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Rick Kaplan host of NEREJ NYREJ Podcast interviews Joshua Lee Smith of Bowditch & Dewey.      www.bowditch.com

Joshua will discuss issues in real estate and the market itself. With experience across a wide variety of areas, including multifamily, industrial, higher education and public utility, I believe I can bring a unique perspective to the podcast.  

Joshua will also explain the change in the Massachusetts amendments to the zoning act

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Rick Kaplan host of NEREJ/ NYREJ Podcast interviews Mark Pelletier of Maugel DeStefano Architects interview NEREJ/NYREJ Podcast.  
www.Maugel.com

Mark is an owner and principal of Maugel DeStefano Architects. He leads the firm's multifamily design studio, which currently has over 3,000 units of housing in design and under development.  Much of the studio's activity is in the City of Worcester and surrounding towns, Windsor CT and suburbs of Boston.

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Rick Kaplan host of NEREJ/ NYREJ Podcast interviews Jim Brady of Fathom Companies.     fathom.com

Jim talks about his interesting Journey and his company a fully integrated real estate development, equity investment, and hospitality management firm based in Portland, Maine. An institutional-grade developer with decades of experience navigating the New England market, Jim specializes in complex historic preservation, high-design adaptive reuse, and sustainable market innovations. Beyond his corporate footprint, Jim is a former Olympic Silver Medalist in sailing, bringing a unique, high-stakes navigation and risk-management mindset directly into structural engineering and urban development. Under his leadership, Fathom has built a reputation for creating immense civic equity through deeply curated properties—most notably the award-winning adaptive reuse of The Press Hotel (the landmark, century-old former Portland Press Herald headquarters)—and Fathom is preparing to manage Vermont's milestone first-ever Marriott Tribute Portfolio asset, the all-electric, net-zero Sugar House Hotel.

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Rick Kaplan host of the nEREJ/NYREJ Podcast interviews George Hanna of Smart Income Lifestyle Inc.   

SmartincomeLifestyle.com

George discuss how most business owners don't actually own a business — they own a job with overhead. I built my career around fixing that.
My mission is to build businesses that outgrow their owners. I developed Business Ascension™, a discipline for transforming owner-dependent companies into scalable, asset-based enterprises — ones capable of growing, transferring, and creating value beyond the founder.
Through my work, I identified what I call Execution Drift™ — the hidden, often invisible gap between what should happen in a business and what actually happens day to day. Left unaddressed, this drift is what quietly caps growth and traps owners in their own operations.
The solution I created to close that gap is Execution Certainty™ — the ability for a business to execute consistently, predictably, and profitably, without the owner needing to be at the center of everything. I install this through a proprietary framework I developed called the S.A.P.E. Method™:

Systemize — turn tribal knowledge into repeatable process
Assetize — convert the business itself into a transferable asset
Profitize — engineer profitability that doesn't rely on owner hustle
Enterprise — build the structure of a true, standalone enterprise

The result for the businesses I work with: companies that no longer depend on their owner for growth, profitability, or execution — freeing the owner and multiplying the value of what they built.
My work comes down to three things: Build value. Multiply value. Preserve value.

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Rick Kaplan host of NEREJ/NYREJ Podcast interviews Frank Flynn of Flynn Law Group and Dave Barrett of RCM Services.  
Dave Barrett
[email protected]                 
RCM  Services
617-787-5800

Frank Flynn
[email protected]
Flynn Law Group
flynnlaw-ne.com
617-988-0633
Dave Barrett & Frank Flynn talk rent control, tenant landlord issues

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Rick Kaplan host of the NEREJ/NYREJ podcast interviews Matt Shortsleeve with Solect Energy.   www.solect.com

Matt has over a decade of experience, Matt has successfully developed more than 100 solar and energy storage projects for municipalities, school districts, state agencies, and businesses. His expertise encompasses a wide range of solutions, including rooftop, canopy, ground-mounted systems, and large-scale, multi-megawatt renewable energy and storage infrastructures.

In addition to project development, he manages legislative and regulatory affairs, advocating for policies and frameworks that advance a clean energy economy powered by a modernized electric grid.

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Rick Kaplan host of NEREJ/NYREJ Podcast interviews Leo Young of Cornell Communities.  www.cornellcommunities.com   

Leo Young is the Founder & Managing Partner of Cornell Communities, a private equity real estate firm revitalizing manufactured housing communities across eight states. With more than $75M in real estate transactions, institutional private equity experience, and hands-on operational leadership, he expands access to affordable housing while generating disciplined, risk-managed returns for accredited investors.

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Rick Kaplan Host of the NEREJ/NYREJ Podcast interviews Gino Barbaro of Jake & Gino Barbaro 360. As a multifamily investor, entrepreneur, and co-founder of Jake & Gino, Gino brings a hands-on perspective built from actively acquiring, managing, and scaling multifamily assets through changing market cycles and interest rate environments.

He values conversations that go beyond theory and provide listeners with actionable lessons from real-world experience. Your audience of commercial real estate professionals, investors, and operators would benefit from discussions around portfolio scaling, operational challenges, value-add execution, investor mindset, and long-term business growth within multifamily real estate.

Gino also enjoys sharing lessons learned from building businesses, educating investors, and helping others create sustainable wealth and legacy through disciplined real estate investing.

Over the years, I’ve been directly involved in acquiring, managing, and scaling a substantial multifamily portfolio, focusing on value-add strategies and operational efficiency. Alongside my investing career, I’ve helped educate thousands of students and investors through the Jake & Gino platform, where we teach practical, real-world principles of buying and operating multifamily real estate.

I’m also a Certified Money Coach®, and I’m passionate about helping people develop not just better investing skills, but also a healthier relationship with money and long-term wealth building. My work is centered around bridging the gap between strategy and execution in real estate investing, especially for small to mid-sized operators looking to scale effectively.

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Rick Kaplan Host of the NEREJ/ NYREJ Podcast interviews Benjamin Stef of Nexa Lending.  www.fundingfreedom.net    

Ben talks about really unique, high-leverage loan programs that most investors don't know about that can help them scale faster.  We've been able to scale our mortgage business to multiple six figures in less than 6 months all while keeping margins low in order to benefit the investors and their pockets. At this point I've been invited to many other podcasts and speaking engagements sharing the knowledge my team and I have. Because we work with so many real estate investors at a high level across the country, we get to see a lot of strategies that work and a lot of strategies that don't work, coupled with having mortgage and lending knowledge, so we know how to structure deals to make sense on paper.

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Rick Kaplan Host of NEREJ/ NYREJ Podcast Interviews Jens Nielsen of Open Doors Capital. 

 Jens spent 27 years in IT and telecom before transitioning full-time into real estate investing and coaching.

Since 2016 I've been a partner in over 2,700 apartment units and 100,000+ square feet of commercial real estate, and I’ve raised over $10M in private capital.

Over the past few years, I’ve also shifted focus toward industrial and other commercial assets, while helping investors and business owners improve decision-making, operations, and long-term strategy.

What’s shaped me most isn’t just the growth—it’s navigating challenging deals, lender negotiations, and market shifts, which has forced me to become more disciplined around risk and capital preservation.
Tells us what you would like to discuss on the show? ’d focus on how commercial real estate investors can adapt right now, especially as traditional multifamily deals have become harder to make work:

Pivoting Across Asset Classes
How investors can move into areas like light industrial or niche commercial to continue finding value.
What Actually Works in Today’s Market
Adjusting underwriting, debt strategy, and hold periods in a higher-rate environment.
Risk Management from an Operator’s Perspective
Lessons from managing through tough deals, working with lenders, and protecting investor capital.