AREA REAL ESTATE ADVISORS - Key Persons
Job Titles:
- Vice President, Retail Division
Anna Waldron joined AREA's Property Management team in October of 2022 as a Property Administrator with the Anderson portfolio transition. She began working at Axiom Commercial earlier in 2022 as an Administrative Assistant for the property managers. Anna earned her undergraduate degree at the University of Houston and her master's degree in Piano Performance at UMKC.
Job Titles:
- Vice President, Retail Division
Bill Shackelford joined AREA Real Estate Advisors in 2002. He is a lifetime Kansas City area resident with over 20 years in the commercial real estate industry. Bill is involved in numerous facets of the commercial real estate industry including: development, leasing, sales, tenant representation, site selection (local and national) and investment analysis. Bill's straight forward and honest approach has gained him respect within the real estate community.
Job Titles:
- Entertainment and Experiential Retail Specialist
Brad Woods joins the AREA team as an Entertainment and Experiential Retail Specialist. He brings over 20 years of experience in business development, client strategy and project management, coupled with a proven track record of year-over-year revenue growth working for both startups and Fortune 100 companies. His passion for complex challenges, creative direction, cutting-edge research, technology, and forward-thinking solutions is what drives him, and allows him to maintain long-term client relationships by bringing their visions to life.
Brad has a diverse range of experience with clients in various market segments, including cinema, theme parks, retail, office, and industrial manufacturing. His primary area of expertise is with location-based entertainment and experiential retail clients. He brings a wealth of knowledge and understanding of other retail industries such as hospitality, next-generation mixed use, and shopping destinations that create world class experiences through technology and amenities.
He thrives on developing and maintaining long-term client relationships and has demonstrated this through his high-profile partnerships at Disney, AMC, Universal Studios, Live Nation, Eldorado Resorts, BassPro/Cabelas, Cinemark, Helzberg and many architecture and general contracting firms both nationally and locally.
Brad is a graduate of the University of Kansas with a degree in Aerospace Engineering, and lives in Overland Park, KS with his wife and their four children. He enjoys coaching his kids' sports, hunting, fishing, and time at the lake.
Job Titles:
- in 2014 As Vice President and Director
- Vice President and Director of Industrial Brokerage
Brent Peterson joined AREA Real Estate Advisors in 2014 as Vice President and Director of Industrial Brokerage. As a licensed realtor in Kansas and Missouri, he works on industrial sales, leasing, and investment properties. Brent has been actively involved in commercial real estate since 2005.
At AREA Real Estate Advisors, Brent's focus is on assisting small to large sized companies and helping them evaluate their industrial warehouse or manufacturing needs. Having worked with small local firms, as well as large fortune 500 companies, Brent has a wealth of knowledge helping all sizes and types of clients. With experience on both the Tenant/Buyer and Landlord/Seller sides, Brent is familiar with all facets of the real estate decision making process and is regularly sought out by his clients and peers for industry knowledge and guidance.
Brent has an accounting degree from Creighton University in Omaha, NE. He is an active member of SIOR and is involved in numerous local and national charitable organizations. He enjoys fishing, hunting and the outdoors. Brent lives in Olathe with his wife of 25 years, Dawn.
Job Titles:
- Vice President, Retail Division
Cary Fox joined AREA Real Estate Advisors in 2009 specializing in the leasing and sale of retail and investment properties. He has over 29 years of commercial real estate sales experience and has worked in the areas of brokerage, tenant representation, development.
Job Titles:
- Vice President, Industrial Division
Cory DeLong began his commercial real estate career in 2010. Within the first 18 months, Cory achieved the Kansas City Regional Association of Realtors "Rookie of the Year" award. After 3 years in the business, Cory joined AREA Real Estate Advisors to develop and grow the industrial division within the company. Cory's focus is the Sale and Leasing of Industrial product, Tenant Representation and Real Estate Investment within the Kansas City Metro and throughout the United States. Cory works with multiple corporations as their exclusive broker on a national level. In 2016, Cory DeLong achieved Vice President status for his involvement in the development of the industrial division and overall transaction volume from his time at AREA.
Cory was born and raised in Johnson County, KS and graduated from Blue Valley West High School.
Job Titles:
- in 2019 As Senior Property Manager
Dawña M. Garza joined AREA Real Estate Advisors in 2019 as Senior Property Manager for lightwell. Prior to joining AREA, Dawña worked directly for the owners of City Center Square (now lightwell) as a Property Manager. Her duties included, but were not limited to, overseeing the property management and engineering staff, security, janitorial as well as managing tenant relations, preparing complicated budgets, negotiating service contracts, overseeing or involvement in construction projects, overseeing parking, gym, and tenant events.
