About

The Federal Real Property Association (FRPA) is a 501(c)(6) non-profit community of Federal property asset managers and real estate professional working together to solve today’s asset management and workplace challenges. As part of its on-going mission, the FRPA supports and promotes professionalism among real property executives, managers and vendors in the public and private sectors. Our members strive to provide effective and efficient management of real property.

Mission
To create and empower a community of Federal and private sector professionals to address today’s Federal real property and workplace challenges.

Vision
Be the platform to foster innovative thinking, promote collaboration and share leading practices within the Federal real property community.

Board of Directors

Mary Goldsmith
FRPA President
Mary Goldsmith serves as the Director of Business Development for RSM’s federal government and GSE practice in Washington D.C. RSM is the nation’s fifth largest public accounting firm offering services in audit, tax and consulting. Mary is primarily focused on leveraging the firm’s expertise in financial services, real estate, housing and healthcare. She also serves as an in-house lobbyist for RSM’s Congressional initiatives. Prior to joining RSM, Mary brought in new business in FL for global engineering firm, Atkins. She also worked in the FL House & Senate and subsequently served in a legislative affairs capacity for the Mortgage Bankers Association. Mary received her bachelor’s from Palm Beach Atlantic University and her master’s from Florida State University. She is very active both philanthropically and civically in local organizations such as the Rotary Club of Washington, the Junior League of Washington, Association for Government Accountants, Women in Housing & Finance, Women in Government Affairs, and the Florida State Society. Mary was recently honored as a 40 under 40 by the Leadership Center for Excellence, an outgrowth of Leadership Arlington.

Kristie Bissell
FRPA Vice President
Kristie Bissell is a Lead Associate at Booz Allen Hamilton with over 20 years of government consulting experience. Throughout her career, Kristie has served as project lead and supported a wide variety of federal real estate and information technology related projects. She is currently supporting federal real estate activities conducting market research, identifying and evaluating real estate alternatives, and analyzing the impact of real estate decisions. Her experience includes financial analysis, life cycle cost estimates, market research, policy development and analysis, business case analysis, and project management. Kristie has been actively engaged in FRPA for over 8 years and is currently serving as the Association’s Vice President. Kristie received her Bachelor’s of Business Administration and her MBA from James Madison University.

Sarah Burns Williams
FRPA Secretary
Sarah Burns is a Strategy & Operations Senior Consultant with a strong record of leadership and rich client interaction. She brings to Deloitte over seven years of experience in commercial real estate. Her business acumen spans client service management, database management, business process improvement, market research, and data analysis. Sarah has experience analyzing real estate trends in major markets across the United States and the United Kingdom, as well as maintaining a complex, global real estate database. Having managed large teams both domestically and abroad, she has a proven track record of team-building and driving maximum performance.

Adam Bodner
Adam Bodner enjoyed a 32-year career in federal Real Property Management; leading, managing, and participating in virtually every possible type of federal real estate development and tenant representation activity. Along the way he developed a comprehensive understanding of federal real estate policies and practices, including related subjects such as federal budgeting and appropriations, business case development and cost/benefit analyses. Currently, Mr. Bodner has a growing roster of clients including building owners and developers, federal agencies, and a variety of companies seeking to support the needs of the Federal Government. Since 2020, Adam has been proud to be a board member of the Federal Real Property Association. Prior to leaving public service, Mr. Bodner was the Executive Director of the Public Buildings Reform Board for the first two and a half years of its existence; responsible for standing up the Board and successfully implementing its statutory mandate to identify opportunities for the Government to reduce its inventory of civilian real property and reduce costs to the Government. For ten years Mr. Bodner directed the Office of Real Property Management at the U.S. Department of State. As the primary tenant representative for the Department’s domestic real estate portfolio (consisting of approximately 9 million square feet of space in 140 locations nationwide), Mr. Bodner led all aspects of the Department’s domestic real estate program, from strategic planning and tenant housing plans to land acquisition, leasing, design, new construction, and major consolidations and relocations. Adam received a bachelor’s degree from Brandeis University in 1987 and a Master’s degree in Urban and Environmental Planning from the University of Virginia in 1994. He and his wife Debra have lived and raised their family in the People’s Republic of Takoma Park, MD since 1996.

