Management
Bios
Woodbridge Holdings Executive
Management
 Alan
B. Levan, Chairman and CEO
Alan B. Levan has been the Chairman and Chief Executive Officer of Woodbridge Holdings, LLC and its predecessors, and has held the same roles at BFC Financial Corporation since 1978. Mr. Levan is also Chairman, President and CEO of BankAtlantic Bancorp. He possesses extensive experience in the management of portfolio companies and serves on the board of directors of several BFC and Woodbridge-related companies.
Mr. Levan has spearheaded BankAtlantic’s commitment to support Habitat for Humanity in that organization's effort to eradicate poverty housing in Florida. He is the recipient of the Spirit of Humanity Award, as well as the Nova Southeastern University Entrepreneurship Hall of Fame Award. He established the BankAtlantic Foundation in 1994. Its charitable contributions support a wide array of activities in the arts, education, social welfare and community and economic development.
A resident of Broward County, Florida, Mr. Levan is a Trustee of Nova Southeastern University and a former Chairman of the Board of Directors of Broward Community College Foundation. Mr. Levan is a graduate of Tulane University.
 John
E. Abdo, Vice Chairman
John E. Abdo has been the Vice Chairman of Woodbridge Holdings, LLC and its predecessors since its inception and of BFC Financial Corporation since 1993, while serving as a BFC board member since 1988. He has been the Vice Chairman of the Board of Directors and Chairman of the Executive Committee of BankAtlantic Bancorp, Inc. since 1987. He is also Vice Chairman of the Board of Directors of Bluegreen Corporation, and a member of the Board of Directors of Benihana, Inc.
A successful real estate investor and developer in his own right, Mr. Abdo has made a career of developing residential communities as well as commercial structures throughout South Florida for more than 25 years. His company has built over 5,000 residences, which for a time made it one of the largest residential builders in Florida’s Broward County. Mr. Abdo has a wide range of contacts and experience in diverse industries.
Mr. Abdo is the President of the Broward Performing Arts Foundation, a $60 million theater for the Performing Arts that serves all of South Florida and a member of the Board of Directors of PACA (Performing Arts Authority). He is a graduate of Florida State University.
 Seth
M. Wise, President
Seth M. Wise serves as Executive Vice President and Director of BFC Financial Corporation and President of Woodbridge Holdings, LLC. He began his career in commercial lending at BankAtlantic. Mr. Wise spent 5 years in retail real estate development as an executive with the Washington, D.C. based Targoff and Company and then joined the Abdo Companies as a development partner in 1996. In 2001, he joined Woodbridge Holdings as President of its commercial development subsidiary. He then became Executive Vice President of Woodbridge Holdings in 2003 and ultimately named its President in 2005
Mr. Wise earned a Bachelor of Science degree in Finance from the University of Florida. He serves as an Executive Committee member of the Real Estate Advisory Board of the Center for Real Estate Studies at the University of Florida, the Young Presidents’ Organization (YPO), and an Executive Committee member of the South-East Florida/Caribbean Council of the Urban Land Institute (ULI).
 John
Grelle, Executive Vice President and Chief Financial Officer
Mr. Grelle is the Chief Financial Officer for Woodbridge Holdings, LLC. In May 2008, Mr. Grelle was appointed Executive Vice President and Chief Financial Officer for both Woodbridge Holdings, LLC and BFC Financial Corporation, prior to which he was a partner of Tatum, LLC. From 2003 through October 2007, Mr. Grelle was the founder and principal of a business formation and strategic development consulting firm. From 1996 through 2003, Mr. Grelle served as Senior Vice President and Chief Financial Officer of ULLICO Inc., a financial services conglomerate with assets in excess of $4 billion and, from 1993 through 1995, he served as Managing Director of DCG Consulting.
Mr. Grelle has also served as Chairman and Chief Executive Officer of Old American Insurance Company, Controller of the Financial Services Division of American Can Company (later known as Primerica) and Chairman, President and Chief Executive Officer of National Benefit Life, a subsidiary of Primerica, President of Bell National Life, Senior Vice President and Chief Financial Officer of American Health and Life, Controller of Sun Life America and Director of Strategic Planning and Budgeting for ITT Hamilton Life. Mr. Grelle is a graduate of St. Louis University where he majored in Accounting.
Key Investment and Subsidiary
Managers (listed alphabetically)
 Phil
Bakes, President,
Snapper Creek Equity Management, LLC
Phil Bakes has been president of Snapper Creek Equity Management, LLC, since the company’s inception. Prior to that, Mr. Bakes served as the Managing Director of Woodbridge’s parent company, BFC Financial Corporation from 2004-2008, responsible for the parent company’s business development and major financings during that period, with BFC priding itself on being a benevolent parent and supportive partner with the management teams of its portfolio companies.