Job Titles:
- Executive Vice President, Director of Property Management
- Vice President, Director of Property Management
Doug joined AREA Real Estate Advisors in 2016. He has been managing property and facilities in the Kansas City market since 1994. His many years of property management experience in Kansas City have helped him develop an extensive network of vendor and contractor contacts, both locally and nationally.
Prior to joining AREA, Doug was the Managing Director of Asset Service for CBRE in Kansas City. He was responsible for the operations and growth of CBRE's Kansas City portfolio, as well as having oversight of CBRE's Asset Services group in St. Louis. The managed portfolio spread to other cities as well: Lawrence, Topeka, and Wichita Kansas; Columbia and Springfield, Missouri; Des Moines and Dubuque, Iowa; and Lincoln, Nebraska. His responsibilities included property management, leasing, tenant relations, staff development, project and construction management, technical services, risk management, purchasing, energy management and financial reporting. During his five-and-a-half-year tenure at CBRE revenue grew by an average of 14% per year and the square footage under management more than doubled to 12 million square feet.
Doug has significant past experience having managed headquarters facilities for the following companies:
AMC Movie Theaters
Kiewit Power
Burns & McDonnell
BKD Accounting
FAA and Federal Transportation Regional Headquarters
BATS Global Markets
Hill's Pet Nutrition
Prior to joining CBRE, Doug spent ten years with Opus, a developer, builder, and owner of commercial real estate. Doug established Opus's Kansas City property management office, eventually growing to a portfolio of over one million square feet of Class A office space. Working with the development group, Doug had the opportunity to participate in the design-build process and commissioned seven new office buildings in the Kansas City market.
Doug's career has also included Operations Manager at City Center Square, a 625,000 SF downtown office building in Kansas City with Cohen Esrey and Colliers Turley Martin Tucker.
Before entering the field of commercial real estate, Doug worked for Kansas City Power & Light Company (KCPL). During his tenure, he managed all of KCPL's corporate facilities, totaling more than one million square feet. Before joining the KCPL Facilities Management Department, he spent eight years in power plant operations, which provided him with significant expertise in the areas of power generation and distribution. He gained valuable, first-hand emergency response and disaster recovery experience as well.
Doug has a strong technical and business background, possessing both a Mechanical Engineering Degree from Kansas State University and a Master of Business Administration from the University of Kansas.
Job Titles:
- AREA As an Office Broker and Project Manager
Ellen Fisher joined AREA as an Office Broker and Project Manager in January of 2022. Ellen specializes in providing tenant and landlord representation to corporate office users throughout the Kansas City Metro. Ellen provides her clients with expertise in transaction management, lease negotiations, financial modeling and project management.
Prior to joining AREA, Ellen was at Colliers International where she was put on a fast-track to learning and mastering the commercial real estate industry, working alongside two senior office producers. In just three short years, Ellen understood how to successfully develop long-term, goal driven real estate strategies that appropriately addressed the needs of each client. With a diverse client base, interested in a variety of property types, her experience spans from traditional office space, to flex space, retail, and medical facilities.
One of the many distinct advantages of working with Ellen, is her ability to offer her clients project management services post-lease execution or building close. The traditional brokerage scope of work usually stops upon lease execution, but Ellen discovered quickly how critical it was to effectively manage the post-lease execution process.
Prior to starting her commercial real estate career, she was in project management at Burns & McDonnell, with emphasis in Mission Critical facilities. While earning her PMP, she quickly became an expert in construction management, subcontract management, project coordination, forecasting, and financial modeling.
Job Titles:
- Marketing & Operations Manager, 816.876.2534
Job Titles:
- Vice President, Office Division
Greg Foote joined AREA Real Estate Advisors in 2009, specializing in the sale and leasing of office, industrial and investment properties. Greg has worked in the commercial real estate industry, primarily in the areas of brokerage and development of office and industrial properties, since 2004. During this time, he has worked in tenant and landlord representation as well as being directly involved in all phases of development, from site analysis and acquisition to product delivery and disposition.
Job Titles:
- Associate
- Vice President, Office Division
Hank Simpson joined AREA as an associate of the office division in January 2017. Hank works to represent and advise tenants and landlords in the Kansas City area. His primary responsibilities are to assist Tenants and Landlords with lease structure, negotiation and decisions as it relates to cost saving. Hank is continuously motivated by any size of deal and looks forward to having the opportunity to serve the Kansas City area businesses and making relationships with clients, as he continues to build his portfolio.
