Dr. Karen E. Engel, Keynote Speaker

In her current role as the Executive Director of the East Bay Economic Development Alliance, Dr. Engel leads a unique, two-county public-private partnership focused on the economic health and vitality of the San Francisco East Bay region.

As an economist with over 20 years of experience, Dr. Engel has led or participated in economic and business development projects in more than a dozen U.S. regions and other countries. Her international experience includes work for foreign governments, private firms, the World Bank and the U.S. Agency for International Development on issues ranging from international trade to micro-enterprise development.

As a Fulbright Scholar in Madagascar, Dr. Engel served as an economic advisor on small business to the Minister of Economy and Planning. In the U.S., she has facilitated regional economic development strategies in Indiana, Florida, California, and, the Puget Sound region. Locally, she has served as the Economic Development Director for the Oakland Metropolitan Chamber of Commerce where she led the Oakland Partnership, a public-private initiative focused on the economic development of the City of Oakland and its metro region. In the late '90s, she served as the Business Development Manager for the City of Oakland.

Dr. Engel has an AB in History and Economics from Brown University as well as an M.A.L.D and Ph.D. from the Fletcher School at Tufts University.

Link Corkery, Moderator

Link is a director at the East Bay RHA and is chairman of the Market Conditions Committee. He owns apartments in Oakland, Castro Valley and Hayward and is a regular columnist in the EBRHA Rental Housing magazine, writing about market conditions for larger apartment buildings. Link has been a member of the Oakland Association of Realtors since 1978 and formed Property Counselors Link Corkery, Inc. (PCLC) in 1980 and since then has been helping his clients buy and sell apartment buildings. He graduated from Michigan State University in 1975.

William J. Rosetti

Bill has been in the real estate business for over 40 years, and is the owner of J&R Associates Management Company.  During his time in real estate he has developed, owned and managed residential & commercial properties, and partnerships throughout the Bay Area while being at the forefront of the condominium conversion business in San Francisco.  He is currently the managing member of investment entities that own more than 2,000 apartment units and over 100 single family homes in the Bay Area and is also a founding member of the Oakland Jobs and Housing Coalition.

Donatas Januta

Don graduated from UC Berkeley with a BS degree in Electrical Engineering and a law degree from Boalt Hall. Between college and law school he worked on instrumentation for the Saturn rocket. For ten years Don was Deputy Attorney General for the State of California working on major complex land litigation and for eight years he was Senior Counsel and Vice-President of CB Commercial Real Estate Brokerage. Don owns approximately 500 apartment units, half in Oakland and the balance in Contra Costa, Solano, Napa and Marin counties.

Lawrence S. Cahn

Larry, a former director of our association, graduated from UCLA with degrees in finance and accounting and received his MBA in Finance and Real Estate from USC. From 1977 to 1979 he was a real estate broker specializing in apartment sales and he then formed his current company, Feasible Properties, buying apartments in Oakland and then relocated his portfolio to Contra Costa County and the Pacific Northwest. Larry is on the Board of Directors at the Oakland Zoo and a member of the Bay Area Council, Center for Real Estate and Urban Economics and the San Francisco Economic Roundtable.

Jon M. Shahoian, CPM

Jon is President of The Lapham Company, Inc., the largest property management company in Oakland. He has also been the President of the Alameda County Taxpayer’s Association since 1991 and President of the Oakland Association of Realtors in 1990. Jon has been a licensed real estate broker since 1982, receiving the prestigious Certified Property Manager designation from the Institute of Real Estate Management in 1993. He was also the Landlord Representative on the Oakland Residential Rent Arbitration Board from 1990 to 1997. Jon is currently a director and Executive Committee member of the Oakland Jobs and Housing Coalition (JHC).

Link Corkery, Moderator

See above

Clifford Fried

Clifford is a real estate attorney with expertise in landlord-tenant law, eviction and rent control matters in Oakland and the Bay Area. He and his law firm represent residential landlords only and are one of the largest such firm in Northern California. He has processed nearly 10,000 evictions in his career and has authored several books on evictions and hundreds of published articles on rental property ownership. Besides handling all types of real estate disputes, Clifford and his firm handle, complex rent control matters, difficult evictions and they defend landlords in lawsuits filed by tenants and government agencies for rent control violations, habitability and housing discrimination.

James Anthony

James is an attorney licensed in California and Hawaii and also holds a California Real Estate Broker license. He has six years of successful experience in medical cannabis permitting, lobbying, regulation, and litigation throughout California. In 2008 he directed the campaign for Berkeley’s Measure JJ, the first medical cannabis zoning ordinance passed by initiative. He also authored the 2009 Oakland business tax on cannabis-related businesses, the first such tax in the nation. Currently he sits on the City of Oakland Measure Z Oversight Committee. James is also a frequent speaker and writer on medical cannabis regulatory issues, campaign strategy, and public relations and previously was a zoning prosecutor for the City of Oakland.

Paul C. Tradelius, Jr.

Paul is the CEO of Commercial Coverage Insurance Agency with more than 10 years experience in the commercial insurance marketplace and a core practice in working with commercial property owners.  Commercial Coverage Insurance Agency is a national insurance brokerage representing over 100 insurance carriers and programs. Paul is also a contributing author in various commercial real estate industry publications and a public speaker in many Real Estate-related conventions.

Michael O’Connor

Mike is the Assistant District Attorney in the Alameda County District Attorney’s Office where he has been a prosecutor for 25 years and the head of the Legal Administration and Law & Motion Division for the past nine years. Mike is an East Bay native, and a graduate of UC Berkeley and UC Hastings College of Law.