Stuart Burns
Stuart Burns became the Assistant Commissioner for the Office of Portfolio Management and Customer Engagement (PT) for the United States Public Buildings Service (PBS) in July 2015. As Assistant Commissioner, Mr. Burns is responsible for managing a real estate portfolio of 371 million square feet, which includes 8,700 owned or leased assets and 564 historic properties. The office helps provides quality, effective, and optimum workplaces and housing solutions for federal agencies to meet their mission need at the best value. This involves the development of national strategies that optimize the utilization and performance of our real property portfolio by executing sound investment, operational and divestment decisions. Furthermore, Mr. Burns manages PBS’ customer relationships for more than 70 agencies to develop and drive successful service delivery to help GSA and customer agencies meet their goals and improve operations. Mr. Burns is responsible for supporting the missions of our customers; practicing sound financial management; providing incentives for cost-effective operations, and supporting social and economic programs of the Federal government. Portfolio provides the value our partner agencies need in real estate so they can focus their resources on fulfilling their important missions to the American people. Mr. Burns became a member of the Senior Executive Service in 2007. He is a graduate of the University of Virginia with a bachelor’s degree in Environmental Science.

Keith Cunningham
Keith B. Cunningham is an Assistant Director of physical infrastructure issues at the United States Government Accountability Office (GAO), the investigative and audit arm of the U.S. Congress. Mr. Cunningham has developed a broad expertise in real property policy and management issues during his 25 years at GAO—having led the work for more than 40 GAO reports and testimony statements. Mr. Cunningham’s recent work on federal real property includes reports on various issues related to property ownership, realignment, leasing, disposal, and financing. Prior to government service, Mr. Cunningham directed research on worldwide military base closure and reuse efforts for the Bonn International Center for Conversion in Germany and Business Executives for National Security. Mr. Cunningham holds a Masters of Policy Studies from Johns Hopkins University and a BS in Social Science from Miami University, Ohio.

Norman Dong
As a Partner at FD Stonewater, Norman plays a leading role within the firm’s third-party advisory and principal development platforms with a primary focus on federal, state and local government real estate transactions. He also serves on the faculty of the Georgetown Urban and Regional Planning program where he teaches a course on Federal real estate. As the former Commissioner of the GSA Public Buildings Service, Mr. Dong managed the nationwide asset management, design, construction, leasing, building management and disposal of approximately 372 million square feet of government-owned and leased space. In addition, Mr. Dong served as Acting Controller at Office of Management and Budget, where he was responsible for Federal real property management, and as Chief Financial Officer of the Federal Emergency Management Agency. In addition to his Federal experience, Mr. Dong has held leadership positions at the state and local levels of government, including Deputy Mayor for Operations and City Administrator for the District of Columbia. He holds a Bachelor’s degree from Yale University and a Master’s degree from the Harvard University John F. Kennedy School of Government.

Gordon Griffin
Gordon Griffin is a federal real estate attorney in Holland & Knight's Washington, D.C., office. Gordon represents building owners, real estate developers, real estate investment trusts (REITs) and asset managers nationwide in all aspects of General Services Administration (GSA) lease procurement and negotiation, lease administration and litigation of lease disputes. Gordon is the co-author of the 2016 Federal Government Real Estate Leasing guide published by LexisNexis. Gordon's work covers a variety of aspects of federal real estate, including: Counseling real estate clients through the federal procurement process, including bid protests of overly restrictive or unfair RLP provisions at the Government Accountability Office (GAO) and the U.S. Court of Federal Claims; assisting clients in the federal claims process, and litigating federal lease disputes under the Contract Disputes Act at the U.S. Court of Federal Claims, as well as the Armed Services Board of Contract Appeals and Civilian Board of Contract Appeals; and counseling real estate clients through the purchase and sale of properties with government tenants.

