Management Team

Mr. Peterson’s second company, Fountain Grove Mortgage (FGM) was founded in 1986. Fountain Grove Mortgage was a provider of residential mortgages in the San Francisco North Bay area, growing the annual closing of residential loans between 1986 and 2005 to $215 million dollars. Fountain Grove Mortgage was strategically sold in 2005.

In 1996 Mr. Peterson and his business partners founded his third business enterprise, Rivendale Communities and Rivendale Homes. By leveraging his experience in new home sales and marketing, Mr. Peterson developed Rivendale Homes into one of the leading home builders in the San Francisco North Bay area generating gross income in 2005 in excess of $ 82 million. Professional Builder Magazine ranked Rivendale Homes the 176th largest residential builder in the country for the year 2008 and 184th largest residential builder for 2009. Rivendale Homes and Communities is one of the few regional builders to survive the great recession.

Chris’s expertise encompasses strategic planning, land/project acquisition, feasibility, planning, entitlement laws and procedures. He has extensive expertise in business financial planning and analysis, structuring over 15 successful financial partnerships. Chris has negotiated and overseen the sales of $ 300 million dollars of residential real estate. Being recognized as a real estate authority, Chris has been quoted numerous times in regional publications, as well as receiving the Lifetime Achievement in Marketing from the Home Builders Association. Chris was elected to the position of Vice President of the Northern California Home Builders Association consecutively from 1997 through 2001. Mr. Peterson’s keen business acumen coupled with-in depth real estate knowledge is evidenced through his consistent successes.

Chris has a passion for family, waterskiing, real estate and fitness. He is the father of two grown children. His daughter recently graduated from nursing school as a registered nurse and his son works at Praxis Capital as a managing director. During the warm weather months Chris enjoys waterskiing and has been a competitive water skier for many years. Chris aspires to keeping fit year round, so quite often you will find him in the gym challenging himself to expanding levels of fitness. He loves the real estate business for its pure form of entrepreneurship and market feedback. He values balance, fairness, and transparency in both personal life and business practices.

Mr. Burke launched his first business at the age of 7 and has been parlaying his determination and ingenuity ever since. He developed an intense interest in the processes involved in foreclosure acquisition while still in college. Using detailed financial models, which he developed, Mr. Burke was confident he could exploit his exceptional skills of observation, detail orientation, and studied judgment to build expertise in the niche of foreclosure auction / acquisition process.

During the past 21 years Mr. Burke has created several extremely successful real estate limited partnerships continuously profiting his partners; at times, in excess of 130% annually. He is the Managing Director of Praxis Capital LLC, President of Magnolia Capital Group, General Partner to Pinnacle Equity Group, GP to RPCE Investments and Owner / Officer of Dry Creek Real Estate and Praxis Realty. He has been an exclusive advisor to Pavillion Communities and frequent speaker on Foreclosures and Real Estate Markets. Mr. Burke achieved a most impressive 5 year annualized return of 20.33% during times that would be considered “contrarian” for foreclosure funds from 2002 through 2007. Mr. Burke continuously confirms his conviction that at the “right price”, there are always buyers.

Additionally, Mr. Burke developed state-of-the-art computer tracking and mapping software that is unparalleled in the foreclosure industry. The software allows the Partnership team to access an abundance of information regarding the homes that appear on the daily trustee sales calendar. This software platform and its related workflow system are proprietary to Praxis Capital, LLC and provide distinct logistical and timing advantages in this complex market.
Mr. Burke is a licensed California real estate broker and member of the National Apartment Association, California Apartment Association, North Coast Rental Housing Association, National Association of Realtors, California Association of Realtors, North Bay Association of Realtors, BAREIS MLS, Santa Rosa Chamber of Commerce, Financial Enlightenment Club, and the North Bay Real Estate Investors Association.

Brian has lived in Northern California for over 25 years. He and his wife Suzi enjoy vacations wherever the weather is warm. He is an avid aviation enthusiast and licensed instrument rated airplane and helicopter pilot. Even though he has 24 years of incident-free flying under his belt, he flies an airplane that has a built-in parachute that lowers the entire plane to the ground in an emergency. “Safety in aviation is much like the financial and real estate business, you should always have a backup plan. Just like flying with an emergency parachute, my real estate investments should always have an exit plan, and a backup strategy.” As in aviation and other previous capacities, his decisions have revolved around life and death. “Investment decisions won’t kill you, but you have to be prepared for the unexpected and be ready to react quickly.”

