Jessica Sillins has twenty years of experience as owner and CEO of BTP Real Estate, LLC, a real estate management and investment firm located in New York City. However, her overwhelming passion comes from transitioning her professional knowledge into opportunities for the next generation. As a lifelong advocate of scholarship, she has leveraged her role in the community to include educational patronage for many up-and-coming prospects in New Paltz and the surrounding greater New York region.
Ms. Sillins has been an active board member of The American Associates of Ben Gurion University (AABGU) of the Negev in Israel since 2004. She has organized and managed an internship program through BGU’s Department of Hotel and Tourism Management arranging for students to work in top New York City hotels as part of their studies and training in the hospitality industry. Through this program, she has been personally involved in and enriched by the lives of more than 150 students to date.
In 2006, Ms. Sillins became co-chair of AABGU’s Greater New York Region, a role she assumed for five years. She joined the national board in 2007, and currently serves as vice president. As a board member of The Robert Sillins Family Foundation, she plays an integral role in support for special projects at BGU, favoring those that would not happen without funding. Some examples include providing a scholarship for the first Ethiopian woman Ph.D. student at BGU; multiple scholarships for Bedouin women; programs at the Center for Women’s Health Studies and Promotion; sponsorship of the Israeli-Jordanian Academic Emergency Medical Collaboration as well as the biannual United Nations Conference on Desertification held in Sede Boqer; and more.
Ms. Sillins graduated from the University of Miami in 1984 with a major in Film Production and a double minor in Marketing and Finance. When she was not working production in the elite LA/New York film industry, she could be found studying for a degree in the Culinary Arts from the Institute of Culinary Education In New York City. She lives in New Paltz, N.Y.
