Lauren Edwards

As the Senior Director of the Gainesville office for Colliers, Dan leads the firm's presence in Alachua County and the surrounding sub-markets by providing commercial real estate solutions for his clients. His team specializes in commercial and land transactions (sales & leasing) including office, retail, industrial, and multi-family. With well over 100 years of combined local knowledge and service, they strive to continuously raise the bar for their clientele. 

Prior to joining Colliers International, Dan served as Vice President of the Commercial and Land Division at an independent firm in Gainesville where he was a partner in The Drotos Ryals Group. His team has successfully transacted over $1 billion in local (Alachua County) commercial real estate. Dan holds both a Master of Science in Real Estate (MSRE) and Master of Building Construction (MBC) from the University of Florida along with multiple professional designations, including Certified Commercial Investment Member (CCIM) and Society of Industrial and Office Realtors (SIOR). He also also serves in several industry, civic, and non-profit organizations such as: The Urban Land Institute, Ronald McDonald House of North Central Florida, First Federal Bank of  Florida, United Way, and Leadership Gainesville.

Rory graduated from the University of Florida with a degree in civil engineering and has spent the past 35 years in Gainesville as a professional consultant in the land-development industry. Shortly following his graduation, Rory founded CHW Professional Consultants. Serving the company for the last 30 years, Rory’s roles shifted from Vice to President, to CEO and later to Founder. Under Rory’s leadership, the company grew from 13 employees to 85 employees and increased its gross revenue to well over $10 million.

 As a professional engineer, Rory has worked on thousands of projects within Alachua County and the southern United States. Having worked with numerous owners and developers on single-family, multi- family, commercial, retail, industrial and institutional uses, Rory has discovered a uniqueness to each property and project after having worked in such a diverse market of land development. Rory’s engagement and leadership doesn’t stop there, he is well known in the Gainesville community for his roles in many different organizations, some of which include Rotary club of Gainesville Sunrise (President), Climb for Cancer Foundation (Board Member), Builders Association of North Central Florida (BANCF) (past Associate Vice-President), American Heart Association (2018 Heart Walk Chair) and Gainesville Chamber of Commerce (Board Member since 2013, Chair of The Board 2017, currently Immediate Past-Chair).

Mike Ryals has been the dominant name in commercial real estate in the Gainesville marketplace for over 25 years. Mike has handled in an excess of over a billion dollars in commercial real estate transactions with clients ranging from individual local business owners to large corporate clients such as Walmart, Taco Bell, Dukin Donuts, UF Health/Shands and many others.

As a fourth generation Floridian who has always lived in Gainesville, Mike knows the market well. He first entered real estate in 1978 and quickly grew to love the business, becoming the company’s top producing agent in 1979. He has consistently retained this level of success throughout his career.

Mike became a broker in 1980, opened and built his own real estate company in the mid 80’s, sold his company to Bosshardt Realty in 1986, and has served as Senior Vice President of the Bosshardt Commercial division until his recent transition to Colliers where he will serve the team behind the scenes in an advisory capacity.

Debbie Wilkinson, Client Services Specialist, joined Colliers International in August as part of the GNV Commercial Advisory Team.  She returned to Gainesville from Nashville, TN in 2014 to be closer to family and has worked for an independent real estate firm as Relocation Director and as Team Lead of Customer Service and Quality for the past five years. 

Prior to moving to Gainesville, Wilkinson worked for Mars Petcare, a division of Mars, Inc., as Corporate Affairs Senior Project Specialist. In this role, she built corporate reputation through management of corporate and brand sponsorships and events in the areas of sports and entertainment, community, Mars family properties, Pedigree Foundation®, and pet-related events. She was instrumental in the promotion of associate engagement leading over 900 volunteers who participated in these activities each year.

Wilkinson has also worked in the telecommunications industry for AT&T, Lucent Technologies, and Avaya, Inc. where she managed provisioning teams for a seven-state territory, union/management negotiations, national strike preparations, customer loyalty programs and global customer satisfaction programs.

Wilkinson graduated with an M.B.A. from Florida State University and a B.S. from the University of Florida.