Wilmington’s Wills Elliman elected Regional Director of Society of Industrial and Office Realtors
Wills Elliman, a seasoned commercial real estate executive and senior managing director at Newmarkin Wilmington, has been elected Regional Director for the Mid-Atlantic Region by theSociety of Industrial and Office Realtors(SIOR).
He will officially begin his two-year term this November at SIOR’s Fall 2025 conference in Louisville, Kentucky.
SIOR is a global organization of more than 4,000 elite commercial real estate professionals in over 50 countries. Its members are recognized for adhering to the highest standards of ethics, professionalism, and performance.
The organization is the leading global professional office and industrial real estate association.
Elliman’s experience
Elliman, who has more than 35 years of industry experience, joined SIOR in 1996 and is widely recognized for his leadership in office brokerage, tenant representation, and corporate services.
He has been with Newmark since 2001 and holds several prestigious industry designations, including SIOR, CCIM (Certified Commercial Investment Member), and MCR (Master of Corporate Real Estate).
Elliman’s impact on Wilmington’s commercial real estate market has been significant.
Since the onset of the COVID-19 pandemic, his team has assisted 21 tenants—among them a Fortune 75 company and 18 law firms—in navigating complex lease restructurings and relocations.
His recent transactions total $279 million in Class A office building sales, and he is recognized for his expertise in leasing large-scale vacancies in high-profile properties such as Christiana Executive Campus and 802 Delaware Avenue.
A graduate of Deerfield Academy and Duke University, with additional study at Oxford University, Elliman remains active in professional organizations including SIOR, CoreNet Global, and CCIM.
He devotes the majority of his practice to tenant representation, with additional focus on landlord assignments and national industrial requirements.
Following his retirement, Tom Perry earned his Merchant Marine Captain’s License (OUPV) this last winter and is preparing for long passages with his wife, Randy, on their Grand Banks Europa 52*. They plan to summer up in Maine and, if all goes well, head to Florida and the Bahamas this winter.
Ben Patton recently wrote a Memorial Day Remembrance and your blog was just able to catch up to it.
This Memorial Day, let’s remember the veterans still fighting
Memorial Day has always been a solemn day in my family. I grew up the descendant of six generations of career Army officers. My father often reminded my siblings and me that we “never missed a meal or heard a shot fired in anger,” and that it was our job to thank those who had. His point was clear: Our comfort was made possible by the sacrifices of others.
But in recent years, I have come to believe that Memorial Day needs a broader lens. Even as we rightly honor those who died while serving their country, we must also acknowledge the quieter, often invisible losses here at home.
Since the start of the War on Terror in 2001, more than 7,000 U.S. service members have died during their service, mostly in Iraq and Afghanistan. According to the Department of Veterans Affairs, 140,000 veterans took their own lives between 2001 and 2022 — well over 6,000 veterans every year, or an average of more than 17 each day.
These deaths may not be the result of enemy fire, but they are casualties of war just the same. Research has consistently shown that suicide among veterans is closely linked to their military experience — particularly exposure to combat, post-traumatic stress disorder, and the often abrupt loss of identity and purpose following discharge. Veterans are most at risk immediately after leaving the service, when many many feel most disconnected from the fellowship and mission that once defined their lives.
During deployment, servicemembers develop extraordinary bonds. Many of the veterans I have worked with over the past decade say that their primary mission in combat was not glory or medals — it was getting their people home safely. That sense of unity is a kind of armor. But when they return home, that armor often disappears. They leave their unit, lose their support system and face a civilian world that doesn’t always understand the war they’re still fighting.
Lt. Col. Charley Watkins, my dad’s Vietnam chopper pilot who now works with veterans in transition, calls this their “new norm.” It’s when the camaraderie fades, and the isolation begins.
That isolation is often the most dangerous battlefield. In my work leading filmmaking workshops for veterans, I’ve seen the power of collaboration up close: Men and women who have never met coming together to craft narratives that express shared service experiences and help them begin to make sense of things that no longer make sense.
These aren’t just creative exercises. They are personal, hopeful, often transformative opportunities for veterans to feel heard, valued, and part of a team again. Dr. Rachel Yehuda, Mental Health Chief at the Bronx VA Medical Center has said of our workshops, “Once these struggling veterans begin to see the world differently, anything is possible.”
The films themselves are also a potent way for the rest of us to empathize through a medium we all understand. Of course, filmmaking is only one of many collaborative tools for healing. The real solution starts with awareness and then action.
Civilians don’t need to be experts in trauma to make a difference. Often, the most powerful thing we can do is simple: show up. A call. A coffee. An invitation to a family cookout.
