Meet Some Members of Our Team
(Click on a photo for individual's email contact)

Executive Committee

Ernest N. Agresti, Jr. (Vice President Administration)

Ernie is Cummings Properties' most senior administrative executive, managing the internal workings of the company and having primary responsibility for the sign-off and execution of all commercial lease transactions and company payables. He began his career at Cummings Properties as a property manager in 1991.

A Rhode Island native, Ernie has a degree in Business Economics and Urban Studies from Brown University. He has been active in real estate for his entire career, and held management positions with two northern New England development and management firms prior to joining Cummings Properties.

Ernie is an avid sailor and snow skier, a competitive squash player, and a youth soccer coach. He is a member of the Swampscott Yacht Club, has volunteered as a Big Brother, and has served on the Friends of Swampscott Sailing Board of Directors, as well as the Community Substance Abuse Center's Community Advisory Committee. He and his wife Jennifer live in Swampscott with their sons, Nicholas and Joseph, and twin daughters, Samantha and Michela.

Greg Ahearn (Vice President-Field Operations)

Greg oversees more than 200 full-time mechanics, maintenance technicians, and construction workers of all types. A licensed master plumber, he has been with the firm since 1992.

Greg is a longtime Woburnite and graduate of Woburn High School. He and his wife Kris have two school-aged sons, Kyle and Ethan. In their spare time, the Ahearns enjoy trips to York, Maine, where Greg spends as much time as possible on their boat, and prides himself on his many fishing talents.

Eric S. Anderson (Vice President-Leasing)

Eric oversees all leasing activity for Cummings Properties' 10 million square foot portfolio. He joined Cummings Properties in 1999 as an associate property manager at Cummings Center in Beverly and has since served in a variety of positions of increasing responsibility.

Eric is a graduate of Colby College and a veteran of the United States Marine Corps. He is the founder of Massachusetts Association of Business Incubators; president of Beacon Grille restaurant; vice president and treasurer of New Horizons at Marlborough, a not-for-profit independent and assisted living facility for seniors; and an overseer of the Cummings School for Veterinary Medicine at Tufts University.

Eric and his wife Kari live in Westford with their two children.

Dennis A. Clarke (President and CEO)

Dennis joined the Cummings Properties organization in 1992 as general manager of Community Weeklies, Inc., a local newspaper chain that was under Cummings Properties ownership at the time. He began working on the real estate side of the business in 1996 as operations manager. He was elected president and chief executive officer in November 2004.

Dennis grew up in Winchester and graduated from Winchester High School and Harvard University. Prior to joining Cummings, he served as a licensed commercial insurance broker for a subsidiary of London-based Jardine-Matheson, and then as a marketing coordinator for Gordon Brothers Partners. He has been actively involved in both the Woburn and Winchester communities as a director of Winchester Chamber of Commerce, director of Woburn Business Association, trustee of Cummings Foundation, and a corporator of Winchester Hospital.

Dennis and his wife Alicia (Angeles), also a Winchester native, have three sons and one daughter. A former athlete, Dennis was a New England Golden Gloves boxing champion and a Boston Globe Football All-Scholastic designee.

Stephen J. Drohosky
(Vice President - Cummings Center General Manager)

Steve is responsible for all daily operations at Cummings Center in Beverly, Cummings' largest facility. He joined the Company in 1997 as litigation counsel, and has served in his current role since October 2005.

A native of New York City, Steve earned a Bachelors degree from University of Pennsylvania, where he studied economics and ran hurdles with the track & field team. Later, he earned a law degree, with honors, from New York's Albany Law School/Union University. Prior to joining Cummings, he practiced law in the Boston area, focusing on corporate law, commercial litigation, debtor and creditor rights, and bankruptcy.

Stephen is an avid cyclist, skier, and outdoorsman. He resides in rural Boxford with his wife Sandy and their two daughters, where he coaches both daughters' soccer teams.

William F. Grant (Chief Financial Officer)

Bill leads Cummings Properties' accounting group, which processes more than $100 million in rental income annually. He joined Cummings Properties in 1998.

Bill grew up in Chelmsford and earned undergraduate and master's degrees in accounting from Bentley College. He also attended the Advanced Management Program at Harvard Business School. Before joining Cummings, he held senior management positions at Tweeter, and was Chief Financial Officer at Rich's department stores.

Previously active in town youth sports, Bill was a member of the executive committee of the Merrimack Valley Pirates Swim Team, and also served as that organization's treasurer for three years. An Andover resident, Bill and his wife Kathy have two adult children, Tracie and Keith.

