Jack Nathan joined Kennedy Wilson Brokerage as an assistant vice president. Experienced in retail, though, the Los Angeles area hadn't always been his stomping ground.

"I was born and raised in suburban Detroit," Nathan tells GlobeSt.com. He went to the University of Michigan and "had no intention or ambition to stay in Michigan upon graduation." But circumstances gave him a reason when, in his early post-college days, he met a few executives who knew Dan Gilbert, founder of Quicken Loans.

Gilbert had just started his development company, Bedrock, as Nathan graduated. "Talk about changing markets, Detroit was changing every day," he says. "We were stepping into a world where Detroit had years upon years of businesses missing and left almost like a shell." He cut his teeth on major retail projects.