanish, economics and banking and finance law from the University of Texas and Southern Methodist University, as well as numerous principal positions in real estate, financial services and investment banking, Mr. Gates honed his expertise in protection and growth of high-net-worth business owner’s wealth during his years leading a private banking practice at Merrill-Lynch. Although Merrill Lynch had a robust but packaged product and service offering, Mr. Gates realized that to uphold his fiduciary duty to his entrepreneur clients he needed to access the resources of numerous financial institutions. Hence, Mr. Gates founded Virtus without loyalties to any financial products or services, so that Virtus’ clients and partners would always be assured of having their interests as the sole consideration in making financial recommendations. 

Says Mr. Gates, "Upholding fiduciary duty means providing the best-possible options to our clients and partners regardless of the source. The entrepreneurs we serve at Virtus have reached the point of wealth creation where they no longer have to work, but can instead consider the bigger picture of how their wealth can best serve their families and the world. I founded Virtus to assist in making certain these entrepreneurs’ lifestyles are preserved and enhanced by simultaneously protecting their assets against loss and growing their wealth, so that they reach their loftiest goals.”

Chip Headley is President and Chief Investment Officer of Flagship Investment Group, LLC.    Mr. Headley is responsible for the operations of the company’s self storage brand, Stor∙Kwik Self Storage, including formulating strategy, investment activities, and property operations.  Stor∙Kwik operates 29 self storage facilities in California, Florida, Indiana, and Ohio and is one of the fastest growing self storage companies in the country.  Flagship entered the self storage market in September 2010 and continues to expand its portfolio.

Mr. Headley has been involved in the real estate industry for over 35 years as an owner, operator, developer, and contractor across multiple asset classes including hospitality, land development, apartments, and self storage.  He is a former college instructor in Strategic Management.  Mr. Headley holds a Bachelor of Arts in Psychology and a Master of Business Administration from the University of Central Florida.

Michael leads Green Street's research teams covering the office and self-storage property sectors, and also oversees the firm's industrial sector research. He has previously been responsible for data center and lab space research. He is a member of the National Association of Industrial and Office Properties (NAIOP). Michael is a two-time winner of the Wall Street Journal's "Best on the Street" award for the real estate category. Prior to joining Green Street in 2002, Michael worked in REIT investment banking at A.G. Edwards. He is a Chartered Financial Analyst (CFA) charterholder and earned his B.A. in Economics from Indiana University.

Christopher P. Marr has been President and Chief Investment Officer of CubeSmart since November 2008 and Chief Operating Officer since May 30, 2012.  Mr. Marr served as Chief Financial Officer of the Company from June 2006 to November 2008 and Treasurer since August 2006. Mr. Marr served as Senior Vice President and Chief Financial Officer of Brandywine Realty Trust, a publicly-traded office REIT, from August 2002 to June 2006. Prior to joining Brandywine Realty Trust, Mr. Marr served as Chief Financial Officer of Storage USA, Inc., a publicly-traded self-storage REIT, from 1998 to 2002.

Cris Burnam has been working in the Self Storage Industry since 1987, and since 1999 has been serving as President of StorageMart. StorageMart owns and operates 132 stores across the United States and Canada, comprising approximately 9,000,000 net rentable square feet and over 70,000 rental units. As President, Cris oversees all aspects of the organization. StorageMart is headquartered in Columbia, Missouri.

In 2008, Cris led the company in its successful $416 million dollar takeover of InStorage REIT, a publically traded REIT on the Toronto Stock Exchange. The transaction closed in March of 2009, and has since been fully integrated in StorageMart.

Cris also created and opened PhoneSmart Call Center in 2002 as a wholly owned subsidiary of StorageMart. Today, PhoneSmart provides call center services to over 800 independently owned storage facilities in the US, Canada, Mexico and Panama.

In 1994, Cris and his brother, Mike Burnam launched an IPO of their family owned company called Storage Trust (NYSE:SEA). Storage Trust was successfully merged into Public Storage in 1999 for approximately $650 million dollars.

