Christian Frère has served as an AAGLA Director for the past eight years. He has been a Vice President of the Board, and currently serves as the Chairman of the Human Resources Task Force. He also is a member of both the State and Los Angeles Government Relations Committees. Christian was born and in educated in France, and in1965 received his Diplome de l'Ecole Nationale Superieure du Genie Martime (Masters of Science in Engineering), and in 1972 received his Doctorat de Sciences Economiques a I'Universite de Paris/Pantheon Sorbonne (Masters in Economics and Statistics).

 

Early in his career he worked as an engineer in the Ministere des Armees, France's Defense Department, where he worked on studies of the impact of French construction and purchase of planes, helicopters, and arms on French industries.

 

After that, Christian worked with a large French development firm involved in an urban renewal program for the City of Paris in conjunction with some American consultants and architects.

 

In 1971 he founded GESTEC S.A. and was the director general of a French company, which built hotels, office buildings and housing in France.

 

Then, in 1983, he founded and served as a President of GESTEC Properties, a Los Angeles company, which built and managed hotels. In this capacity, Christian's responsibilities included site acquisition, organization of the financing, construction and management.

 

Currently, Christian is the President of GEST, Inc., which acquires, rehabilitates and manages apartment buildings. In particular, the company has used various federal and local financing programs to rehabilitate properties damaged in the 1994 Northridge earthquake.

 

And Christian has also served as a member of the Los Angeles Project Recovery Area, which is sponsored by the Los Angeles Community Redevelopment Agency.

 

Christian and his wife, Edith, live in Los Angeles, and have two daughters. In his free time, Christian's interests include the sciences; languages, sociology and fly fishing.