WASHINGTON, DC-Cushman & Wakefield has lured two of the area’s top investment sales professionals to its office team: Eric Berkman and Steven Gichner, who are joining the firm as executive vice presidents. Both lately of Grubb & Ellis, Berkman was in the firm’s Institutional Capital Markets group. Gichner, for his part, focused on the acquisition and disposition of office investment properties. Berkman and Gichner will join C&W’s Capital Markets Group, Bill Magner, C&W’s executive managing director, said in a prepared statement. "Eric and Steve have a proven track record of success and an entrepreneurial drive that is a great fit for Cushman & Wakefield," Magner said in the statement. The company did not return a call from GlobeSt.com in time for publication.

Their hires come as C&W is expanding and deepening its local platform. It recently tapped Brian Dawson to lead the company’s business operations in suburban Maryland. At the beginning of the year the firm recruited Magner to head the DC office. That spot had been vacated by James M. Underhill, who was named CEO of the Americas in November 2010. Underhill, who is also based in the DC office, is leading the firm’s operations in the United States, Canada, Mexico, Argentina, Brazil, Colombia, Ecuador, Peru and Venezuela, reporting directly to Glenn Rufrano, the firm’s president and CEO.