(Save the date: RealShare Apartments comes to the Westin Bonaventure, Los Angeles, October 24.)

LOS ANGELES-Sister publication Real Estate Forum has weeded through some 200 worthy nominations to come up with 45 executives whose accomplishments were particularly impressive in its latest issue. Below are the women who have been chosen as the most powerful and prominent out west.

*Kristen Croxton, SVP of origination at Beech Street Capital LLC, Newport Beach, CA.

Before joining Beech Street Capital last July, Kristen Croxton spent the first 14 years of her career at Deutsche Bank Berkshire Mortgage. There, she rose through the ranks to become VP of origination in 2005 and placed more than $1.8 billion of debt on multifamily and commercial assets nationwide, mainly through Fannie Mae, Freddie Mac and FHA programs. She was tapped by Beech Street to open a West Coast office and to help accelerate its national production. In the five months of 2011 that the Newport Beach office was up and running, Croxton and her business partner originated 11 loans totaling more than $134 million. Thus far in 2012, Croxton has closed or rate-locked more than $136 million in transactions. The quick success of the Newport Beach office garnered Beech Street its Freddie Mac Seller/Servicer license in California in early 2012.

*Alexandra Glickman, area vice chairman and managing director and practice leader of real estate and hospitality services at Arthur J. Gallagher & Co., Glendale, CA

With 28 years in the business behind her, Alexandra Glickman leads the commercial insurance brokerage firm’s worldwide real estate and hospitality practice, representing 2,150 clients who own or manage in excess of $200 billion of assets. Clients include international REITs, major pension-fund advisors, private equity funds and third-party managers. She joined Gallagher in 2001 and during her tenure, revenues have more than tripled, topping $65 million. Looking to the future, Glickman wants to bring more qualified women and minorities into the insurance industry and teach them about the specific needs of real estate and hospitality. She believes strongly in technical training coupled with a “clear understanding of the language of real estate and the impact on risk financing.” Given the current weakness in the job market, the economy and their impact on CRE, Glickman believes that the “emphasis for the next 12 to 24 months will be on refinancing debt and avoiding another round of irrational exuberance.”

*Judy Hoffman, COO of Trigild, San Diego

Trigild was founded in 1976 primarily as a hotel-management company, and Judy Hoffman was named marketing coordinator in 1984. Working her way up the ladder, a year ago she was named COO. With her help and involvement, Trigild has evolved from a small shop with three employees into a full-service real estate services company specializing in property and operations management, receivership and consulting. Trigild has significantly expanded its fiduciary services under Hoffman’s leadership to include bankruptcy services and was recently named CRO trustee for a $1.6-billion real estate investment portfolio and is, furthermore, increasingly involved in the disposition of properties as receiver. In 2011, Trigild sold 58 properties out of receivership with a gross sales value of nearly $320 million or more than $5.5 million per deal. Hoffman’s mission is simple: “To succeed in both good times and bad by providing best-in-class services that meet the unique needs of our clients, while keeping an eye on the future in order to meet those needs and take advantage of the opportunities in upcoming markets.”

*Darla Longo, vice chairman of CBRE, Ontario, CA

Darla Longo has worked in virtually every area of commercial real estate since she started her career 33 years ago. After cutting her teeth in the industrial real estate business and earning the National Rookie of the Year award during her first year at CBRE, Longo now handles investment sales, tenant representation, land sales and debt and equity solutions at the brokerage’s local office here. And in the past year alone, Longo has completed 5.8 million square feet of leases and investment transactions totaling nearly $1.6 billion, including notable deals such as the $105.1-million sale of a 1.2-million-square-foot building in Las Vegas and a $91.5-million, 507,000-square-foot industrial deal in the Inland Empire.

*Constance Moore, President and CEO of BRE Properties, San Francisco

Connie Moore was six months away from obtaining her college degree when she asked the CEO of BRE Properties, then a very small firm, for a job. He had doubts—she was a young coed and it was 1977—but he hired her as an entry-level analyst. In six years there, she worked on asset acquisitions and troubled assets, of which there were many. She went on to join Consolidated Capital and in 1993 moved over to Security Capital Group, eventually becoming co-chairman and COO of Security Capital Atlantic Inc., predecessor to Archstone Communities Trust. She returned to BRE in 2002, rose to president and COO in 2004 and became the REIT’s third-ever CEO in 2005. BRE now has a $3.4-billion-plus portfolio with over 25,000 units in 86 metros across the Western US. Today, Moore is a leader in the multifamily and REIT sectors, having been a past chair and current executive committee member for NMHC and NAREIT. 

*Mary Jane Olhasso, Economic Development Agency Administrator of the County of San Bernardino, San Bernardino, CA    

For the past two years, Mary Jane Olhasso has led economic development efforts for the largest county in the continental US at 20,105 square miles. She plays a key role in promoting manufacturing, site selection and attraction incentives and workforce initiatives in the county as well as being an advocate for keeping manufacturing and jobs there. Over the past 12 months, the county has retained or attracted close to 4,000 jobs. Olhasso is leading the effort to make a case for manufacturing in California, particularly in San Bernardino. She and the EDA recently created a Vision Process based on input from community meetings, business roundtables and expert groups to create a portrait of the future the county seeks to create. The focus will now be on implementation, engagement and public-private partnerships.

