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President
and CEO
President and co-founder of the Noisette Company, LLC, John Knott leads the Noisette Project development team, which
is collaborating in a public-private partnership with the City of North Charleston to restore 3,000 acres of the city's
historic urban core. Knott has 39 years of experience in the urban redevelopment, historic preservation and community
rehabilitation fields. He is an internationally recognized leader in the redevelopment of cities, and has served as an
advisor to municipalities throughout the United States and Canada, in addition to cities in China and Russia.
Mr. Knott is a third generation builder and developer, with extensive experience in the holistic development of planned communities,
sustainable development, Green Buildings, commercial offices, hotels, and renovation and restoration of historic properties and urban
revitalization. He also specializes in ecologically sound and efficient energy design, and ranks among the nation's leading advocates
of development that preserves, protects and enhances the natural environment.
As the Noisette Company's visionary, Knott guides the Company's master planning process with the local community in North Charleston,
emphasizing the balance between business and residential uses with the restoration of the region's ecosystem. Recently, John served
as CEO and Managing Director of the 1,206-acre Dewees Island, community near Charleston, South Carolina, an oceanfront island retreat
dedicated to environmental preservation and recognized as one of the leading eco-friendly residential developments in the world.
In 2001, Dewees won the Urban Land Institute's prestigious Award for Excellence.
In its first phase of development, Knott’s Noisette team and City of North Charleston were honored with the American Society of Landscape Architect’s venerable 2005 Award of Excellence for urban design, citing the Noisette Community Master Plan as the nation’s leading example of sustainable revitalization. In January 2006, Metropolis magazine of New York named Knott as one of the world’s leading design visionaries, for the Noisette redevelopment.
A few of his many appointments include, Heinz Center Design Committee in Washington, DC; co-founder of the Sustainability Institute of South Carolina; Chairman for the ULI South Carolina District
Council; Chairman for Charleston County’s 1/2 Cent Sales Tax Transportation Advisory Board; and Board Member of Melaver, Inc., a
southeast green development company headquartered in Savannah, Georgia, President/CEO of the Aden Company, Inc., a Knott family company; and, a number of local appointments including the Advisory Boards for the S.C. Sea Grant Consortium and Lowcountry Graduate Center.
Natives of Baltimore, Maryland, John and his wife Diane have lived in Charleston for the past 14 years. The Knotts have three
children, and three grandchildren.
Director of Operations
A senior executive with more than 20 years experience in homebuilding and community development, Mr. Titus has been an industry leader in a widely diverse group of regional and national companies, which include: New Fortis Corporation, John Wieland Homes, Sundance Homes, Inc., The Ryland Group, Inc., and Ryan Homes, Inc. His business specialty lies in identifying business opportunities and organizing the resources necessary for projects to achieve their full potential.
While working individually, and in partnerships, Mr. Titus has successfully organized community developments throughout the Eastern and Midwestern United States. At Noisette, his role entails developing and coordinating of operating resources necessary to tackle the diverse expansion needs of the major mixed-use, Noisette master plan community.
A graduate of California State University, Mr. Titus served as officer in the U.S. Army Corps of Engineers. He is a native of western Pennsylvania.
Vice-President and Co-Founder
After serving as Director of Base Closure
for the Charleston Navy Base, Jim Augustin co-founded the Noisette
Project in 1997. In the US Navy, his responsibilities included
focusing the Navy on sustainability issues in the Pentagon.
A civil engineer by training, Augustin has extensive experience
in master planning, facility planning and design, contract
specification/purchasing, environmental engineering for compliance/cleanup,
utilities installation/management and sustainable design/construction.
As vice president of the Noisette Company, he coordinates community
education efforts during the ongoing master planning process.
Noisette Company Board of Investors
Jim Ramich serves as the co-chairman
of the Noisette Company Board of Investors. Since 1999, Ramich
has served as a Venture Partner in Gabriel Venture Partners,
a company that has raised more than $260 million in investment
capital for start-up technology companies. A resident of Charleston,
Ramich spent 25 years with Corning Incorporated of New York,
holding positions such as Vice President of Corporate Business
Development, and President of Corning Japan in Tokyo, in which
he oversaw operations for six technology-based companies.
