Professional Business People Living in America - Turk of America

Lieutenant Yakup Zoklu, First Police Officer of Syriac Community

Lieutenant Yakup Zoklu, has been working for Cliffside Park Police Department since 2003. He was born in İstanbul and came to the U.S. when he was 7 years old. He is the first Syriac Turkish police officer in New Jersey. He got his bachelor's degree in criminal justice from Saint Peter’s University, Jersey City, NJ and had a master’s degree from Fairleigh Dickinson University. He taught at both schools as adjunct professors when he went to Fairleigh Dickinson for his masters. He had Public Safety Administration certification, global leadership, human resource, and administrative science. Lieutenant Zoklu answered our questions.

December 28, 2022
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Thumb Bread is sold in seven different States about 100 locations, such Shoprite, 7 Elevens, and Fairway.

Heart-warming & Inspirational Story of Esendemir Sisters

Füsun, Gonca and Arzu Esendemir sisters started the Flatbread Grill® concept back in 2007 when their father was diagnosed with congestive heart failure. They grew up in poverty, so the family never had health insurance. The father immigrated to American in 1975 in pursuit of a better education and to follow his own dream of entrepreneurship. The restaurant concept was started after Füsun was laid off from her corporate job so they could take care of her parents. Arzu had just graduated college and was trying to decide between a career on Wall Street or law school. The sisters developed the restaurant concept completely on their own: branding, operations, menu, etc. They created a special bread called Thumb Bread®, which played a significant role in the concept's success. The New York Times wrote about their restaurant and their bread two months after they had their grand opening. Fast forward to the present, after opening multiple stores, hand making millions of pieces of bread, and being in the restaurant business for over a decade plus years, they now sell the bread as a CPG product.

December 28, 2022
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Romy Kay and Fouad Kashouty got married in 2017. (Photo by By Koray Kasap)

Passion, Brotherhood, Love and Cigar

Fouad Kashouty has been a member of Masonic Lodge for 27 years. He is a Freemasons and founders of Hiram & Solomon Cigars. Everything started in 2014, when he decided to roll 1000 cigars to raise some money for a scholarship for the Masonic Lodge that he belongs to. That was an immediate success among Masonic Brethren that grew amazingly fast and caught the attention of non-Freemason smokers. Now he is selling about 1 million sticks across the world. This was the passion... It took them about four or five years to get the rights of the Square and Compass (masonic symbols) for a cigar, he created a premium cigar. After a few years spent going back and forth with the lab and convincing the more conservative members that it is OK to do this and working with all the masonic charities. That’s how Hiram & Solomon Cigars have expanded. They grew faster than other companies because of the help and support of his masonic brothers in the market. That was the brotherhood...

December 28, 2022
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Rev. Father Hadodo was born in 1950 in Midyat. He attended primary and secondary school in Midyat, graduated from high school in 1965. (Photo BY KORAY KASAP) RESIMALTI 2: While there were about 20 Syriac families in Hackensack in the early 1990s, the congregation relocated to a new church in Haworth, NJ, in 2014. Photo by Koray Kasap

Rev. Father Aziz Who Teaches the Tongue Jesus Spoke

Rev. Father Aziz Hadodo has served as pastor of St. Gabriel Syrian Orthodox Church in New Jersey since 1994. One of the rare names to have a chance to know his family roots back 400 years. Due to a disagreement between cousins, a group flees from Diyarbakır, the largest Kurdish-majority city in Turkey to Midyat, a town in the Mardin province of Türkiye. Others follow them. They reconcile with the intervention of the clergy. As a result of this event, the family migrated from Diyarbakır to Midyat in 400 years ago. A Syriac patriarch from the family drew up a family tree for the first time 200 years ago. Another relative, who was a member of parliament in Syria, worked on the family tree about 60 years ago and brought it up to date.

December 27, 2022
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Why Midsize Firms Are Ramping Up Tech Investments After Clearing the Hybrid Hurdle

Chief operating partner, Barbaros Karaahmet, was quoted in a Law.com article discussing how Herrick has embraced investing in firm wide technology, which in turn streamlines productivity. The article highlighted how Herrick was already ahead of the technology adoption curve when the pandemic hit. In 2012, the firm was forced to briefly close its New York office when Hurricane Sandy hit. Barbaros recalled how, "We couldn’t go into the office for a week and a half. That was a pivotal moment to look at having safety nets and fail-safes. That’s when we decided we needed to invest in more technology."

September 22, 2022
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An Expert on Commercial Real Estate in New York

November 29, 2021
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Moving from NYC to NJ Creates A High Demand

Julia Dağıstanlı has been selling and renting real estate since 2002. She has done hundreds of sales closings and transactions and had many awards recognition. She has been a salesperson since 2002 and a top producer year after year. Julia has been awarded the prestigious NJAR Circle of Excellence Silver Level since 2005. She was named the Re/Max Metropolitan 2008 Top Producing Agent. She has also been awarded by New Jersey Monthly Magazine the Highest in Overall Satisfaction Five Star Real Estate Award for the last 10 years. Only fewer than 1% of real estate agents in the New Jersey-area received this recognition.

She answered TURKOFAMERICA’s questions.

September 13, 2021
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Umut and Batya Ready to Serve You in Boston Area

Boston – According to The Boston Globe newspaper, the median selling price for a single-family home jumped 17.6 percent, from $659,000 in October 2019 to $775,000 in October 2020. Condo prices, however, decreased 6.9 percent, from $690,000 to $642,500. While single-family homes spent an average of 37 days on the market, it was 43 days for condos. The number of active single-family listings was up 27.7 percent, while the number of condos on the market rose a whopping 51.1 percent. The number of single-family homes that sold increased 21.3 percent, while the number of condos that changed hands rose incrementally, only 0.9 percent. Batya Natan and Umut Alex Kumaş of William Raveis Real Estate have been recognized and awarded as the top-selling team, excellence in customer service, and top listing team awards over the years.

