Previously, Crandall served as senior vice president andregional manager for the San Francisco office of iStar Financial,which he became part of due to the company's acquisition of theCommercial Real Estate Division of Fremont Investment & Loan inJuly 2007. Crandall joined Fremont in 1999 in the firm's Californiaheadquarters as a member of the credit committee. He eventuallyrelocated to New York in 2003 to open and manage the firm'sregional office, where he supervised the origination of over $3billion in new commercial real estate loans.

Working out of the Los Angeles office of CIBC World Markets, thewholesale and corporate banking arm of the Canadian Imperial BankCommerce, Crandall will refocus himself on a West Coast andbuilding a stronger foothold on the region for the company, CIBCexecutives say.

"He's going to head up our origination effort on the WestCoast," says Michael Higgins, managing director and head of CIBCWorld Markets' US Real Estate Finance group in New York. "What hebrings to the position is experience in running a real estate groupin the past. He should be able to bring in a lot of new deals forus going forward. We wanted to expand our origination in the WestCoast, where we see plenty of opportunity."