A resident of Charleston, John Barter
is a director of SRA International, a NYSE company, and Bottomline
Technologies, a NASDAQ company. Mr. Barter also serves on the
board of BMC Software, Inc., listed on the NYSE. Retired from
Allied Signal, now Honeywell, he was that Company’s Senior
Vice President and Chief Financial Officer from 1988 to 1994.
In Charleston, Mr. Barter is active in community affairs, serving
as a director and Vice President of the Charleston Symphony
Orchestra, and as a director of Darkness to Light and the Charleston
Education Network.
Van Campbell joined Corning Incorporated
of New York in 1964 as a financial analyst, rising through
the company ranks as an executive, finally becoming Vice Chairman
for Finance and Administration, and a member of Corning’s
Board of Directors. After his retirement from Corning in 1994,
Campbell served on the Board of Directors for Armstrong World
Industries, Inc., and Quest Diagnostics Incorporated. A graduate
of Cornell University, he holds a master’s degree in
business administration from Harvard University.
Robert Lurie is a national pioneer in
quality childcare for working families throughout the United
States. During his 25-year career in childcare, he was director
of the non-profit community agency in Summit, New Jersey, and
founder and CEO of Resources for Child Care Management (RCCM).
Currently, Lurie is involved with the Children’s Museum
of the Lowcountry, Trident United Way, Habitat for Humanity,
and Cardiovascular Institute for Research and Prevention at
the Medical University of South Carolina.
Brett Malky is the President of EQA Landmark
Communities, LP, of Pittsburgh, Pennsylvania, one of the Noisette
Company’s strategic business partners. Malky co-founded
EQA in 1998, to help develop a new generation of American homes
and communities. Currently, he oversees the business operations
and development end of EQA, with responsibilities including
forming business partnerships with developers.
Bill Prezzanao held a number of high
level managerial positions with Eastman Kodak Company, ultimately
retiring in January 1997 as Kodak’s Vice Chairman and
member of the Board of Directors. His accomplishments at Kodak
led to record sales and earnings for the company in the 1980s.
Today, Prezzano serves on corporate boards like Toronto Dominion
Bank. His list of non-profit boards includes a position as
chairman of the Health Sciences Foundation at the Medical University
of South Carolina, and the executive committee at the Gibbes
Museum of Art in Charleston.
Noisette Project Development Team
EQA Landmark Communities was established
to fulfill the tremendous need for developers, builders, suppliers,
designers and engineers to work together in delivering solutions
that successfully meet the needs of today’s changing
marketplace.
EQA Landmark Communities is dedicated to producing the best new communities
in America, with homes that demonstrate unparalleled value and livability.
Their unique approach to projects, called EQA, stands for Efficient use of
time, materials and resources; high Quality construction and craftsmanship;
and homes that are Adaptable to changing homeowners needs, lifestyles, and
future building technologies.
Currently, EQA is involved in Summerset at Frick Park, a 713-home new traditional,
urban in-fill neighborhood in Pittsburgh, Pennsylvania, in partnership with
the City of Pittsburgh. This project has been featured in Builder Magazine
and many other building industry magazines as an outstanding example of how
EQA partners with cities and works directly with the builders to develop innovative
strategies to deal with home energy performance and construction quality.
Master Planning and Program Management
BH is a US-based practice with a 60-year
history of award-winning innovation and design. The company’s
integrated approach to project development is supported by
a talented in-house team of professionals in architecture,
engineering, interior design, landscape architecture, and facilities
management.
Guided by a progressive vision, an unequaled management team and a steadfast
commitment to technological innovation, BH has grown from a regional practice
to a growing presence in international markets. With over 350 employees in
seven fully networked offices, BH is able to marshal the resources of the
entire firm to create a seamless, multi-disciplinary team to meet the particular
needs of each client and prospect.
In recent years, the company has provided turn-key solutions for virtually
every kind of project imaginable, including award-winning efforts for commercial/corporate
buildings, higher education, healthcare, laboratories, technology centers,
K-12 schools, and residential resorts. Burt Hill was the master planning firm
leading the design for John Knott’s Dewees Island development.