These seemingly small gestures can offer the lifeline that keeps someone connected.
One of my closest friends, Capt. Rich Barbato, a decorated Iraq War veteran, has lost 42 soldiers from his airborne battalion to suicide. “If there had been more opportunities and ways to recreate a sense of community when I came home,” he told me recently, “many more of my brothers in arms would be alive today.”
That should haunt us. And it should move us to act.
Millions of men and women have courageously served this country so that others like me wouldn’t have to. So that we could choose to forget the fact that so many went to war and made the ultimate sacrifice; so that we could pursue prosperity and live our lives in peace. And maybe that’s okay. Maybe the ability to lose ourselves in a festive, gorgeous May weekend is simply proof of the value and purity of that gift. And yet that is precisely why it is so important that we do acknowledge our veterans on Memorial Day and every day.
So this Memorial Day, while we honor those who died in service to our country, let us also remember those who died after their service — casualties of a war that never truly ended for them. Let us support the families they left behind. And let us recognize that preventing future loss is not just the responsibility of the VA or the Pentagon. It’s on all of us.
Benjamin Patton is the Founder and Executive Director of the Patton Veterans Project. He is the grandson of World War II commander General George S. Patton, Jr. and son of Major General George S. Patton IV, a veteran of the Korean and Vietnam conflicts.
by Benjamin Patton, Opinion Contributor - 05/26/25
Doug Schmidt reports, "I was down in Austin Texas last week for a Longevity conference and was able to meet up with Bruce Gregory for lunch! We caught up on a lot and he is becoming quite the farmer and marksman when he’s not trading crypto. Insanely his wife, is an alumna of my son’s small high school on Long Island (Stony Brook School). It was fantastic to see him and he says to tell everybody in the class if you’re in the neighborhood come by and say hello. He’s got a pair of work gloves for you and a lot of weeds in the driveway! He adds that he is blessed with 4 daughters and 3 grandkids. "
Brian Steward continues to present at lawyer conferences around his state of Texas. He appears to be an expert on "old-school" techniques, we guess that means we're all officially old-school!
Being a Duke basketball fan goes beyond what happens on the basketball court. It’s more than the record-defining wins or the heartbreaking losses. Generations have experienced the legacy associated with the sport, celebrated it in its best moments and cried in its worst. Supporting Duke basketball is a defining thread that brings people from all walks of life together.
Francis Bogside, an Irish pub in San Antonio, brought generations of Duke graduates together on Final Four weekend. Energy filled the air that only Blue Devil basketball can excite. Mothers pushed babies around in strollers while small children ran excitedly around the courtyard. Classmates who had not seen each other in years reunited all across the venue. Alumni and fans gathered around the little street corner in San Antonio to cheer on the Blue Devils in their 18th Final Four appearance.
“A lot of people think about their identity as either ‘I'm an American or I'm a woman,’” Lauren Wiggs, Trinity ‘04, said. “For me, being a Duke alumna is one of those first criteria.”
Her identity as a Duke fan has been a part of her life for as long as she can remember. Wiggs’ grandparents met at Duke in the 1950s, and she got married in the Duke Chapel. Her family has spent decades cheering on men’s basketball.
She attended her first Final Four in 1986 at only four years old. Now, nearly 40 years later, it was a no-brainer that she would attend the Final Four once it became clear that Duke would play in it. Wiggs and some of her friends booked their flights as soon as the Blue Devils secured their Elite Eight victory over Alabama. She has always enjoyed watching “the decades of history” that the program carries, especially because it has so much to do with her own family history.
Iron Dukes celebrated Final Four Weekend at Francis Bogside, an Irish pub in San Antonio.
Family ties run deep for many Forever Crazies, including Rachel Flemming, a former Duke cheerleader. When it came time for Flemming, Pratt ‘12, to attend college, she followed her older brother to Duke. He joined the marching band, so she joined the cheer team. The opportunity to travel to various bowl games and other athletic events brought the siblings closer and amplified their love for Duke sports, especially basketball.
Fleming’s favorite memory came from cheering at the national championship game in 2010 when the Blue Devils, led by current head coach Jon Scheyer, defeated Butler.
“I remember sitting on the court and gripping my poms,” Flemming said. “I still get nervous watching videos of that shot. I know it’s not gonna go in, but I still remember how I felt in that moment.”
In the years since her graduation, she and her brother have continued to travel to basketball games just as they did in college, supporting Duke across the country.
“It's more than just basketball,” Flemming said. “It's the community and the camaraderie of the Duke spirit.”
Paul Knickerbocker, Pratt ‘00, has used traveling to basketball games as a way to reconnect with his former classmates.