Prior to BFC, Bakes founded in 1997 a travel industry company which by its third year of operations had grown primarily through numerous acquisitions to one of the nation’s largest value-added leisure travel providers with offices throughout the United States and overseas, providing a wide variety of travel packages to over 90 countries. Bakes also served as president from 1990 to 2004, of a boutique advisory and merchant banking firm he founded with offices in Miami and New York, with a wide spectrum of engagements ranging from Fortune 100 companies to lower-middle market private operating businesses.
In the 1980s Bakes served as a top executive in the airline industry, including president/CEO of Continental Airlines and Eastern Airlines, positions from which he led and oversaw all operations as well as participated in numerous acquisitions, mergers and divestitures during the airline industry’s decade of post-deregulation adjustment and consolidation.
Bakes grew up in Chicago, Illinois, graduated from Chicago’s Loyola University and received a law degree from Harvard Law School. Bakes served in the public sector in Washington, D.C., including as a Watergate Special Prosecutor, general counsel to a federal regulatory agency and counsel to the U.S. Senate Antitrust Subcommittee. He also was Deputy Campaign Manager in 1980 for Senator Ted Kennedy’s U.S. Presidential campaign. In 2001, he was awarded the Ernst & Young Entrepreneur of the Year Award. The Association of Travel Marketing Executives (ATME) honored Bakes in May 2000 with their celebrated Atlas Award for Lifetime Achievement.
Bakes serves on both corporate and non-profit boards, is a member of World Presidents’ Organization (“WPO”) and, prior to that, was a member since 1985 of Young Presidents’ Organization (“YPO”) He is currently Chairman and co-founder of the Florida chapter of the Strategic Forum, a group of entrepreneurs, CEO’s and C-level executives who meet regularly to share their networks, hear from other business leaders and actively support the business pursuits of fellow members.
 Paul
J. “Pete” Hegener, Chairman, Core Communities,
LLC
In his position as president through 2008 and now as chairman of Core Communities, Pete Hegener has overseen the development of some of the Southeast’s leading master-planned communities.
Core’s original community in Port St. Lucie, St. Lucie West, has approached build-out on 4,600 acres after years as one of the fastest selling communities in the country. The town of Tradition in western Port St. Lucie is now building on that success with more than 8,000 acres, ultimately housing 18,000 residential units and 9.0 million S.F. of commercial, along a five-mile-long I-95 corridor. Tradition is seen as the hub of regional job creation efforts, and just recently became home to the Torrey Pines Institute for Molecular Studies, a world-class research organization that will create hundreds of high-value jobs in the region. Core is now taking its Tradition concept to the Savannah/Hilton Head area with an approximately 5,400-acre master-planned community entitled for up to 9,500 homes and 1.5 million square feet of commercial space.
Hegener earned a master’s degree in business administration from the University of Southern California. He is a member of the National Association of Industrial and Office Parks and the Urban Land Institute. He serves on the boards of directors for the Economic Development Council of St. Lucie County and Enterprise Florida (the state’s economic development agency), and serves on the advisory board for Florida Atlantic University. Hegener has been actively involved in community-based projects throughout his career in St. Lucie County.
 Seth
Werner, Chairman & CEO, Cypress Creek Capital
Holdings, LLC
Seth Werner is the founder, chairman and CEO of Cypress Creek Capital. In 1974 Mr. Werner founded and served as Chairman and CEO of First Capital Financial Corp., a national commercial real estate investment banking company. First Capital became a public company in 1981. In 1984, Mr. Werner founded Werner Capital Corporation, a real estate investment banking and consulting firm which operated its business throughout the United States. In 1992, Mr. Werner founded First Mortgage Network, a national residential mortgage banking company. First Mortgage Network ultimately changed its name to Mortgage.com, Inc. and was taken public in August of 1999.
Mr. Werner also served from 1991 to 1992 as Vice Chairman of the Board of Directors of Cenvill Development Corporation (NYSE), as a representative for the interests of the Federal Deposit Insurance Corporation (FDIC). Mr. Werner served as an Adjunct Professor at the University of Miami Graduate School of Business during 1984 and 1985, where he taught “The Psychology of Entrepreneurship”. Mr. Werner holds a Bachelor of Science Degree in history and political science from the University of Illinois (1968). In 2000, he was honored as a Florida State finalist for the Ernst & Young Entrepreneur of the Year Award. He is a former member of the Young President’s Organization (YPO) and served as a Trustee of Florida International University. He is a member of the Urban Land Institute (ULI); International Council of Shopping Centers (ICSC) and is a co-founder and former chairman of the Florida Chapter of The Strategic Forum.
|
