Adding some clarity next week will be Alec Burger, head of NorthAmerica Lending for GE Real Estate, a division of GE CommercialFinance, which boasts assets of more than $217 billion. Burger willbe a keynote speaker at RealShare San Francisco, a half-daycommercial real estate networking conference on Wednesday, Dec. 5,that will cover the future of San Francisco proper and itsinterconnectivity with markets in the greater Bay Area, includingSilicon Valley, Palo Alto, Oakland and Walnut Creek.

"We were lucky with Burger; he's a senior guy at GE Real Estateand given what's going on with credit crunch, he's a timely guy tohave," says Rich Kelley, director of the RealShare conferenceseries, which puts on events year-round, all across the country."All of our debt and equity sessions have been packed as everybodytries to get a handle on what the credit crunch means for the shortterm and the long term, including how it will impact the investmentsales market going forward."

The half-day event is expected to draw 250 commercial realestate professionals interested in seeing Burger and top-levelexecutives from the Bay Area pontificate on the near-term future ofthe market. The event starts with breakfast at 7:30 a.m. andconcludes with lunch at 1 p.m.