Project REAP hosts Inaugural REAP on the Vineyard Awards Celebration

Oak Bluffs, MA Project REAP (Real Estate Associate Program), the nation’s oldest and largest commercial real estate career accelerator, brought over 150 REAP alumni, industry leaders, investors, developers, and public officials to Martha’s Vineyard for the inaugural REAP on the Vineyard awards celebration on August 5. 

The event applauded REAP for heading towards its 30^th year and honored REAP alumna and Amazon director of global realty sustainable development and North America Real Estate London Kemp Boykin (LA) for Excellence in Leadership, NFL executive vice president of football operations Troy Vincent Sr. (NYC, VA, Trenton,NJ) as Bridge Builder; and Amazon as Corporate Partner of the Year. 

REAP presented the event in partnership with Cushman & Wakefield.

“Oak Bluffs has been a place where Black families have built wealth and community for more than a century,” said Taneshia Nash Laird, executive director of Project REAP and the first alumna to lead the organization, referring to the area’s longstanding tradition of supporting Black homeownership, hospitality, and community. “Putting a commercial real estate convening here was a statement that this industry belongs to everyone.”

Who Was in the Room

The afternoon gathering drew alumni and others representing a wide cross-section of industry leaders from brokerage, capital markets, development, corporate real estate, and the public sector in numbers rarely assembled outside a national conference. More than a quarter of those present came through a REAP Academy cohort.

Brokerage was represented by Cushman & Wakefield, CBRE, JLL, and Colliers; capital markets by Bank of America, Wells Fargo, M&T Bank, MetLife Investment Management, and Walker & Dunlop; development by Wharton Equity Partners, Lemor Development Group, and Dabar Development Partners. Corporate real estate leaders hailed from Amazon, Microsoft, Meta, and Salesforce.

Erica-Nicole Harris, chair of the Project REAP Board of Directors, said, “REAP on the Vineyard is an example of what’s possible when access and excellence meet. Seeing this level of industry leadership come together in Oak Bluffs is the return on nearly 30 years of investing in people. Our alumni aren’t waiting to be invited into this industry anymore. They’re the ones convening it.”