September 13, 2021
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Cigdem Cindy Gokay. (Photo by Cagatay Okutan)

One of New York’s Leading Ladies of Real Estate in New York City

After one of the most turbulent years in recent history, Real Estate Weekly has introduced its 2021 Leading Ladies of Real Estate. Cind Çiğdem Gökay, Head of Sales of Reuveni Real Estate, was recognized as one of the 2021 Leading Ladies of Real Estate by Real Estate Weekly. Gökay's recent work at 30E31 NoMad, Dahlia UWS, Era UWS and years of unmatched experience. After generating over $30 million in new deals at 30E31 (NoMad) and Dahlia (UWS), Cindy was instrumental in the newly unveiled project, Era at 251 W 91st Street featuring 57 residences. Licensed in both New York and New Jersey, she has over a decade of real estate experience. Cindy was introduced to real estate by an industry pioneer and has been thriving ever since. She started off as an assistant, graduated to doing her own deals, and followed through with delivering a 200-plus unit luxury condominium new development project to her firm where she was intimately involved from the rendering phase to building completion. Cindy now oversees sales at Reuveni’s array of new construction projects and is intimately involved with sales planning and management of on-site sales teams.

September 13, 2021
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cigdem cindy gokay

An Expert on Commercial Real Estate in New York and Miami

Prior to starting her career in real estate, she was at the United Nations representing World Information Transfer (WIT) in compliance with the Ukrainian Mission focusing on health and sustainable development related to the Chernobyl disaster. She later joined Kushner Companies working for their family office and that was her foray into commercial real estate. Damla spent 8 years at JLL, and joined Colliers International as a Director of Leasing.  Damla graduated from Rutgers University with a Bachelors of Arts degree in Political Science and Philosophy. “It seemed natural after moving to New York City to work in commercial real estate- there’s so much energy in the business and it’s the backbone of the city,” she says. She is the first generation Turkish; her mother is from Izmir and her father is from Kars, and they raised her family in New Jersey.  At a young age Damla’s parents instilled entrepreneurial values; hard work, creativity and staying positive in the face of failure. “These attributes have helped me succeed in my industry,” she adds.

September 13, 2021
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A Platinum Agent of New Jersey: İskender Yeşilyurt

When he saw the commercial of the holiday village in Bodrum Torbalı on TV, he decided to continue his career there after his education in tourism and hotel management. He went to Bodrum from Izmir and showed at the hotel door. He told the director he wanted to work there. He did not know anyone. Luckily, he was accepted and started working in the most popular holiday destination in Bodrum in 1985. He continued working there until 1988. One day an American visitor at the hotel asked him if he would like to work on a Norwegian cruise ship. That question opened the door of Iskender Yeşilyurt’s journey to the US. He got on the ship from Rhodes Island in 1990.

September 13, 2021
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Emre Hasmet, Evrim Cicek and Nihal Birdir

Unity Bank’s Turkish Team

Unity Bancorp, Inc. Clinton is a 19-branch-bank headquartered in New Jersey. It operates in Bergen, Hunterdon, Middlesex, Somerset, Union, and Warren counties of New Jersey as well as in Lehigh Valley, Pennsylvania. Three Turkish executives work in the bank, which has total assets of 2 billion dollars. Emre Haşmet, Evrim Çiçek and Nihal Birdir are a gateway to the Turkish-American community at the bank with nearly 200 employees.
Evrim Çiçek, who previously had career experiences at national banks such as PNC and Chase, has been working as the regional manager at the bank since February 2018. Çiçek graduated from The School of Economics, Dumlupinar University in Turkey and had a master's degree in accounting and finance at DeVry University in the US. She worked as deputy branch manager for six years in the Warren, New Jersey branch of JP Morgan Chase, one of the leading banks in America, and worked as a branch manager at PNC Bank between 2014 and 2018. Çiçek joined the Unity Bank family in January 2018 and got promoted to regional manager in May 2020. After gaining experience in big national banks, she considers Unity Bank, which is classified as a community bank, as a warm and friendly environment. "While working in big banks, you do not have much opportunity to use initiative. Here, the customer-banker relationship is more intimate" she says.

September 13, 2021
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Turkish American Real Estate Professionals in the US

By Cemil Özyurt - According to TURKOFAMERICA’s research, there are over 500 real estate professionals who have been actively selling and buying homes, renting residential and commercial spaces. The Association of Real Estate License Law Officials (ARELLO) estimates that there are about 2 million active real estate licensees in the United States. There are 106,548 real estate brokerage firms operating as well. Trulia, the real-estate listings and data portal, searched nearly 83,000 agent profiles in the U.S. in 2014 to find the most commonly spoken languages. The most popular, after English, was Spanish at 12.2%, followed by French with 2.5%, Russian, Mandarin and German. About 15% of real-estate agents report speaking a second language, according to the National Association of Realtors. Majority of Turkish-American real estate professionals work in New York, New Jersey, Florida, California, and Texas. There are approximately 250 real estate professionals work in New York, New Jersey and about 100 of them operate in Florida.

September 13, 2021
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Newly Established Political Action Committee for Turkish American Lawyers

The Turkish Coalition Midwest Political Action Committee (TC-Midwest PAC) in January 2021 became the National Coalition of Turkish American Lawyers PAC (NC-TAL PAC) under new leadership. Please check out the website, www.nationalcoalitiontalpac.org, for the Executive Committee members and other information about the PAC.

February 9, 2021
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