Over the course of his career in Self Storage, Cris has completed over $2 billion dollars in Self Storage transactions.

Cris lives in Columbia, MO, with his wife Jennifer and 3 sons.

Jim Stevens has been with Extra Space for eleven years, the last five years in his current capacity as SVP of Acquisitions and Business Development.  Previously, he spent 6 years in operations as a DVP. Before extra Space, and was with Public Storage for 14 years with mostly operational experience ranging from District Manager to Regional Manager with some experience in land acquisitions and Pick Up and Delivery. Prior to that, he was with Shurgard raising money through limited partnerships for four years after he had completed their property manager requirement.

Mr. Roach has developed, owned and operated numerous commercial and residential properties in California, including 11 self storage facilities. In 1971 he was an executive officer with Mape Industries, a residential and commercial developer. Starting in 1976, he was division counsel for Kaiser Aetna, a national real estate development firm. He started his development company in 1978 at which time he developed residential for sale housing and self storage. By 1983 he began to concentrate on self storage. Mr. Roach served as a director of Civic Bank of Commerce, as well as a member of the bank's loan committee from 1985 until 2000, when the bank merged with City National Bank.

He is a graduate of Williams College and has a law degree from the University of California's Boalt Hall School of Law.

For the past seven years, Charles Byerly has been an executive with Westport Properties and US Storage Centers (together "USSC”).  Mr. Byerly currently resides as President & CEO of USSC, an owner/operator of just over 4,000,000 square feet of self storage space in eight states.  Mr. Byerly is heavily involved in all real estate, finance and operational oversight for the company.  Prior to joining USSC, Mr. Byerly was Assistant Treasurer and Director of Finance for the Americas for three years for Exult.  From 1994 to 2001, Mr. Byerly spent his time with the Ernst & Young Real Estate Group focusing on REITs, homebuilders and other commercial real estate property types including self storage.  Mr. Byerly earned his Accounting degree from California Polytechnic University, Pomona and his Master’s Degree in Business Taxation from the University of Southern California.  Mr. Byerly currently serves as a Board Member and Treasurer for the California Self Storage Association.  He’s also very active in Kure It!, a kidney cancer 501(c)(3) charity and enjoys spending time with family and friends.

Eric Snyder is a Co-Founding Principal of Talonvest Capital.  He is responsible for leading the strategic direction of the company which focuses on structuring debt & equity for self storage owners nationwide.  Prior to starting Talonvest Capital, Eric was with Buchanan Street Partners providing real estate capital advisory services as well as originating investments for Buchanan’s institutional and private investors.  Eric was also a Co-Founder of Buchanan Storage Capital, with investors such as TCW & Societe Generale, which became a recognized brand in the self storage finance sector through exclusive partnerships with firms such as GE Capital and the Royal Bank of Canada.  Eric’s experience includes structuring and arranging capitalizations in all phases of the investment cycle including construction financing, bridge debt, permanent loans, mezzanine debt and joint venture equity.  He has an established background as both a direct investor and a mortgage banker that includes the closing of over $3 billion while with Buchanan Street Partners, GE Real Estate, FINOVA Realty Capital, Belgravia Capital Corporation and Bank of America.

He also has experience in the asset management of performing and non-performing debt as part of the liquidation of over $600 million of loans for ITT Federal Bank.  Eric also has experience in investment sales by arranging the disposition of over $150 Million in self storage properties.  Eric began his career in real estate as an Urban Planner working for the City of Los Angeles.  He is the Co-Founder of the Band of Brothers Foundation which is non-profit organization of professionals combining their money and resources to give back to less fortunate children in the US and throughout the world.  Eric is the inaugural Vice Chair of the local ULI Capital Markets Council, a licensed real estate broker and obtained a Bachelor's Degree in Urban & Regional Planning from Cal Poly University.

