The National Association of Home Builders (NAHB) has announced that W. Dean Henry, a real estate executive from Foster City, Calif., has been appointed chairman of NAHB's Multifamily Leadership Board (MLB). Henry succeeds Charles R. Brindell Jr., chairman and CEO, Mill Creek Residential Trust LLC, and will serve a two-year term.

"I am very proud to serve as chairman of the MLB," said Henry. "The Board is a prestigious platform within the premier housing organization in Washington, D.C."

"The multifamily industry is likely to face significant challenges in the next few years, and NAHB has been the leading voice before Congress and the administration on important issues like tax reform and the future of Fannie Mae and Freddie Mac," Henry continued.

"The apartment and condo sector is an important part of NAHB's membership and plays a vital role to the housing industry," said Barry Rutenberg, chairman of NAHB and a home builder from Gainesville, Fla.  "We look forward to working with Dean in his new role as chairman on a number of critical, common issues that are important to the Multifamily Leadership Board."

Henry serves as president of Legacy Partners Residential Inc. (LPRI) and has been involved exclusively in multifamily real estate acquisitions/development, financing, asset and property management and dispositions for more than 40 years. He is an executive vice president of KBS Legacy Partners Apartment REIT, a public non-traded REIT co-sponsored by LPRI and KBS Capital Advisors.

In 1973, Henry joined the Western Region of Lincoln Property Company, Legacy's predecessor organization. When the Western Region became an independent company operating under Legacy Partners in 1998, Henry became the president and chief operating officer of LPRI, and has continued as its president only since 2001.

Henry is a member of the Policy Advisory Board of the Center for Real Estate at the University of California at Berkeley. He is the former chairman of the board of the YMCA of San Francisco and has served as a board member since 2003. He is an active member of the Urban Land Institute, Lambda Alpha and is a former board member of Mercy Housing, a non-profit affordable housing organization which has participated in the development, preservation and/or financing of thousands of affordable homes in the United States.

NAHB established the Multifamily Leadership Board as a forum for the nation's leading multifamily developers, owners and managers to marshal the unparalleled legislative, regulatory and research capabilities of NAHB on behalf of its multifamily members, and to increase public awareness of both rental and for-sale apartment homes as a critical sector of the housing market.