Holliday Fengolio Fowler (HFF), a commercial real estate and capital markets services firm, announced Douglas Opalka has joined the firm as a managing director in its Austin, Texas office. Opalka will be in charge of the local debt placement team and will co-director the office with Sean Sorrell.

“We are excited to welcome Doug to the HFF team, where he will play an integral role in establishing and growing the debt placement group in the Austin office, which we opened in January of this year. His deep relationships with life companies coupled with his broad range of experience across all property types will greatly enhance our debt placement platform in Texas and will help us better serve our clients in the Austin/San Antonio corridor,” said Jody Thornton, executive managing director in HFF’s Dallas office.

Opalka has more than 12 years of experience in commercial real estate finance. Prior to joining HFF, he worked at GMAC Commercial Mortgage, where he advanced in the company from ground-level analyst to full producer status. Opalka began his career as a real estate analyst at Archon Group a subsidiary of Goldman Sachs after graduating from The University of Texas at Austin with a BBA degree in Finance.