Mr. Kirk directs all strategic planning and oversees the business operations of Extra Space (EXR). He has been associated with the Extra Space Storage organization for nearly ten years, having served as Executive Vice President of the company for seven years, and as a Director of the Company since its IPO in 2004. Mr. Kirk is EXR’s largest private individual shareholder. Spencer co-founded Megahertz Corporation in 1985, which became the leading manufacturer of modems for laptop computers in the world. Serving as Chairman and Chief Executive Officer, the company grew from a basement operation to the leading supplier of solution-oriented mobile data communications products. Megahertz went public in 1993 and the following year was acquired by US Robotics.

Willie Lewis Brown, Jr., served as a Two-term Mayor of San Francisco from 1996 to 2004.  He was a legendary Speaker of the California State Assembly from 1980 to 1995 (re-elected 16 straight times to the 13^th Assembly District, San Francisco) and is widely regarded as the most influential African-American politician of the late twentieth century.  He was the Chair on Committee on Ways and Means.  He served on the Board of Trustees, California State University system and as Regent of the University of California.  He was the Chair of the Revenue and Taxation Committee, and was on the Board of Administration for CalPERS.  He has been at the center of California politics, government, and civic life for an astonishing four decades.

Mr. Brown’s career spans the American Presidency from Lyndon Johnson to George W. Bush, and he has worked with every California Governor from Pat Brown to Arnold Schwarzenegger.  From civil rights to education reform, tax policy, economic development, health care, international trade, domestic partnerships, and affirmative action, he’s left his imprimatur on every aspect of politics and public policy in the Golden State. 

As Mayor of California’s most cosmopolitan city, Willie Brown refurbished and rebuilt the nation’s busiest transit system, pioneered the use of bond measures to build affordable housing, created a model juvenile justice system, and paved the way for a second campus of the University of California, San Francisco, to serve as the anchor of a new development that will position the City as a center for the burgeoning field of biotechnology. 

Mr. Brown has a Bachelor of Arts from San Francisco State University and a Juris Doctor degree from Hastings College of Law, University of California.  He was admitted to practice law for the State of California, all Federal Courts, and the Supreme Court.  He has been honored with honorary Doctor of Law degrees from Morehouse College and Atlanta University in GA; Jarvis Christian College, Hawkins, Texas; Wilberforce University, Wilberforce, Ohio; University of Alabama; Golden Gate University, Lincoln, San Francisco State University, Crown College of University of California, Santa Cruz, and San Joaquin College of Law, Clovis, all of California.  He has honorary Juris Doctor degrees from Morgan State University, Baltimore, Maryland; Southern University, Baton Rouge, Louisiana; The City College of New York; Paine College, Augusta, Georgia; and Lorenzo Patino School of Law, University of Northern California.

Today, Willie Brown heads the Willie L. Brown, Jr., Institute on Politics and Public Service, where this acknowledged master of the art of politics shares his knowledge and skills with a new generation of California leaders.

Ms. Sween is a partner in the Employment practice group in Lewis Brisbois Bisgaard & Smith’s San Francisco office. Lisa has represented employers in all aspects of employment law and litigation, including state and federal employment harassment and discrimination litigation and wrongful discharge litigation. In addition to her litigation expertise, Lisa regularly counsels employers on preventive employment policies and practices involving all areas of federal, state and local employment law, including recruiting and hiring, employee handbooks, leaves of absence, discipline and termination, workforce reductions, discrimination and harassment, reasonable accommodation and wage and hour.

REAL ESTATE ESSENTIALS

Between 2005 and 2010, KC worked in the Federal Reserve System in multiple capacities. KC briefed Chairman Bernanke, the Board of Governors, Federal Reserve District Bank Presidents and real estate industry groups on market conditions and burgeoning issues during the 2008-2009 Financial Crisis. KC joined Colliers in 2010 as head of the real estate analytics capabilities advising institutional, bank and regulatory clients, as well as supporting Valuation and Advisory services. He commenced his real estate career as an appraiser for Cushman & Wakefield and the former Equitable Real Estate, he pursed loan workout, portfolio management and asset advisory experience with such companies as Deloitte & Touche, Wells Fargo and Prudential. In 1997, KC joined SouthTrust Bank as their Director of Underwriting to start a conduit.