Jay Hawkins joined AREA as an associate of the office team in June 2021 after interning for the company during his senior year at the University of Kansas. Jay works closely with the office team and represents both tenants and landlords in Kansas City and the surrounding area. In order to cultivate his real estate proficiency, he works closely with members of the entire company in addition to the office team. Jay wants to actively help Kansas City grow by building strong client relationships in order to help them generate the most business possible.
Job Titles:
- in 2019 As Our Property Accounting Manager
- Property Accounting Manager
Jeremy Rogge joined AREA Real Estate Advisors in 2019 as our Property Accounting Manager. Jeremy uses his expertise as part of the property management team in the preparation of financial packages. His objective is to support the client and manager through the preparation of monthly financial reports. He uses his knowledge of software such as MRI, Kardin, Yardi, and MS Office to help meet the deadlines established by the clients. Jeremy is also involved in the preparation of budgets, as well as submitting quarterly projects (re-forecasts/projections, etc.) and audit requests from the client.
Jeremy brings over 18 years of experience to our Property Management team. He began his career in 2001 with Kessinger / Hunter as a Senior Property Accountant. Prior to joining the Kessinger / Hunter team, he was an Accounting Manager for Heritage Labs in Olathe and a Staff Accountant for Blue Beacon International.
Jeremy is a graduate of Kansas State University with a bachelor's degree in Business Administration & Accounting.
Job Titles:
- Property & Project Manager
Josh Scott joined AREA's Property Management team in July of 2019. He previously was with Cushman & Wakefield, where he was a part of the Project & Development Services Team. There, he was involved with over $30 million in capital and tenant improvement projects throughout the Kansas City area. He began his career as a building engineer at Cushman, where he was responsible for multiple phases of construction and commissioning of the new Ewing Marion Kauffman Charter School. Josh's specialties include project evaluation, financial planning, architectural input and review, construction management, contract administration, feasibility studies, value engineering and client consultation.
Job Titles:
- Building Engineer
- Chief
- in 2019 As Chief Building Engineer
Kirk Lyons joined AREA Real Estate Advisors in 2019 as Chief Building Engineer for lightwell (formerly City Center Square). After serving in the United States Marine Corps, Kirk joined the Kansas City Pipefitters Local 533 Union, where he was employed by The Fagan Company to serve his 5 year apprenticeship. After 11 years of working in the field as an HVAC Technician he found his way to commercial building engineering and has been in this field since.
Job Titles:
- Associate
- Retail Division
Luke Kaiser joined AREA as an associate of the retail team in November 2021 and graduated from the University of Kansas with a Bachelor's Degree in Finance in July 2021. Having grown up in Kansas City, Luke has a strong determination to represent and grow local and national retailers throughout the metro. His experience with financial and competitive analysis models helps create an advantage in site selection for both tenants and landlords. Luke looks to continue building client relationships and working closely with the retail team.
Martin Whipple joined AREA's Property Management team in October of 2022 as a Property Manager. He has been managing properties and facilities mostly in the Kansas City market since 2000. His responsibilities over the years have consisted of tenant and vendor relations, leasing, marketing, construction management, disposition and acquisition of properties, staff development, financial management, contract negotiations, and achieving Energy Star status at properties.
Martin came to AREA from Axiom Commercial, where he was previously a property manager managing the Anderson Portfolio, which transitioned with him. The portfolio consists of 19 commercial properties totaling 783,000 SF. Prior to Axiom Commercial, Martin was at Colliers managing properties for their KC Life Insurance client, and in Phoenix for Barker Pacific Group.
Most of Martin's property management career has been in Kansas City. For 14 years, he was at Hines, which included stents at two Crown Center Class A properties of 1.1M SF, and the 290-acre Southlake office park in Lenexa totaling 915,000 SF.
Martin is a Real Property Administrator (RPA) through Building Owners and Managers Institute (BOMI) where he had served locally as a previous Board Member and Committee Member.
Mary Simpson joined AREA as an associate with the office team in August of 2016 after spending two summers interning with the firm. Mary quickly became a significant producer at AREA due to her long-established relationships within the community as well as her analytical prowess.
Mary's attention to every detail associated with a transaction makes her the first on the team to ask "Why, and is this right?" As a result, she is the lead contact on the company's long term relationships with banking clients, ARVEST and CommunityAmerica Credit Union, as well as some of other long term project leasing assignments. Mary also has been the go-to in representing the company's high net worth clients that seek and establish family offices.