Melanie Gilbert
GSA Liaison
In October 2022, Melanie Gilbert began her service at the General Services Administration, Public Buildings Service, as the Regional Commissioner for the National Capital Region. She is responsible for GSA’s largest and most challenging real estate portfolio of 93 million rentable square feet and inventory of over 600 government-owned and leased facilities with a revenue of $2.8 billion. With a staff of over 1,000 employees, Melanie’s immediate priority is the Executive Branch’s post-pandemic return to facilities and NCR’s future real estate portfolio strategy. Prior to joining GSA, Melanie spent 30 years at the Administrative Office of the U.S. Courts and for the last 11 years was the Chief of the Facilities and Security Office. She was the senior executive responsible for the Federal Judiciary’s facilities, security, and emergency preparedness programs and portfolio. In that role she was the senior executive responsible for an almost $2 billion dollar budget for facilities and security throughout the United States in over 880 primary courthouses, federal buildings, and leases. She was Chair of the Judiciary’s COVID-19 Task Force that led the Federal Court’s operational response to the pandemic. She was also responsible for the multi-million dollar operation of the Thurgood Marshall Federal Judiciary Building in Washington, DC. during her tenure with the courts. Melanie is a cum laude graduate of New York Law School, and holds a B.A. from Indiana University in Political Science and Theater.

Dan Mathews
Daniel Mathews joined WeWork as the Head of Federal Sales in 2021. Mathews is responsible for all aspects of WeWork’s government strategy, marketing, product development and sales execution. He leads a team of professionals dedicated to bringing the quality and cost savings of WeWork’s flexible workspace solutions to the federal market place. WeWork is ideally situated to enable federal agencies to realign their large and aging portfolios to the needs of a hybrid workforce quickly and with limited capital expenditures. With over 400 locations WeWork provides the federal government an unprecedented flexibility to shift desks and costs between locations to mitigate the uncertainty and rapidly changing housing needs of a post pandemic workforce. Mathews was Commissioner of the U.S. General Services Administration’s (GSA) Public Buildings Service (PBS) from August of 2017 to January of 2021. Prior to joining GSA, Mathews served as the staff director of the House Transportation and Infrastructure Committee’s Subcommittee on Economic Development, Public Buildings, and Emergency Management.

Bob Peck
Bob Peck is a Principal at Gensler and is co-leader of the firm's Government & Defense Industry sector. He served for eight years as Commissioner of the U.S. General Services Administration’s Public Buildings Service, responsible for design, construction, leasing, and management for more than 375 million square feet of space housing more than 1.1 million employees with an annual budget of more than $9 billion. He has been a land use attorney, commercial real estate mortgage banker and broker, and has also served as President of the Greater Washington Board of Trade and Vice President for Public Affairs at the American Institute of Architects. He received his B.A. cum laude with distinction in economics from the University of Pennsylvania and his J.D. from Yale Law School. A Gensler Principal, Bob has been a visiting Loeb Fellow at Harvard University's Graduate School of Design and a visiting lecturer at Yale College. An Honorary Member of both the AIA and American Society of Landscape Architects, in 2012 he received the AIA Thomas Jefferson Award for Public Architecture.

Arthur Russell
Mr. Russell serves as a Managing Director that lead’s JLL's Government Investor Services (GIS) Practice Group. Under his leadership, Mr. Russell is responsible for driving growth and strategic direction for the firm’s national platform that services government-focused landlord clients.
Arthur Russell is a seasoned executive with over 25 years of experience in corporate and government real estate and public finance. Art has been successful in delivering solutions to operations, cost management, marketing and risk reduction issues. He also demonstrates proficiency in client management, staffing, business development, budgeting, financial analysis, strategic planning and program management.

FRPA Communications Team

Natalie Newman
Natalie Newman is a Marketing Coordinator supporting FD Stonewater's Development, Brokerage, and Investment platform. She manages the firm’s digital marketing efforts, assists internal communications, and provides graphic design materials for pursuits. Natalie earned her B.B.A in Marketing with a concentration in Digital Marketing from James Madison University.

Elsa Wilson
Elsa Wilson is a Senior Research Analyst at JLL focusing on government and education research. She supports the firm’s Public Institutions group that specializes in federal government work, as well as state and local government and education. Prior to this, she spent over a year as the DC Research Analyst specializing in the DC office market. Her career began at JLL in July 2020 as an intern for the Government Investor Services team. Elsa earned her B.A. in Economics and Political Science from Loyola Marymount University.