Founded in 1970, BNIM is a Kansas City,
Missouri-based architectural firm, which has a national reputation
for designing sustainable, eco-friendly architecture of exceptional
quality, beauty and utility.
BNIM’s mission is to improve the quality of life for the owner, user,
and surrounding community by responding specifically and uniquely to the social,
economic, and environmental needs of clients with buildings and design concepts
that uplift the human spirit, as well as sustainability.
BNIM’s extensive project background includes corporate and speculative
office buildings, school and university facilities, hotels, and conference
centers, housing for all socio-economic needs, recreational facilities, federal,
state, and municipal buildings, urban design, and a variety of commercial and
institutional projects.
A list of recent BNIM-designed projects includes a new headquarters for the
Packard Foundation in Los Altos, California; the Missouri Department of Natural
Resources in Jefferson City, Missouri; and new offices for the American Lung
Association in Tulsa, Oklahoma.
IBACOS, the acronym for Integrated Building
and Construction Solutions, is a building innovation company
that conducts research into new and better building practices,
through a unique industry network and comprehensive understanding
of the changing marketplace. To create better home designs,
IBACOS has created The IBACOS Network, which brings together
the nation’s leading manufacturers, builders, developers,
and experts in the home-building and construction industry.
IBACOS is the primary consortium in the US Department of Energy’s Building
America Program, a leading public-private initiative focused on bringing systems
approaches to the home building industry.
Landscape/Environmental
AES was founded in Brodhead, Wisconsin
in 1978 by Steven Apfelbaum, MS, as a full time research and
consulting ecology firm that has conducted in most of the biomes
in North America, and is widely regarded as one of the nation’s
ecological restoration specialists.
Recently, AES has worked with hydrologists to understand the landscape-scale
hydrologic changes associated with land settlement and development in the Midwestern
US. AES work has implications for millions of acres in North America, and throughout
the world.
Rolf Sauer & Partners is dedicated
to environmentally-sensitive design and development of landscape
architectural and ecologically-planned projects. Environmental
education and ecological restoration are key components of
the firm’s work. Rolf Sauer’s team efforts reflect
a unique understanding and appreciation of the Native American
landscape, which is expressed in each of their site-specific
landscape designs, giving each project a unique sense of place.
The firm directs master planning and site development for historic and urban
campuses, parks and regional open space systems, in addition to private and
corporate development sites. Always addressing the objective of long-term sustainability,
Rolf Sauer & Partners creates designs that are both practical and visionary.
Current projects include the master planning for Mepkin Abbey’s Botanical
Garden on their 3,000-acre estate near Charleston, SC; a 33,326-acre camp in
Greenfield, NH for the Episcopal Diocese of Massachusetts; and a Visitor Center
for the National Park Service in Sandstone, Virginia.
Established in 1984, Newkirk Environmental
is one of the Southeast’s leading environmental consulting
firms. Newkirk is recognized as a national authority on environmental
regulations and permitting. The firm has established a rock-solid
reputation for always providing sound, efficient and cost-sensitive
solutions for each client’s environmental issues. The
firm’s primary goal is to create harmony between client
goals and regulatory compliance.
Newkirk Environmental, Inc. specializes in the coordination of planning and
pre-construction phases for development projects including: golf courses, residential,
industrial, marinas, commercial, institutional, recreational, utilities and
transportation.
Legal
Founded in 1975, Pratt-Thomas provides
legal guidance to business and governmental entities at the
local, state and national level. The firm offers a full range
of client services, with expertise in areas of litigation,
business and corporate law, insurance law, environmental law,
and governmental regulatory matters.
Pratt-Thomas, Pearce and Walker offers an innovative and professional approach
to solving complex legal matters that utilize skills, and knowledge, that are
based in legal experience and cutting edge technology. This approach offers
the firm’s clients with the highest level of service, while providing
top quality service in the most efficient, and cost-effective, manner possible.
The firm has represented such prestigious clients as KMART Corporation, Wal-Mart,
Stories, Inc., Trident Construction Company, Island Preservation Partnership
(Dewees Island), LP Pfizer, Inc., International Paper Company, Safety National
Casualty Corporation, First Union National Bank (now Wachovia), and Tenet Healthcare
Corporation.
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