Using Inclusive Development as a Strategy to Improve the Economy

GREGORY REAVES has spent more than 30 years working at all levels in corporate and private industries. He graduated from Howard University, Washington, DC, with a BS in Chemical Engineering.  He also played division I soccer in college and two years as a semi-professional player. As a business professional, Greg has significant expertise in healthcare, commercial real estate development, government relations, domestic and international public relations and entrepreneurship.

He began his career with McNeil Consumer Products Company, a division of Johnson and Johnson, where he worked as an engineer in support of research, manufacturing and packing operations.  Greg then joined Merck and Co. Inc., where he received eight promotions and held eleven different positions during his tenure with the company.  Early in his career, Greg received patent protection for a device he created while in tablet compression, and was awarded a Gadsden Fellowship, a prestigious company-sponsored sabbatical, where while on sabbatical, he led the creation of an education partnership with the University of Pennsylvania, the National Science Foundation, and Merck to train Philadelphia school district teachers in science education.  He also led college recruiting for the manufacturing division, was the director of Government Affairs and Community Relations for five states, headed corporate world-wide media relations, and led Research Communications and Policy.  Greg worked on a multitude of product launches, managed all national and international media relations, coordinated all financial data releases with the CFO and investor relations, and worked closely with the CEO, including on policies that led to the global reduction in pricing of AIDS medicines to the developing world. 

Greg left Merck and joined a mid-size real estate development company, where he was  COO and  a member of the executive team.  He held specific responsibility for operations, hiring, marketing, public relations, commercial leasing, and government relations. 

In 2008, Greg co-founded a commercial real estate development company, Mosaic Development Partners.  Mosaic Development Partners is a Philadelphia based, minority-certified commercial real estate development and project management company. Mosaic primarily focuses on ground up development and adaptive reuse of commercial properties in underserved urban communities. Greg, and his partner, have successfully used viable finance instruments and highly creative design and construction methods  to help stabilize neighborhoods and create jobs. By partnering with municipalities, established developers, not-for-profit organizations and government entities, Mosaic has leveraged its investments and revitalized properties in struggling or stagnated communities. Since 2012, Mosaic and its partners have secured and invested more than $200 million in Philadelphia neighborhoods, resulting in hundreds of construction and full-time jobs, eliminating blight, and spurring additional investment in those communities and with BIPOC businesses.  Mosaic has also partnered with Cheyney University, other HBCUs and institutions to reimagine and redevelop their underutilized real estate assets.  In 2020, Mosaic was awarded, through an RFP process, the rights to  co-develop the Philadelphia Navy Yard.  This project represents  a 20-year, mixed use redevelopment comprising roughly 8 million square feet and $5 billion  investment in life sciences buildings, new housing, hotels, restaurants and other amenity spaces.