Mr. Gardner is a founding partner and Chief Investment Officer of Patriot Equities. He is responsible for the oversight of all aspects of new investments including origination, financial analysis, negotiation of terms, and due diligence. Mr. Gardner also serves on the firm's Board of Directors as well as the firm's Investment Committee that approves all new investments.

Before founding Patriot, Mr. Gardner was the Director of Acquisitions for Preferred Real Estate Investments, Inc, a leading real estate firm focused on the acquisition, restoration, leasing and property management of existing commercial and industrial real estate. During his tenure with Preferred, he was responsible for the acquisition of 11 properties totaling over 6.0 million square feet with a total acquisition cost of $156.0 million, and total project costs in excess of $300.0 million. These properties were acquired from several Fortune 500 companies including Texas Instruments, Ingersoll-Rand, Honeywell and Citizens Bank, a subsidiary of the Royal Bank of Scotland. Prior to Preferred Real Estate Investments, Mr. Gardner was an analyst with Credit Suisse First Boston based in New York.

Mr. Gardner received a B.S. Degree in Finance from the University of Delaware and was captain of the school's football team. Mr. Gardner resides in Wynnewood, PA with his wife and two sons.

"We founded Patriot to help North American businesses extract capital from their real estate holdings and reduce transaction and operating costs by consolidating relationships with our team. Our goal, quite simply, is to become the largest purchaser of corporate real estate assets in North America."

— Erik E. Kolar, President & CEO