Stephen S. Grimmé - President

    Mr. Grimmé has been involved in the management of large projects including commercial, retail, hospitality, industrial, and parking garages since 1977. He earned a Bachelors of Science degree Civil Engineering in 1981 from the University of Delaware. He also earned a Professional Designation in Engineering Management for Construction from the University of California, Los Angeles in 1984.

 

    Mr. Grimmé possesses intimate knowledge of the Tampa, Los Angeles, Boston, and Honolulu markets, and has served in various capacities including co- founder, partner, and director of US Pacific Builders, Inc. from 1987 through 1997. US Pacific completed over 500 Million worth of resort commercial projects ranging from hotels, retail malls, big box, condominiums, and office buildings. He has been a partner in many development ventures including raw land subdivisions in Hawaii and Oregon, and the development of 365 condominiums on the Big Island of Hawaii. Since 1997, working with Huber, Hunt and Nichols and Beers Construction, he has provided programming, pre-construction, and management on numerous projects in the Tampa Bay area, including the Raymond James Stadium, Devil Rays Spring Training facilities, Ybor parking garage, Palm Avenue parking garage, Panama City High School, Hillsboro Community College, Church of Scientology MPTCC building, and Pinellas County Medical Examiner.  Recent Hawaii projects include feasibility, valuation, and coordination of development and pre-construction activities for Ko Olina Resort, spearheading and management of the diligence team on Princeville Resort Acquisition for the JV of Stone/MSREF in 2005, and owner advocate general contractor negotiations on condominium projects.

 

    Mr. Grimmé formed Smith Equity Builders, Inc. in June 2001 primarily to act as owners representative for the Principals of major developments, who do not have the staff to prepare and execute their strategy, and to assist and document all phases of the development from design contracting and management, RFP preparation, contractor selection, budgeting and scheduling leading to a successful ground breaking through completion.

 

    Current and recent Projects include first line responsibility for the acquisition, entitlement, design and construction of over 1 Billion Dollars worth of Mixed Use developments in 3 states, and 2 Countries. 

 

    His philosophy is simple: provide superior insight to various team members involved in the development and construction process to insure their project is on time, on budget and with un-compromised quality.

 


 

Bryan Nickel - Director

 

    Over the past 29 years Bryan Nickel as been involved in putting in place over $2 Billion of Commercial, Industrial, Retail and Residential product in the Southern California area.  Bryan’s past employment with real estate and construction companies includes C. L. Peck Contractor, EQUIDON, Brock Homes, and Snyder Langston. His experience includes some of the largest and most prestigious projects of their kind in Southern California.  Most recently Bryan has been developing, building and selling Custom Homes in the 1.5 to 2 Mil range in the Newport Beach and Orange County area of Southern California. Bryan served for 11 years as Chief Financial Officer, of Snyder Langston, a Los Angeles based Developer/Builder    and was responsible for the for financial risk analysis, acquisition, financing, and disposition, of over $100 million per year of real estate product, put in place, managed, litigated, leased or sold;

 

    A graduate, with honors, from the University of California at Santa Barbara with a degree in Economics, his post graduate training also includes study in tax, business law, accounting and real estate appraisal.

 

    Additionally, Bryan currently represents the Orange County 5th District on the County’s Regional Recreational Trails Advisory Committee, supervising the implementation of over 500 miles of non-vehicle trails, is a member of the Board of Directors of Trails4All, a non-profit dedicated to coordinating volunteer efforts in maintaining Trails and has served as Scoutmaster of Boy Scout Troop 37 in Newport Beach.

 


 

 

Anthony D. Hama

    Mr. Hama is a ten year veteran of the real estate industry and is well versed in the areas of project acquisition, financing, development, leasing and management. He has transaction experience in several domestic markets including, Northern and Southern California, Hawaii, Oregon, Florida and Las Vegas. As a Vice President of Smith Equity Builders, Mr. Hama’s primary duties are to assist clients with the evaluation, structuring, documentation and closing of real estate development projects and acquisitions. This includes reviewing market fundamentals to determine proper product mix and pricing, building financial models to assess transaction economics and recommend the optimal project capital structure, preparing development budgets, reviewing and negotiating joint venture and financing agreements and working with legal counsel during the drafting of governing project documents and critical legal documents.