Craig J. Ziady (General Counsel)

Craig leads a diverse group of experienced lawyers within Cummings Properties' in-house legal team, with a primary objective of facilitating the execution of leases and lease renewals with prospective and existing clients. He joined the Company in 2007.

A long-time Winchester resident, Craig was born and raised in Andover. He graduated from Bates College with honors in English and, subsequently, had apprenticeships with the United States Attorney's Office and the United States Army Corps of Engineers. He also taught public speaking and rhetoric during a summer program at New College, Oxford University before receiving his law degree, cum laude, from Boston College Law School.

Craig practiced for three years in a small Boston law firm, and then joined Riemer & Braunstein, where he was a senior partner in the litigation department specializing in real estate and environmental matters. While there, Craig obtained extensive trial and appellate experience and was counsel in numerous reported decisions. He was trial counsel in a five-week jury trial on behalf of a landowner who sustained permanent property damage by contamination, resulting in a $16.5 million verdict (the second highest reported verdict that year, as reported in Massachusetts Lawyers Weekly).

Craig is a member of the Boston and American Bar Associations, as well as the Licensed Site Professional Association. His bar admissions include Massachusetts, the United States District Court for the District of Massachusetts, the United States Court of Appeals for the First and Third Circuits, and the United States Supreme Court. He is also president of the Alumni Association and a trustee at Brooks School in North Andover. Craig and his wife Joan, also an attorney, are actively involved with their four children in Winchester's youth sports programs, through which he serves as a baseball and ice hockey coach.

William S. Cummings (Founder)

Born in Somerville, Massachusetts in 1937, Bill Cummings grew up in nearby Medford, where he attended public schools and, in 1958, graduated from Tufts University. Bill was thereafter employed in sales and marketing positions with Vick Chemical Company (Vaporub, etc.) of Greensboro, North Carolina, and Gortons of Gloucester, Inc., and he served in the U.S. Army Reserves. Subsequently, he acquired, built up, and sold a very old Medford, Massachusetts food products manufacturer, Wilmot H. Simonson Company.

Since 1970, Bill has been very successful in buying, building, and managing mostly commercial real estate in eastern Massachusetts. His firm has built or restored dozens of large or very large structures totaling 10 million square feet. Cummings Properties, LLC (CPL) currently provides business homes for more than 2,000 Massachusetts businesses and organizations. Apart from his role as founder of CPL, Bill is also the founder of Cummings Foundation, Inc. and New Horizons not-for-profit assisted and independent living communities in Woburn and Marlborough, MA, which currently provide homes for more than 500 seniors.

Bill's wife, Joyce, is a director of CPL and a trustee of Cummings Foundation, Inc. She is a former trustee of Massachusetts Eye and Ear Infirmary, where she once served as hospital dietician, and where she and Bill met. Joyce served two years as women's golf chair at Winchester Country Club, and is a past president of Winchester's EnKa Society, and a director of Winchester Community Music School and VNA Hospice Care, Inc. of Woburn. Bill and Joyce have four grown children.

Bill served 10 years as a charter trustee of Tufts University and is a former overseer of Tufts Medical School, director of Winchester Hospital, and founder and former publisher of three community newspapers-the Woburn Advocate, Stoneham Sun and Winchester Town Crier. He is still a trustee emeritus of Tufts University, and was chairman of Tufts' property-holding corporation (Walnut Hill Properties), as well as a bank director, and elected member and chairman of the Winchester Planning Board. He has worked as a licensed real estate broker, a licensed auctioneer, and even as a Massachusetts Justice of the Peace. Other outside activities include many philanthropic involvements, and several decades as a director and honorary director of Woburn Boys and Girls Club, Inc.

Bill was named 1998 Real Estate Entrepreneur of the Year for New England by Ernst & Young, LLP, and he was also awarded Tufts University's Distinguished Service Award "for service to Tufts, his community and his profession." His firm's restoration of the historic United Shoe Machinery Corp. complex in Beverly, Massachusetts was the subject of a very laudatory October 2, 1997 feature story in The Wall Street Journal by Pulitzer Prize-winning architecture critic Ada Louise Huxtable.

Bill was awarded an honorary Doctor of Public Service degree by Tufts University in May 2006, and was named one of the 50 most influential Bostonians by the Boston Business Journal in 2011. He is a golfer and a former director of Winchester Country Club, is an avid ocean sailor, and a licensed Scuba diver. In May 2011, he and Joyce joined a national philanthropic organization known as "The Giving Pledge." Later that year, they were named runners-up in the Boston Globe's annual Bostonian of the Year selection.