Dmitry Semenov is an experienced real estate finance and development professional.  For the past 15 years he has worked in many aspects of commercial real estate in the United States and internationally, including land acquisition and development, accounting and finance, and commercial lending.  He joined Umpqua Bank as a Commercial Relationship Manager in 2011 to develop the bank’s commercial real estate and municipal finance practice areas.  Dmitry has a Bachelor’s degree in Economics from Plekhanov Academy of Economics in Moscow, Russia and an MBA from UC Davis.

Mike has been active in the commercial real estate finance and investment industry since 1992.  He rejoined StanCorp Mortgage Investors in 2010 and is responsible for loan production nationwide. Prior to rejoining StanCorp, Mike spent five years as Vice President & Regional Manager at Intervest Mortgage where he was responsible for commercial loan production in Oregon and SW Washington. Prior to that Mr. Morey spent ten years in the real estate finance division of StanCorp Mortgage Investors, LLC/Standard Insurance Company in Portland, OR.  Mr. Morey has extensive experience in arranging debt financing for all types of commercial properties from all types of lending sources.  Mr. Morey is on the board of directors of the Westside Economic Alliance in Portland, OR and the Oregon Mortgage Lenders Association.  He is a graduate of the University of California at Berkeley.

Eric Von Berg, CMB, is a well-respected leader in the field of Commercial Property Finance. He is a former chairman of the California Mortgage Bankers Association and sits on the Commercial Board of Governors (COMBOG) for the Mortgage Bankers Association of America. Eric is a principal at Newmark Realty Capital, Inc. where he produces real estate mortgage and equity investments, and consults in the areas of finance, asset management and development. Eric’s background in design, finance, construction and development gives him a unique understanding of the diverse aspects of value creation in real estate. He began his real estate career as a designer, training in landscape architecture and site planning at U.C. Berkeley. After a few years of practice in urban design, he chose to broaden his horizons with an MBA at the Wharton School of Business, where he specialized in Real Estate Finance. Eric joined Newmark Realty Capital, Inc. as an owner/principal in 1993. Eric is active in several professional organizations and often speaks at BAMA, ICSC, NAIOP, SIOR, CMBA, MBA, BOMA, ULI and CMSA seminars. He is a licensed California Real Estate Broker and Certified Mortgage Banker.

Jeffrey R. Shouse is the current Regional Managing Director for the Sacramento, San Francisco, Irvine, Denver, and Utah offices for PGP Valuation Inc.  He began his career at PGP Valuation Inc in January 1998 after receiving his Bachelor’s Degree from California State University, Sacramento. His primary focus is on the valuation of self storage facilities, overseeing employees throughout the country. His clients cover a wide range of industries including lenders, developers, owners, attorneys, insurance companies, and redevelopment groups.

Jeff also leads the Self-Storage Group at and his team of self-storage specialists has appraised approximately 400 facilities across the United States. The Self-Storage team prides itself on tracking historical trends in the industry in order to accurately gauge where the self-storage market is and where it is projected to go. 

Jeff also oversees the PGP Business Development Team.  This entails a number of techniques and responsibilities overseeing the Business Development Team, all in an effort to gain new clients, penetrate existing and new markets, and help the firm grow as a whole.

• How will the anticipated reintroductions of a split roll property tax bill affect your self-storage investment and commercial properties throughout the state?
• Learn about the plumbing fixture compliance requirements that will effect every California commercial property owner wishing to refinance or sell their property.
• Gain insight on pending legislation including a bill that will compel all commercial property owners to limit employee parking and require transit cost subsidies.

• We will navigate through California's tricky and ever changing employment laws - including wage and hour issues.
• Learn how to implement certain best practices that every California employer needs to know in preventing costly harassment and retaliation claims.

• Learn about the current commercial and industrial real estate market.
• Is long-term real estate financing available and what is the outlook on rates and terms?
• How will the national economic recovery impact the real estate market including the demand for self-storage.