    Mr. Hama has served as a Vice President with The Resort Group (TRG), a Honolulu, Hawaii based resort development company, where he was involved in the predevelopment of resort commercial projects, including the $1 Billion Ritz Carlton Ko Olina Hotel and Residences, the analysis, target pricing and sale of various resort parcels totaling $100 Million. Mr. Hama also served on the acquisition team for the purchase of the 9,000 acre Princeville Resort in Kauai. In addition to his resort development experience, Mr. Hama has been actively involved in the leasing, management and acquisition of office and retail properties, serving as a Project Manager for Spieker Properties, a large San Francisco based real estate investment trust, where he managed a 4 million square foot portfolio of commercial office and retail properties.

    Additionally, Mr. Hama gained significant experience financing real estate projects while at Smith Barney and later, at Banc of America Securities in San Francisco. His project experience in this area includes three REIT initial public offerings and several private equity and mezzanine capital raises for private real estate developers and investment funds.

    Mr. Hama received his BA from UCLA in Economics and his MBA, with distinction, from the Johnson School of Business at Cornell University. He is a member of the Urban Land Institute, NAIOP and BOMA.


 

Michael J. Lombardi, Esq.

 

    Mr. Lombardi has been involved in the legal administration and / or technical management of large projects including residential, commercial, public housing, and heavy industrial construction within the domestic nuclear power plant sector since 1976.  In addition, in his capacity as a trial attorney, Mr. Lombardi has represented numerous general and specialty contractors in a variety of construction litigation cases.  He earned a Bachelor of Science degree in Civil Engineering (BSCE) in 1980 from the Worcester Polytechnic Institute (WPI) in Massachusetts.  Thereafter, following a three-year stint as a Field Contracts Engineer responsible for the delivery of $100 million in nuclear construction subcontract work with the Bechtel Power Corporation, he earned a Juris Doctor (JD) degree from the New England School of Law, Boston, MA in 1987.  From 1988 to 1994 Mr. Lombardi served in the dual capacities of Engineering Manager and Corporate Counsel for Pacific Nuclear Systems in Chicago, IL.  In 1994, Mr. Lombardi returned to Boston to take the helm of The Lombardi Corporation and thereafter established Tremont Redevelopment Corporation and the law firm, Lombardi & Stephenson.

 

    Mr. Lombardi possesses intimate knowledge of the Boston, New England, Chicago, and Florida real estate markets, and has been the president and chief executive officer of Boston-based Tremont Redevelopment Corporation since 1998. Tremont is an affiliate of The Lombardi Corporation, established in 1961, which has developed and / or constructed and managed more than 1,000 units of multifamily housing in New England.  Tremont is developing a 7-story, 62-unit condominium complex in the Brighton District of Boston, MA as well as a 118-unit market rate, age restricted (+55) senior residential development on thirty (30) acres in Westwood, MA, fourteen miles WSW of Boston.  Sales proceeds from these development projects will exceed $80 million. 

 

    Mr. Lombardi serves on the Board of Directors of Smith Equity Builders, Inc., and is a Director and shareholder of Sandhill Enterprises, Ltd., a Belize, Central America-based business.  Mr. Lombardi and Mr. Grimmé have been working together in various arrangements since 1982.

 


College Interns

Smith Equity Builders, Inc. prides itself on it's efforts to bring young people into our company and both educate them in the matters of construction, civil engineering, and business, as well as learn from them in an effort to keep Smith Equity Builders, Inc. state of the art and up to the increasingly frequent changes present in today's modern world.

Kati Greising - Majoring in Civil Engineering

 

Cori Meltzer – Majoring in Accounting at University of South Florida

 

Mandy Koenig - Majoring in Bio-molecular Science at Florida State University

 

Shane Chism - Majoring in Political Science/Pre-law at the University of Central Florida

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