*Diane Olmstead, managing partner, W3 Partners LLC, San Francisco

In a career that spans a quarter century, Diane Olmstead has served at Cigna, USF&G, Arthur Andersen, iStar Financial and CIM Group. A co-founder of W3, a West Coast office investor, she also sits on the Board of Mercy Housing California, one of the West Coast’s leading affordable housing owner/developer/managers. Women-owned W3 targets value-add office and office/R&D assets in the West, with a focus on well-located assets that may be acquired at a significant discount to replacement cost and assets having repositioning/value-add potential. Notable work includes the management of public-private joint-venture developments; originating on-balance sheet, structured loans; preferred-equity investments totaling some $877 million; and sourcing $1 billion of equity capital for clients.

*Anita Paryani, vice president of capital markets of Marcus & Millichap Capital Corp., Los Angeles

Consistently ranked among the top capital markets professionals in the industry, Anita Paryani derives much of her business from past clients and direct referrals. Responsible for developing and maintaining lender relationships, overseeing the analytics and packaging of financing requests as well as business development, she and  partner Jake Roberts are among the highest-ranking mortgage originators of the firm. At a sales awards program in Napa, CA last July, Paryani was nominated as a VP of capital markets, a distinction reserved for Marcus & Millichap’s top sales brokers and loan originators. Not only that, she won the event’s poker tournament, competing against some 30 male counterparts. A cause Paryani strongly supports is research into the rare genetic bone disease known as progressive osseous heteroplasia, from which her son suffers.

*Sonia Ransom, partner of Allen Matkins Leck Gamble Mallory & Natsis, San Francisco

A 15-year partner at the law firm, Sonia Ransom is highly regarded for her extensive experience in land use and redevelopment, and she is typically involved with multiple major development projects throughout California at once. She co-chairs the firm’s land-use practice group and is on its compensation committee. Currently Ransom is land-use counsel for the property owners and developers on the redevelopment of the former Boeing/NASA site in Downey into a 1.5-million-foot mixed-use project. Other ongoing projects include six million square feet of office, R&D, retail, multifamily and resort assets. A fellow of the American College of Real Estate Lawyers, she leads Allen Matkins’ involvement with the Samantha Corpus Foundation, dedicated to finding a cure for Rett Syndrome.

*Jenny Redlin, principal of Partner Engineering and Science Inc., Torrance, CA    

Many consider Jenny Redlin to be an authority, as she routinely educates new hires on the nuts and bolts of the business and speaks regularly at major industry events. She worked her way up to her current role, starting as an environmental scientist doing field work, and she consistently ranks as Partner’s top salesperson. Over the past year she has served as relationship manager on more than 2,900 projects and booked over $6.2 million of work. Outside of work, Redlin runs numerous 10ks for charities like United Way and breast cancer foundations. She feels women contribute a great deal to her field. “There are many strong women in the due diligence industry making a difference,” she says, “from guiding regulatory changes to running risk management departments and giving generously of their expertise.”

*Nancy Scull, partner of McKenna Long & Aldridge LLP, San Diego

One of California’s most respected real estate attorneys over a 30-year legal career, Nancy Scull has been lead counsel for complex hotel, retail, residential and mixed-use projects located within the Golden State. With a focus on urban transit-oriented communities, she’s been engaged to represent developers of new urban town centers in California and elsewhere. For instance, she was selected by Quarry Falls LLC to advise on the governance and structuring for the Civita master-planned community in San Diego. Scull created a multi-level structure that brought together commercial and residential uses in one community association while preserving control by the commercial ownership interests. She sees planned communities such as Civita, and the creation of mechanisms to forward them, as a strong trend.

*Anjee Solanki, EVP of retail services, Colliers International, San Francisco

Anjee Solanki has been dedicated to the retail sector for more than 18 years. Thanks to encouragement from a manager during the early days of her career, she now provides strategic property-planning services for Colliers’ retail clients. She acquired 20 new management and leasing contracts over the past 16 months, including those with Heitman, Grosvenor, PNC Bank, American Realty Advisers and Invesco. “With women’s increasing participation in the industry,” she says, “firms have been able to provide more diverse, strategic and representative counsel to clients.” She believes emerging technology and its influence on consumers will alter the development, management, leasing and marketing of retail properties.

*Nadine Watt, president of Watt Cos., Santa Monica, CA    

The Watt Cos. is one of the largest private owners, developers and managers in the Western US, and Nadine Watt manages its commercial portfolio and marketing operations. In the past year, she’s supervised the management and operations at Watt Plaza, a 920,000-foot, class-A office building in Century City, CA, and was responsible for a multi-million-dollar renovation program there that led to its LEED Gold certification in ’09 and a TOBY award in 2011. When she became president last year, she embarked on a strategy to take the firm in a new direction. The new focus is on acquiring and developing real estate assets and pursuing entrepreneurial joint ventures to diversify its investments. As part of this focus, she spearheaded the transfer of leasing and property management activities, which were traditionally performed in-house, to outside firms.

For profiles on more of the nation's Women of Influence, go to the July/August issue of Real Estate Forum.