Guardian Real Estate Services Appoints New Senior Vice President of Acquisitions and Development

Portland, Ore.—Guardian Real Estate Services (Guardian), a Portland, Ore.-based real estate management, development and investment firm, has hired Christopher Laurent to serve as senior vice president of acquisitions and development. Laurent will oversee Guardian’s acquisitions and development business and serve as a member of the company’s executive management team.

Chris Laurent has been working in the multifamily housing industry for nearly 20 years, most notably in affordable housing. Project highlights include redevelopment of the former Pabst Brewery complex in Milwaukee into mixed-income workforce housing, redevelopment of a former high school into housing for an emerging creative class in Moline, Ill., creating two continuum of care senior housing campuses and assembling a mixed-use development in north Milwaukee that combines a public library branch and affordable apartments for grandparents serving as the legal guardians of their grandchildren. Laurent has been directly responsible for the preservation of approximately 500 affordable housing units and indirectly involved with the preservation of another several thousand. In all, Chris has been involved in the development of over half a billion dollars of affordable residential real estate.

Laurent served as Director of Tax Legislation and Policy for the National Council of State Housing Agencies (NCSHA) in Washington, DC, and managed the low-income housing tax credit program at the Wisconsin Housing and Economic Development Authority (WHEDA). Laurent is a graduate of the University of Wisconsin-Madison.