The Brooks Street team possesses a depth of proven talent, expertise and experience—as well as a true passion for building transformative places that enhance our quality of life. We invite you to learn more about these seasoned professionals.

Chris Yelich

Chris is an award-winning master-plan developer with more than 25 years of experience in entitlements, visioning, sales and marketing. Previously, he ran the Northern California and Orange County Divisions for Pacific Bay Homes, encompassing nearly 1,000 homes. Chris oversaw every aspect of the award-winning Newport Beach master-planned community, One Ford Road, which was located on a remediated site formerly occupied by Ford Aerospace. He secured the project entitlements for 370 homes, planned, built and marketed the community. In addition, Chris has envisioned, entitled, planned and built a number of communities in Southern and Northern California. He holds a Bachelor of Arts degree from the University of California, Los Angeles.

Neil Brandom

Neil brings more than 25 years’ experience in land development, engineering, management, infrastructure, entitlement and finance to his role at Brooks Street overseeing the day-to-day management of the firm’s growing portfolio of real estate assets. An Australian engineer with extensive experience in mine rehabilitation and environmental projects in some of the world’s most challenging environments he arrived in the US and started Oxford Homes, a developer of residential property in Newport Beach, California, and an owner of business parks and industrial property in Orange County. Neil holds an undergraduate degree in Civil Engineering from University of New South Wales, and an MBA from California State University, Fullerton.

Rich Knowland

With 25+ years of development experience, Rich specializes in homebuilding and the acquisition, finance, entitlement, development and sale of land for residential and commercial purposes throughout the Southwest. Formerly, he was Division President and Regional VP for Lennar where he successfully grew the Orange Coast division into the market share leader in home sales. Rich also led acquisition efforts to purchase and develop land including Lennar’s redevelopment of Irvine’s Parker Hannifin R&D site into Central Park West, the largest urban MPC in Orange County. Earlier, he served as Area VP for Shea Homes’ Trilogy resort community brand. Rich holds a Bachelor of Science degree from Whittier College and a Masters in Public Policy from California State University, Long Beach.

Mike Perry

A California Licensed Real Estate Broker, Mike brings 25+ years of real estate sales and marketing expertise to his role at Brooks Street. In years prior, he worked for Centex Homes, serving as Director of Training and Vice President of Sales for the Northern California Division, as well as the Director of National Sales Training. Mike was also VP of Sales and Marketing for John Laing Homes’ Bay Area Region, as well as a member of the U.S. Air Force. Currently, Mike is managing lot sales at our Wilder project in Orinda, in addition to Brooks Street’s custom home division in Northern California—with nearly $30M of homes under construction and another $30M in planning and development.

Greg Brun

A seasoned industry professional with more than 30 years of expertise in residential and commercial real estate, Greg oversees the integration of redevelopment with remedial work for several of PG+E’s Manufactured Gas Plant sites in Northern California. Prior to joining Brooks Street, he operated his own real estate development, brokerage and consulting firm with approximately $200M in assets under management. Currently, Greg is managing the day-to-day efforts at the Napa Valley Wine Train. Areas of management include forward planning and entitlement for a number of real estate projects, rail and rolling stock improvements and property management.

Bruce Yamamoto

Bruce has more than 20 years of experience in residential construction and project management. He formerly served as Project Manager for Pacific Bay Homes on several single-family detached home projects in Benicia and Sacramento, California. Bruce was also a Principal of North Lawn Ventures, a strategy consulting group specializing in marketing, business development, product development and fundraising strategy for entrepreneurial businesses. Bruce earned a Bachelor of Science degree from the University of California, Berkeley and an MBA from The Anderson School at UCLA.

Andrew Holstein

Andrew (everyone calls him “Rewdy”) brings extensive finance and project management expertise to Brooks Street, serving as Project Manager for Newport Banning Ranch, a proposed community in Newport Beach. He was previously Director of the Irvine-based real estate consulting group Developers Research, and also worked as an Audit Associate for global accounting firm KPMG. Rewdy has worked on 100+ projects totaling more than 45,000 homesites in four different states and has been directly responsible for the preparation of more than $1B in project cost analyses. He earned his Bachelor of Accounting degree from the University of San Diego.

Alice Lewis

Alice brings 10+ years of experience in real estate accounting and Joint Venture governance to her position at Brooks Street, where she’s responsible for managing the accounting and reporting for the company. Alice has extensive operational expertise from working with publicly traded companies, with a focus on audit/tax management, treasury and corporate governance. Alice earned a Bachelor of Arts degree in Business/Accounting from California State University, Fullerton.

Michael Mohler

With nearly 40 years of experience in resort, residential and mixed-use development, Michael specializes in planning, managing and directing projects from acquisition and entitlement through construction, marketing and sales. He also serves as Managing Director for Newport Banning Ranch, a proposed community in the Coastal Zone in Newport Beach, California. Formerly, Michael served as Senior VP of Lowe Enterprises, where he directly managed the entitlement process for Terranea Resort in Rancho Palos Verdes, California, as well as the entitlement and development process for the 1,040-acre Grizzly Ranch Resort Community in Plumas County, California. He received a Bachelor of Arts degree from the University of California, Berkeley.

Aaron Martinez

Aaron Martinez oversees the branding and marketing of Brooks Street. Martinez ensures the brand and design embody the authentic characteristics of delivering projects to a diverse real estate market. Martinez studied at Pasadena’s Art Center College of Design and has worked on various urban design, marketing, and brand-building projects across several different industries. He has worked for multiple international design firms, including WATG, Disney, and JERDE. He has helped create significant thematic master-planned resort destinations that feature hospitality flags, such as the Hard Rock Hotel, Viceroy, and Disney Resorts. Recently, Martinez participated in re-imagining the Anaheim Packing District in California. His understanding of human-scale design and aesthetics allows his projects to deliver compelling stories as they are experienced. Martinez has also played a key role in developing lifestyle branding, restaurant, and mixed-use environments.