“I just used it as a vehicle to reunite with friends and have that common thread, to share that common experience,” Knickerbocker said.
After enjoying his experience in the Final Four in Phoenix last year with fellow alumni — despite the team’s absence — Knickerbocker decided to follow the Blue Devils around this year in the hopes that the 2024-25 squad would work its way to San Antonio. Although his road experience with the Blue Devils was “hectic,” Knickerbocker enjoyed attending the alumni events in the different cities he went to and explained that supporting Duke gives him “a sense of belonging.”
“It’s something that you feel that’s bigger than yourself,” he said.
Several other alumni echoed the sentiment that for them, Duke basketball is like another home, something to support and hold onto in the good times and the bad.
“It gives you something to look forward to every year,” Brian Steward, Trinity ‘87, said. For many fans, the calendar revolves around watching Duke basketball, around watching each and every game with eager anticipation.
It doesn’t hurt that fans rarely have to watch their team suffer through long losing stretches.
“It’s nice to be part of the group,” Knickerbocker said. “And it’s part of the winning group.”
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Knickerbocker’s friend and fellow alum Noah Geisel described being a Duke basketball fan as “belonging to greatness.” He graduated in 2001, the year the team won its third national championship.
In his four years at Duke, Geisel only missed two home games at Cameron Indoor Stadium. From the beginning of this season, he knew “in his heart” that he would be traveling to San Antonio for the Final Four to support his team, just as he had in his college days.
“You don't have to be great at basketball to be a great Duke basketball fan,” Geisel said.
And for many of these alumni, that is the crux of Duke’s basketball appeal. Though most will never get the chance to play on the court of Cameron Indoor, they all have the chance to cheer loudly in the stands, to hex opposing players as they attempt to inbound the ball, to put their arms around each other and sing the alma mater with pride after every win and even each loss. Those memories leave many alumni eagerly anticipating the chance to come back for more.
“I’ll probably die early of a heart attack,” Roshan Yadama, Trinity ‘15, joked of his commitment to watching Duke basketball and the nerve-wracking emotions it induces.
Still, Yadama, like so many, counts his days spent at Cameron Indoor as among the best in his college experience. The Blue Devils earned their 2015 championship banner in Yadama’s senior year.
“It’s been elite since the beginning,” Yadama said.
This year's Final Four came a week after Yadama’s college reunion week. While back in Durham, he and his former classmates planned their trip to San Antonio, for Yadama’s first time experiencing the Final Four in person.
Other Forever Crazies are far more seasoned in their Final Four appearances.
Wilton Alston, Pratt ‘81, traveled to his first Final Four in 1999 and watched the Blue Devils lose to UConn in the championship matchup. Although the experience of watching Duke lose was “gut-wrenching,” he still found himself enjoying the weekend. From that point on, Alston and his brother have made it a yearly tradition to attend the Final Four, even when Duke does not make it. Attending over 20 Final Fours has made him appreciate even more the trips when the Blue Devils do make an appearance.
Whether alumni had attended one Final Four or the last 20, San Antonio brought up some of the best memories from their undergraduate years. Even with the loss to Houston, wherever the team goes in the coming years, these alumni will be there to support them and continue on the tradition of excellence that Duke basketball inspires.
“It’s a great thing,” Steward said. “It’s a great tradition.”
JK was attending a wonderful bar mitzvah in NYC recently - a relative on his wife's side - and at the reception he learned that another attendee's daughter was a 9th grader at Deerfield! While JK was extolling the outsized impact the Class of 1983 has on the Deerfield Magazine (especially) all agreed a photo for Class Notes was warranted. What started as being in the audience for a simple right of passage for a cousin-in-law turned into the best day ever!
Your eagle eyed blog editor noticed an under the radar update to a Facebook account. I give you - a recent photo of Jay Esty! I'm guessing Maine coast, summer 2024...
At a recent DA Reception in NYC, old buddies LtoR: John Kikoski, Whit Armstrong, Jon Gottscho and Doug Schmidt caught up and represented our great class. Jon even wore the Class tie, a true collectors item!
David Ziccardi retired from his Associate General Counsel position at Conrail a while back, but has clearly found a new lease on life as a volunteer at MANNA. Congratulations on your Volunteer of the Month recognition!
"I’m thrilled to share that I have once again been chosen as a DBT222 Honoree. This recognition is not just a personal milestone but a reflection of the incredible team that supports me and the opportunities I’ve been blessed with in our thriving Delaware community.
I’m deeply grateful to my colleagues, mentors, and everyone who has played a role in this achievement. This honor fuels my passion to create an even greater impact in our community. Here’s to continuing this journey of growth and excellence together!"
