As Executive Vice President, Keith Earnest oversees the Southwest regional office of VanTrust Real Estate, a national, full service real estate development firm. Keith leads all phases of the real estate development processes in Nevada, Arizona, California and Colorado. Winning Arizona NAIOP’s Industrial Developer of the Year, Keith is responsible for determining project feasibility, market analysis, site acquisition, entitlements, design and construction oversight, as well as sales and leasing opportunities.

Keith has led the completion of 8 million SF of product in Southern Nevada, including Northgate Distribution Center, which earned the 2022 NAIOP Southern Nevada Spotlight Award for Industrial Park of the Year and was featured in the national publication, Development magazine. Keith led the VanTrust team that worked to land major national tenants Reckitt Benckiser, Fanatics, The Honest Company and Amazon to Northgate. VanTrust also developed the Tropical Distribution Center, which has attracted major tenants in Amazon, Sephora and Novva Data Centers. VanTrust’s latest Nevada project, Vantage North, is a 4.6 million square foot, six-building development along the southern boundary of the Apex Industrial Park in North Las Vegas. Vantage North was awarded Industrial Park of the Year by the Southern Nevada Chapter of NAIOP.

Keith previously spent 11 years with Opus West Corporation where he was responsible for the development of more than five million square feet in Arizona, Nevada, California and Utah. During his tenure with Opus, he developed one million square feet of specialty retail and power centers, one million square feet of industrial distribution space, and more than three million square feet of Class A office. His career also includes time as Executive Vice President with RED Development where he focused on one of the more transformational developments in the history of Downtown Phoenix, CityScape. This mixed-use, urban project included more than 1,000,000 total square feet of class A office, retail, restaurants, a Kimpton Palomar hotel and residential apartments.

Keith graduated from Arizona State University’s College of Business Administration with a B.S. degree in finance. After college, Keith began his commercial real estate career and has over 30 years of experience as a developer. In 2022, he was awarded the Lifetime Achievement Award by the Arizona Chapter of NAIOP.