The Team

New Avenue

Kevin Casey

Casey started New Avenue while an MBA student at the Haas School of Business and has worked full time on the venture since graduating in May 2009. He holds a B.A. in Economics and Anthropology from Fordham University and has researched small business development as a Fulbright Scholar in Indonesia. In addition to building homes throughout high school and college and working in commercial real estate in New York, he founded and managed a global distribution business operating in 13 countries. Kevin also managed design and deployment of oracle business intelligence systems for Charles Schwab. He grew up in one of the original Sears factory homes built in 1908 and leads the planning and vision for New Avenue.

Jacob Wegmann

Wegmann is pursuing his PhD in City and Regional Planning at UC-Berkeley. His research focuses on affordable housing provision. Prior to attending Berkeley he obtained degrees from Dartmouth College, the University of Colorado, and MIT, and worked in the for- and nonprofit housing development sectors in Denver and in the Bay Area. Wegmann is leading the data mapping for our network of homes and marketing analysis.

Justin Martinez

Justin is a civil engineering student at UC Berkeley. He works on New Avenue's entire online user experience. Justin brings an interest in structural engineering, mechanics, materials, and sustainable design and will lead implementation of renewable energy, sustainability features and efficiency tracking in our homes. Justin holds a B.S. in civil engineering and will be continuing with graduate school in UC Berkeley's structural engineering, mechanics, and materials program this fall 2010.

Board of Directors

Ryan Bermudez

Mr. Bermudez has experience ranging across the full spectrum of real estate product types. He currently works in the Asset Management group at Equity Office Properties, where he helps oversee a 55 million square foot office portfolio. Ryan previously worked at Carmel Partners, a multifamily investment firm based in San Francisco. At Carmel Partners, he spent a significant portion of his time performing due diligence for the potential acquisition of a low-income housing development firm. Bermudez graduated with Honors from the University of California, Berkeley's Haas School of Business. Prior to business school, Mr. Bermudez worked in Gap's Real Estate Finance division, where he was responsible for making lease action decisions for its retail locations in the Western U.S. and Canadian regions. Ryan is a LEED Accredited Professional and an Urban Land Institute Fellow.

Kaan Ersun

Kaan has been involved in several technology startups. He is currently the VP of Sales and Marketing at Dealkat, a venture-backed startup in the social media marketing space. Previously, Kaan was Monetization and Business Development Manager at Lolapps, a Facebook game developer. Kaan helped Lolapps acquire millions of users, monetized games & developed partnerships to bring intellectual property to Lolapps's platform on Facebook. Prior to Lolapps, Kaan worked in marketing and business development at AdMob. He has also worked as a management consultant at BearingPoint. Kaan holds an MBA from UC Berkeley, a BS in Electrical Engineering (Phi Beta Kappa) from Stanford, and dual MS degrees in Electrical Engineering/Management Science from Stanford.

Strategic Partners

M2 Studio

New Avenue is working with M2 Studio as a partner architectural firm. the principals of M2 Studio, Mark Creedon and Peter Collins, have over 50 years of combined experience completing projects that range from the simple to the complex. They have extensive experience in mixed use, residential, estate homes, hotel, winery production, tasting rooms, commercial office, retail, hospitality, civic, transportation, tenant improvement, space planning, programming, remodels, additions, adaptive re-use, zoning variances, conditional use applications, and entitlements.

Their clients range from the individual homeowner to large multinational corporations. M2 has a long standing commitment to sustainable design solutions.

Mark Creedon

Born in Cambridge Massachusetts and graduating with top awards from Rhode Island School of Design and the American Institute of Architects, spent the next 16 years working as a designer, associate principal, project director, project architect, senior project manager, and senior account manager at a number of national and local firms in Providence, Boston, Chicago, and San Francisco, before starting M2 Studio in 2000.