Congdon brokered most of his $15 billion in transactions with Cushman & Wakefield, where he worked for 33 years and was often its No. 1 office broker in the region. For the last 15 years of his tenure there he was executive director of C&W's capital markets group while also building up his own real estate investment portfolio.

At the beginning of 2007 he left the office market to join Hamilton Zanze as a senior member of the apartment investment firm's financial services group. "Jeff did a great job introducing us to some new institutional investors but I think at the end of the year his heart was really still in office buildings," Hamilton Zanze founder Mark Hamilton tells GlobeSt.com.That fall, New York City-based Swig Equities, which owns several San Francisco office buildings and much more in its home town, acquired Helmsley Spear, a commercial real estate services firm also based in New York City. Shortly thereafter, Kent Swig came looking for someone to expand Helmsley Spear to the West Coast, just as Congdon was itching to get back into office investment brokerage, and that's how he began 2008.

Nearly 24 months of craziness later, Helmsley Spear has long since put its West Coast plans on hold and Congdon is moving forward with Kidder Mathews just as the investment sales market is starting to pick up. "Kent has a terrific portfolio in New York that he needs to concentrate his time and energy on right now," says Congdon.