Lunchtime Talk Story21st Century Living in Chinatown
With Peter and Justin Koziol of Bento Box

Justin Koziol
Principle Designer/Development Manager, Bento Box

Justin is the principle designer and development manager for Bento Box LLC. Following his graduation from Mid Pacific Institute Justin went on to receive a Masters in Architecture from Pratt Institute in Brooklyn. Justin has worked with a number of firms in New York interested in innovative housing solutions and is not the head of the Bento Build Design Studio headquartered in the Brooklyn Navy Yard. Justin is currently working on the design and development of several Bento projects.  

Peter shares the Bento Box concept and products for convenient urban living.

Peter Koziol
President, Koziol LLC

Mr. Koziol is presently President of Koziol LLC, a Hawaii community development company, developing micro-apartments in the City and County of Honolulu. Past Koziol LLC projects include serving University of Hawaii in creating a public-private venture for its advanced culinary institute at KCC and Girl Scouts of Hawaii in the reprogramming and re-positioning of its North Shore, Oahu Girl Scouts Camp, Camp Paumalu.

Prior to Koziol LLC, Mr. Koziol was CEO of Actus Lend Lease ("Actus"), a joint venture company between Lend Lease Corporation of Australia ("Lend Lease") (www.lendlease.com) and Mr. Koziol. Lend Lease and Mr. Koziol formed Actus to jointly compete for military housing privatization contracts pursuant to the 1996 Defense Act. By way of background, Congress, as part of the 1996 Defense Act, directed the U.S. Military to privatize ownership, construction, maintenance, and operation of its over 300,000 single-family housing units occupied by U.S. military member families. Congress directed this privatization initiative to address the inadequate design, construction, and maintenance, and funding of military housing, and the dwindling retention and recruitment rates of qualified service members due to it. The U.S. military called this the Military Housing Privatization Initiative (MHPI).

Actus won the first and largest Army MHPI project at Fort Hood in Killeen, Texas, and went on to become the largest MHPI partner with the U.S. military, privatizing over 40,000 single-family housing units, 192 unaccompanied personnel housing apartments, and 8,500 hotel rooms, at 21 military installations across 19 states. This work included all aspects of property development, construction, and asset and property management, including raising over $50 billion of private capital to fund project development. In 2005, Lend Lease purchased Mr. Koziol's interest in Actus and renamed it, Lend Lease Military Communities. Mr. Koziol stayed on with Lend Lease until September 2008 as board member of Lend Leases's North American development operations.
http://www.lendlease.com/en/Group/LendLease/Americas/United%20States/Sectors/military-housing-communities.aspx

Prior to Actus, Mr. Koziol was a Senior Vice President of Connell Finance Company (www.connellco.com) in charge of Connell's project finance and equity syndication group. Prior to Connell Finance, Mr. Koziol was Vice President with Lehman Brothers in Lehman's NYC Capital Markets group. Prior to Lehman, Mr. Koziol was a CPA with Pear, Marwick and Mitchell (now KPMG) in their Houston, Texas oil & gas audit and tax group.

Mr. Koziol is a graduate of the McCombs School of Business, University of Texas, graduating with a bachelor's degree in accounting. Mr. Koziol presently resides in Honolulu, HI where he enjoys water and land sports, flying (Mr. Koziol is a private helicopter piolt), and his personal investing.