Our People.
Please click on a name below to see each Management profile:
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Andy Cates is the Managing Member of Value Acquisition Fund and the President of RVC USA, LP (a related company). Cates began his real estate career in Dallas, Texas, where he worked as an Analyst in Trammell Crow Company’s Capital Markets Group. After two years there, he became an Associate for Crow Family Holdings, the Trammell Crow Family’s ownership and asset management vehicle also based in Dallas. At Crow, he was a member of a team responsible for partnership and loan workouts, office and industrial acquisitions, asset management, and commercial development. In 1996, Cates was a founding partner in Viceroy Investments, LLC which has been the General Partner in over $120 Million of commercial real estate transactions.
In 1999, Cates relocated to his hometown of Memphis, Tennessee, to develop the Soulsville Revitalization Project as its Project Developer and to serve as its Board Chairman. This $20 Million nonprofit project includes the Stax Museum of American Soul Music and The Stax Music Academy (www.soulsvilleusa.com). Both buildings, as well as the Soulsville Charter School, serve as anchors for what is now one of the largest inner city revitalization projects in the country.
In the summer of 2000, Cates began working with a team of business and civic leaders attempting to attract the Vancouver Grizzlies National Basketball Association franchise to Memphis, Tennessee. The “Pursuit Team” was successful in its efforts, and Cates became a member of the local ownership group that purchased a minority interest in the franchise from majority owner Michael Heisley.
Cates earned a Bachelor of Business Administration (Finance) degree at the University of Texas at Austin and was inducted into the Order of Omega National Honor Society and the Omicron Delta Kappa Leadership Society. In 2001, he was inducted into Lambda Alpha International, an honorary land economics society. In addition to serving as a Board Member of Pioneer Natural Resources (PXD: NYSE), Cates serves on the boards of the Soulsville Foundation, Soulsville Charter School, Grizzlies Academy, Lambda Alpha, and Grizzlies Foundation.
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David is responsible for property acquisition and site selection for RVC USA (a related company), as well as general acquisition research for Val Fund.
David graduated from the University of Colorado and returned to his hometown of Memphis, Tennessee in 2004 where he began working in commercial real estate development and management with Greenhat Partners LLC, a multi-family and retail developer.
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Gladys is the Office Manager and Research Analyst for Val Fund and RVC USA (a related company). Gladys graduated from the University of Tennessee at Martin with a degree in Business Administration. After working twenty years in telecommunications, Gladys managed an Executive Suites business before joining Val Fund.
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Des is focused on Acquisition & Development and based in Florida. He was born in Scotland and obtained a degree in structural-civil engineering in Johannesburg, South Africa in 1974. Thereafter, he followed a construction-management career in gold and coal mineworks, on power stations and in longspan bridge-building for 15 years. In the Southeast United States for 18 years now, Des started out in road construction, moved to brownfield cleanups, and went to work on coastal real-estate development in 1995. Before joining Val Fund, Des served for 5 years within the Greg Norman and Hillman Properties (Pittsburgh) groups, then for 4 years as senior vice-president and general manager for the Tallahassee-Apalachicola Region of the St. Joe Company (JOE).
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Yale has been in the hospitality industry since retiring from full-time professional ski jumping in 1990 and has served in various management roles for Harrah’s, Hilton, and Caesar’s, including Director of Hotel Operations for Caesar’s Tahoe. Yale was also responsible for Harrah’s Post Hurricane Katrina Relief Operations. Before joining ValFund (Director of Operations for RVC USA, a related company), he served as Vice President of Operations responsible for all Harrah’s hotel properties in Tunica, Mississippi.