As Director of Land Acquisition and operations of entitlement for one of the country’s major developers, Mr. Peterson became recognized for expertise in residential land acquisition and feasibility of managing and developing the Northern California land markets. He is especially effective working collaboratively with consultants, engineers and designers to build out broad residential subdivisions.

Mr. Peterson was subsequently named as Vice President of Business Development for Pavillion Communities, a real estate investment firm specializing in residential properties. While V.P., Mr. Peterson held responsibility for establishing new markets through out the Sacramento Valley and Solano County. Armed with comprehensive knowledge of the Northern California real estate markets, Mr. Peterson parlayed his expertise to capitalize on the financial opportunities presented by the volatile current real estate market conditions.

As Managing Director of Praxis Capital, LLC Mr. Peterson managed the introduction and expansion of business into the REO and short sale arenas. As a natural extension to the foreclosure business model, this market expansion has worked to double the volume of prior existing acquisition business through the Sacramento Valley. He will continue expanding this specialized area of the business throughout all locales of Praxis Capital to build this business segment into equal parity with the foreclosure acquisition division.

Mr. Peterson is a graduate of Wharton School of Business. He has served as publisher (2006 to 2009) of Sticks and Bricks, a home building newsletter which was distributed to banks, analysts and major home builders. He has written several published articles focusing on housing supply demographics and the subsequent effects on the national housing markets. He continues to be a regularly featured panelist/speaker at real estate investment organizations.

Originally a native of Sonoma County, Eric relocated to the east coast after graduating from the University of Pennsylvania to pursue a career as golf professional. During that time he worked with a number of prestigious golf resorts up and down the eastern seaboard. Eric now lives in Sacramento with his wife Lori and their dog Brodie. He is an avid cyclist and enjoys spending time in the Sierras as often as possible.

From First Columbia, Ms. Haskell joined her ex-President to launch the Investment Centers of Washington Mutual Banks. These were among the first bank run investment centers in the country. Upon leaving the large structured corporate environs, Ms. Haskell opted to put her business acumen to use in bringing two up and coming companies to IPO market introduction. Both companies went public and were subsequently acquired.

Ms. Haskell was then invited join Bridgeway Capital where she became Senior Partner within eighteen months. Bridgeway Capital was a mezzanine boutique offering a variety of financial products primarily to technology companies. During the four years Ms. Haskell was with Bridgeway she built the business by 60%, was the top producer each year; producing the most profitable and largest dollar transactions. Transactions ranged to $30 million. She was integral in expanding the product portfolio, lender base and client diversity.

When the principals of Bridgeway Capital retired, Ms. Haskell parlayed her financial knowledge and stock market analysis expertise to build a successful equities portfolio. She became recognized in the investment community for technical analysis and was featured (2006) in the best selling financial primer, “Entries and Exits” by Alexander Elder. She secured her credentials as a Registered Investment Advisor and managed very substantial individual portfolios for accredited investors.

During this time she also consulted to many private and publicly held enterprises for Investor Relations, Investment Banking and Capital Raising strategies. Companies under Ms. Haskell’s consult included U.S. and international businesses. Ms. Haskell personally raised in excess of $50 million for clients. As a result of these ventures, Ms. Haskell was recruited as Director of Investor Relations and Corporate Finance for a publicly held clean tech enterprise. Here she held responsibility for all financial offerings, SEC filings, stockholder communications, and as liaison to Wall Street.

Licenses she has acquired include Series 7, 63 and 65 as Stockbroker, Fund specialist and Registered Investment Advisor.

I am a passionate equestrian! After riding for many years, I bought my beautiful Arabian mare 8 years ago. I’ve ridden in 9 countries and taken several ribbons for jumping. Now, I’ve settled down into trail and cross country riding just for the love of the outdoors and comradery of my horse.

I’ve participated as a Big Sister mentor for 8 years to a great 15 year old who has taught me much and continues to be an inspiration.

As I thoroughly enjoy the energy of indulging my creative nature, I have had fun through the years with gourmet cooking, painting, design, and photography (so many hours of expressive immersion in the darkroom).

For me, it’s all about integrity, relationships, positive attitude and compassion.