Introducing the 2023 Los Angeles Real Estate & Construction Industries Council Spirit of Life® Honorees

Val Achtemeier, Darla Longo and Barbara Perrier
From Left to right: Barbara Perrier, Val Achtemeier, Darla Longo.

Val Achtemeier

Vice Chairman
CBRE

During her 30-year career, Val Achtemeier has originated, structured and closed over $40 billion of real estate financing transactions throughout the U.S. with an emphasis on portfolio loans and larger loans as well as construction loans and JV equity. Val is Vice Chairman of CBRE Capital Markets, Inc. Her extensive commercial real estate experience includes both institutional and private entrepreneurial positions focusing on debt and equity procurement, joint venture formations, ground leases, development, investment acquisitions and dispositions, and all aspects of capital markets activities.  Ms. Achtemeier leads a team in CBRE Capital Markets Institutional Group in placing debt and equity on commercial properties throughout the United States. She has extensive relationships with diverse capital sources, including both commercial and investment banks, life insurance companies, CMBS originators and debt funds.

Val has been a dedicated member of the Los Angeles Real Estate and Construction Council, formally serving on the Executive Board.  Val is a part of a market leading industrial/logistics CBRE Capital Markets team called National Partners. The CBRE National Partners team closed over $31 Billion of industrial sales and debt capital markets transactions in 2019 – many of the key players are women which is unique in the industry. They deliver superior information, analytics and strategy leading to exceptional execution over the industrial investment property life cycle and across the capital stack.  She embodies the dedication to community worthy of this honor and has made philanthropy a core part of her career.

Darla Longo

Vice Chairman, Managing Director
CBRE

Darla Longo, a top producing and successful real estate professional for over forty years, specializes in investment sales, sale lease-backs, leasing, user and land sales, and recapitalizations of institutional investment properties. Throughout her real estate career, she has been involved in over $44 billion worth of real estate transactions including $35.1 billion of investment sales across the United States totaling over 1 billon square feet, sold over 14,000 acres of land and leased over 191.7 million square feet. Ms. Longo is known for her creative thinking and possesses unique and proven negotiating skills that allow clients to achieve the highest and best value for their investment asset, as proven by numerous repeat business. Darla’s passion and work ethic has won her a national award every single year during her career for top performance at CBRE.

Ms. Longo is the first woman in the company’s history to be elected to the CBRE Board of Directors and she is a Managing Director of CBRE’s West Coast Institutional Group. Additionally, she has been a top 3% producer for the company for 39 out of 40 years, the only exception being her first year when she was named the national Rookie of the Year. Darla recently received Broker of the Year award from the Los Angeles Business Journal.  Darla has a special connection to City of Hope, attributing a loved one’s saved life to its work.  She has supported the Spirit of Life campaign for many years.  She exemplifies leader, and through her acceptance of this award marks a milestone in Spirit of Life honoree history.

Barbara Perrier

Vice Chair
CBRE

Barbara Perrier has been with CBRE for 33 years and is a leading investment broker specializing in industrial and land sales. Barbara is among the firm’s Colbert Coldwell Circle, an elite group that is comprised of the top 1% of producers in the entire company in 2020 and 2021. She was appointed the Vice Chair, the highest title a producer can achieve within CBRE and a title shared by few professionals nationally. She received the William H. McCarthy Award, CBRE’s highest honor recognizing one high-producing professional annually for materially impacting our culture, driving excellence, and unselfishly leading by example. Barbara and her team executed over 90 deals in 2021 with a total transaction value in excess of $10 billion.

A key player within CBRE’s Institutional Group (IG), she has facilitated many complex, multi-market dispositions including over 30,000 acres of land sales, major sales, and portfolios. Barbara and her partner Darla Longo are part of National Partners—a group of leading CBRE IG Professionals across the United States www.cbre.com/np. The National Partners transacted 274 MSF, 410 transactions totaling $31.9 billion in 2021.  Barbara shares that special connection to City of Hope that her sister does, with the hospital saving a close family member’s life.  She has advocated for support of City of Hope’s Spirit of Life within CBRE for many years.  Now, along with her sister Darla and colleague Val they pave the way for female leaders across the commercial real estate landscape.