Jack has been building multi‐family projects his whole life. That career started in Vancouver, BC, developing and building condominium projects. He then built several apartment buildings in the Vancouver area as a contractor.
He moved to the Seattle area in 1977 and built several apartment complexes as a contractor and developer. Two of those projects were for non‐profit affordable developer Intercommunity Housing. The then Executive Director of Intercommunity Housing was returning to private law practice and invited Jack to become a client. The intention was to take advantage of the Low Income Housing Tax Credit (“LIHTC”) Program that Intercommunity was using to finance its affordable projects. That led Jack to develop and own several smaller tax credit projects. By 2000, Jack was able to transition to building about one larger affordable property per year. In 2010, Jack’s firm Devco diversified into market rate apartments and increased the pace of building to six projects underway at a time. In 2020, the firm undertook a national expansion. Devco has continued to focus on affordable properties and currently owns and is developing approximately 20,000 units.
Jack has a B.Sc. degree in Chemical Engineering from Queen’s University, Kingston, Ontario, and a law degree and MBA from Harvard University in Cambridge, Massachusetts.