Joseph Bernard Gildenhorn


Joseph Bernard Gildenhorn, was the US Ambassador to Switzerland, a partner in the law firm of Brown, Gildenhorn and Jacobs, and Founder, Officer and Director of JBG Smith, a since publicly quoted real estate development and management firm.
A native of Washington, DC, Gildenhorn graduated from Woodrow Wilson High School, the University of Maryland, and Yale Law School in 1954 and was a member of the Editorial Board of the Yale Law Journal and Order of the Coif.

JBG Smith

began in what has been described as a small law firm that began in 1956 by Gildenhorn and high school friends Donald Brown and Gerald Miller. About ten years later, the principals of Miller, Brown and Gildenhorn decided to become real estate developers in the Washington, DC area. The company is publicly traded and known as JBG Smith Properties Inc. In November 2018, Amazon chose one of their sites in Arlington County, Virginia to become a headquarters location.