From 1966 to 1972 Mr. Cottone was Manager of Real Estate for the Port Authority of NY and NJ, and supervised a staff of over one hundred people responsible for acquisition of the World Trade Center site in lower Manhattan, and for property acquisition and management for airports, bridges, port facilities, tunnels, and bus and truck terminals throughout the NY- NJ region. From 1972 to 1981 he was a group executive and senior real estate officer of IU International, a $2 billion NYSE Fortune 100 diversified company headquartered in Philadelphia. He was responsible for operating real estate and communications companies in the US and Canada, and for creating and running the corporate staff real estate department. He was an officer or director of 15 IU subsidiaries, and had group level responsibility for over one thousand employees.

In 1981 Mr. Cottone co- founded Ascott Investment Corporation, headquartered in Philadelphia, PA. As Chairman and CEO he supervised a staff of 65 in raising over $200 million in capital for more than thirty real estate programs throughout the US, and providing the acquisition, financing, management and investor relations in connection with those programs. He was the founding principal and President of RESCORP, Inc., the broker dealer that served as Placement Agent for Ascott. In the early 1990’s he also became President of Property Trust Advisory Co., LLC, a solely owned company active as an investor in real estate and start-up companies, in litigation support and expert witness work, dispute resolution, and the structuring, financing and placement of capital for real estate programs.

In 1975 he was elected a director, and from 1987 to 2007, Vice President and Head of the Northeast and Midatlantic Division, of Universal Field Services., Inc, the largest right of way contract services company in North America, headquartered in Tulsa, OK. “Right of way” involves the acquisition of real estate for public or quasi public use (i.e. for highways, pipelines, telecommunications, railroads and public facilities) work he had done at the Port Authority. For eleven years, from 1976 to 1983, and again, from 1998 to 2002, he served as General Counsel, Parliamentarian and a member of the Executive Committee of the International Right of Way Association (IRWA), the largest organization in the US and Canada for the right of way industry. He was also a Trustee and Treasurer of the Right of Way International Education Foundation from 1983 through 1998.

In 2003 Mr. Cottone was elected a Director and Chair of the Nominating and Governance Committee of Government Properties Trust (NYSE – GPT), a publicly listed REIT that purchased only government occupied property. In 2004 he also was elected Lead Director of Boston Capital REIT, a public company, which developed a portfolio of market rate apartments across the country. Both the GPT and Boston Capital REIT portfolios were sold in 2007-2008, just before the market drop, producing excellent shareholder returns.

Mr. Cottone was elected national President of RESSI, the Real Estate Securities & Syndication Institute in 1986, and national Chair of The Counselors of Real Estate (CRE) in 2004, both commercial institutes of the National Association of Realtors (NAR). He served on the Executive Committee of NAR for three years, from 1989 through 1991.

Mr. Cottone has been retained as an expert witness in property matters in state and federal court and in mediations and arbitrations across the country involving a broad range of real estate practices and property types.