Gary is Chairman and Chief Executive Officer of HEI Hotels & Resorts (“HEI”) and is responsible for overseeing all aspects of HEI including capital formation, corporate strategy, investor relations and the firm’s overall management.

In 1985, Gary co-founded HEI’s predecessor which became one of the fastest growing hotel investment firms in the United States. In 1997, the majority of the company was sold to Starwood Lodging Trust where Gary was named president and elected to the board of trustees. During his tenure Starwood acquired the Westin hotel chain for approximately $1.8 billion and ITT Corporation for approximately $14 billion. He resigned from his position in 1998 to pursue entrepreneurial activities.

In 2002, HEI was re-established. After acquiring 17 hotels in 2002 and 2003 in joint ventures with various institutional real estate investors, in 2004 HEI sponsored its first discretionary private equity fund with $275 million of commitments. In January 2006, HEI closed its second discretionary private equity fund of $425 million. In July 2008 HEI closed on its third discretionary private equity fund of $515 million. HEI’s current portfolio consists of 30 hotels with total capitalization of approximately $2 billion. All of these hotels are managed by HEI.

Gary graduated from School of Hotel Administration and holds a MBA from the Wharton School at the University of Pennsylvania. He is a member of the Industry Real Estate Finance Advisory Council (IREFAC), Urban Land Institute (ULI), the Owner’s Advisory Board for Starwood Hotels and Resorts, the Cornell Society of Hotelmen, the Real Estate Roundtable, AIPAC Real Estate Division, and the UJAFederation of New York’s Hotel and Hospitality Division. He is a regular speaker at several industry conferences.

Gary received the Dean’s Distinguished Lecturer Award for the Cornell School of Hotel Administration in 2006, was the recipient of the 2006 UJA-Federation of New York’s Hotel & Hospitality Division’s Award for his contributions to the UJA-Federation and was the 2007 Hospitality Innovator Award from the Pillsbury Institute for Hospitality Entrepreneurship.

At the time of our 35th reunion, Gary is spending the bulk of his time as Founder & CEO of Shatterproof. In 2012, he founded Shatterproof (then known as Brian's Wish) to honor the memory of his son, Brian, who lost his battle with addiction, with the promise to spare other families the anguish of this disease. He continues as Chairman of HEI.

At the time of our 40th reunion, Gary continues as Founder & CEO of Shatterproof. He has been honored for his leadership related to reversing the course of the opioid epidemic, testified before the President’s Commission on Combating Drug Addiction and the Opioid Crisis, has been a guest on CNBC and MSNBC to provide his perspective on commonsense solutions to the opioid epidemic, and his opinions are frequently reflected in the Wall Street Journal, Forbes and the Washington Post.