With more than 37 years of real estate experience, Glade Knight founded Apple REIT Six, Inc., Apple REIT Seven, Inc., Apple REIT Eight, Inc. and Apple REIT Nine, Inc. in 2004, 2006, 2007 and 2008 respectively and today serves as the companies’ Chairman and CEO. Mr. Knight also founded and served as the Chairman and CEO of Apple Hospitality Two from 1999 until May of 2007 when the lodging real estate investment trust was sold to an affiliate of ING Clarion. Apple Hospitality Five, Inc., also a successful hospitality REIT created by Mr. Knight, was sold to Inland American Real Estate Trust in October of 2007. In addition, Mr. Knight founded and served as the chairman and CEO of Cornerstone Realty Income Trust, Inc. (NYSE: TCR) from 1993 until 2005 when the company merged with Colonial Properties.

Mr. Knight is very active in many religious, academic, cultural and civic organizations and activities. He serves on the board of trustees of the Council for America's First Freedom, a nondenominational, nonpolitical and non-profit organization dedicated to promoting a greater understanding of religious freedom in the United States and internationally.

He helped found and currently serves as the Chairman of Southern Virginia University in Buena Vista, Virginia, a four-year, private institution with more than 700 students who adhere to the beliefs and standards of The Church of Jesus Christ of Latter-day Saints. Mr. Knight is the recipient of an honorary doctorate from that institution.

He also served as bishop of the Midlothian, Virginia Ward and president of the 4,000-member Chesterfield, Virginia Stake of the Church of Jesus Christ of Latter-day Saints for 12 years, collectively. He also served two years as a missionary in England. He remains an active member and leader of the Church.

Mr. Knight is a member of the advisory board of the Graduate School of Real Estate and Urban Land Development at Virginia Commonwealth University, and a member of the University’s Real Estate Circle of Excellence. He also serves as a founding member and active lecturer at Brigham Young University’s Entrepreneurial Department of the Marriott Graduate School of Business Management.

Mr. Knight served three years in the U.S. Army during the Vietnam War. He was raised on a ranch in Northwestern Utah, and today he remains an active rancher as owner of the Slate River Ranches in Virginia and Texas. He devotes much of his spare time as a top horseman in National Cutting Horse Association championship competitions. He has won a number of national championship cutting horse events during the past several years, and he also operates a very successful cutting-horse breeding business at his Texas Slate River Ranch.