Managing the company's most valuable relationships is her greatest value-add to AREA. Her communication and reporting skills combined with her analytical abilities makes her a valuable advisor to AREA's most demanding clients.
Outside of the office, Mary loves to be involved in her community. She has served on the Board for Bags of Fun KC and is an active member on The Children's Place Young Ambassador Board, where she has taken a leadership role in event planning.
Job Titles:
- Owner, Director of Brokerage Services
Matt Vaupell joined AREA Real Estate Advisors in 2003 specializing in the leasing and sales of retail and investment properties. Matt has over 25 years of commercial real estate sales experience and has successfully represented numerous local and national companies purchase, lease and sell commercial properties throughout Kansas City and across the Midwest. Matt is directly involved in the overall management of AREA, as well as overseeing over 25 full-time Retail, Industrial Office and Multi-Family brokers.
Matt has served on the Olathe Mayor's Christmas Tree Fund Board and is also involved with numerous other Kansas City based charitable organizations. He is an honoree of Ingram's magazine 40 Under Forty Class of 2010. Ingram's chose men and women who demonstrate significant leadership and integrity while balancing business, family and community. Matt received his Bachelor of Science Degree from Emporia State University and is an active member of the International Council of Shopping Centers.
Job Titles:
- Marketing & Office Management Associate, 816.777.2842
Michael Keating was introduced to Commercial General Contracting at a very young age when he started working for his father's firm in Kansas City. In the beginning it was simply cleaning the job sites, but in the end, it was full on project management.
Michael graduated from the University of Missouri - Kansas City in May 2013 with a Bachelors in Entrepreneurial Studies. After graduation he returned to his roots in Commercial Contracting, adding on to his already established portfolio. In 2016, Michael used his vast amount of knowledge and experience to his advantage and began practicing commercial real estate full time with KW Commercial.
In 2018, Michael joined AREA Real Estate Advisors to help grow the industrial division. Michael continues to build his portfolio by helping businesses large and small, both locally and nationally through offering a full-service approach to all his client's needs; from sales and leasing to investments and development consulting.
Michael lives in his home town of Aubry-Stilwell with his wife Kirsten and daughters Kylinn and Rohan. He enjoys spending time with his family and working outdoors. His hobbies consist of restoring vintage ATV's/ATC's and larger trucks; as well as hunting, fishing and golfing.
Mike Long joined AREA's Property Management Team in September 2022 with a focus on office building and retail property management. He previously was with Curry Real Estate Services where he headed their multifamily property division. There, he was involved with both company-owned and third party-managed assets including market rate apartments, LIHTC tax credit apartments, manufactured home communities, self-storage, duplexes, townhomes, and single-family homes. Mike was also the Court Appointed Receiver for a 55+ community in Leawood, KS where he oversaw the management, asset preservation, ongoing sales, and distribution of proceeds to the court settlement group. Mike got his start in real estate as a commercial appraiser with Bliss Associates before transitioning into the property management field in 1995.
Mike's work and life philosophy is built on trying to follow "The Platinum Rule" which states: Treat others as THEY want to be treated. He uses this guiding principle to build and nurture long-term relationships with owners, industry peers, industry partners, contractors, tenants, and staff.
Mike is a Certified Property Manager (CPM®) through the Institute of Real Estate Management (IREM®), and he has been involved in IREM® on both the local and national level. Mike served on the local board from 2008-2015 and as Kansas City Chapter President in 2014. He has served on the national Membership and Credentialing Committee from 2019-2022 and as the vice chair of the committee in 2022. Mike also has served on the Board of Directors for Edison Credit Union in Kansas City, Missouri since 2010.
Mike lives in Lee's Summit with his wife Kristina and their two cats while his two boys Aaron (Grand Canyon University-Phoenix, AZ) and Andrew (University of Arkansas) are away at school. Mike enjoys spending time with friends and family and he and his wife love to travel. He has grown a passion for refereeing soccer at the high school level in MSHSAA (Missouri State High School Activities Association) and at the local grassroots level for USSF (United States Soccer Federation) helping mentor younger referees for the Sporting Lee's Summit soccer club.
Job Titles:
- Operations Manager
- Senior Project Manager
Job Titles:
- Tenant Relations & Event Specialist
Job Titles:
- Vice President, Director of Office Division
Job Titles:
- Assistant
- Property Manager
Job Titles:
- Vice President, Retail Division
Job Titles:
- Vice President, Industrial Division
Job Titles:
- Vice President of Marketing and Administration, 816.876.2541