BLX GROUP - Key Persons
Job Titles:
- Managing Director / New York
- Managing Director of BLX 's New York
Mr. Bond serves as Managing Director of BLX's New York office. In addition to overseeing the day-to-day activities of the BLX professionals located in New York, Mr. Bond is responsible for BLX's most recent practice area: Post-Issuance Tax Compliance. Mr. Bond has been a featured panelist at numerous conferences across the United States discussing the importance of post-issuance tax compliance reporting requirements for 501(c)(3) nonprofit organizations. Mr. Bond has personally served as a project manager for many of BLX's largest clients, including the States of New York and Connecticut, the cities of Chicago and Cleveland, as well as municipal agencies such as the Missouri Higher Education Loan Authority, the New York State Urban Development Corporation, and the Empire State Development Corporation.
Mr. Bond joined BLX in 1997. Prior to joining BLX, he was an Assistant Vice President with the Public Finance Department of Rauscher Pierce Refsnes, Inc. (now RBC Capital Markets) in Dallas, Texas, providing Rebate Services to many large issuers in the Southwest from 1993 to 1997.
Mr. Bond is a graduate of Southern Methodist University where he received a BA in Finance.
Job Titles:
- Senior Investment Officer / New York
- Senior Investment Officer for the Structured Products Group
Amy Kron is a Senior Investment Officer for the Structured Products Group at BLX. Ms. Kron joined the firm in 2000 upon BLX's acquisition of Fund Service Advisors (FSA), which she joined as an associate in 1993.
Ms. Kron is responsible for the preparation and distribution of the majority of BLX's bid solicitation materials. She is the primary liaison with the investment provider community in New York and surrounding areas. Ms. Kron has extensive experience in determining investment suitability, reviewing and drafting permitted investments language for a variety of transactions. Her connection to the provider community keeps her abreast of changes in the market, new investment opportunities and current news relating to the municipal reinvestment market.
Ms. Kron holds a BS in Business Administration from Ithaca College School of Business and a MBA from Fordham University. She is a registered Municipal Advisor representative holding the Series 50 registration.
Amy Kron can be reached at:
Job Titles:
- Managing Director / New York
- Managing Director in the New York Office
Mr. Lansky is a Managing Director in the New York office. He joined BLX as a consultant in 2007, specializing in the preparation of complex arbitrage rebate analyses and providing tailored debt advisory services and calculations to state and local governments and 501(c)(3) nonprofit organizations.
Job Titles:
- Chief Executive
- Chief Executive Officer
- President
- Municipal Advisor Representative
- President & CEO / Los Angeles
Craig Underwood serves as the President and Chief Executive Officer of BLX Group LLC ("BLX") and chairs BLX's management committee. In these capacities, Mr. Underwood is responsible for the overall management of and strategic planning at BLX.
Mr. Underwood joined BLX's predecessor organization, the Financial Services Group (FSG) of Orrick, Herrington & Sutcliffe in 1989. From 1989 through 1993, he was FSG's senior quantitative analyst, responsible for managing FSG's analyst staff and the production of all technical analytics.
Mr. Underwood assumed chief executive responsibility for FSG in 1998. Since 1998, he has continued to head FSG/BLX's expansion, highlighted by the acquisitions of Funds Services Advisors, a California based investment advisory firm and Dain Rauscher's arbitrage practice and the openings of offices in Dallas, Tampa and Phoenix. Under Mr. Underwood's leadership, BLX expanded its scope of services to include investment, debt and derivative advisory services, continuing disclosure services, and program administrative services for complex securitizations. In addition to his chief executive responsibilities, Mr. Underwood is the head of BLX's advisory services practice, overseeing the firm's debt, derivative and capital market practices.
Mr. Underwood is a frequent lecturer on debt, investment and arbitrage-related matters, having addressed various industry organizations on such matters on dozens of occasions. Mr. Underwood is a co-author of the California Debt and Investment Advisory Commission's Debt Issuance Primer and a member of the Government Finance Officers Association, California Municipal Treasurer's Association, California Society of Municipal Finance Officers and several other industry organizations.
Mr. Underwood is a graduate of Princeton University where he received a BA in Politics.
Mr. Underwood is a registered Municipal Advisor representative holding the Series 50 registration.
Craig Underwood can be reached at:
Job Titles:
- Managing Director / Los Angeles
- Managing Director and Senior Member
Eric Chu is a Managing Director and senior member of the BLX management team. He serves as the Business Group Leader for BLX's Structured Products Services which includes Derivative Advisory, Derivative Monitoring, and Municipal Advisory services. Mr. Chu has over twenty five years of public finance experience, with particular expertise in interest rate derivatives, the investment of tax-exempt bond proceeds, and arbitrage compliance. Mr Chu currently resides in BLX's Los Angeles office, and prior to that, in BLX's San Francisco and New York offices, where he was responsible for the day-to-day operations. His expertise in financial products and in structuring arbitrage compliant solutions for complex transactions has helped BLX earn a reputation for technical excellence. In addition to his practice area responsibilities, Mr. Chu is responsible for BLX's firm-wide technology initiatives.
Mr. Chu has worked on hundreds of interest rate swap transactions in an advisory or on-going monitoring capacity. As an advisor, he has extensive experience in new transaction structuring, existing transaction workouts, ISDA document negotiation, and independent pricing of swap transactions to provide better transparency and execution levels for his clients. On an on-going basis, he assists numerous clients with swap monitoring and compliance with the rules under GASB Statements 53 and 72, and their corresponding FASB accounting rules. He led the development of BLX's web-based swap monitoring platform, BLX SWAP, which allows clients to access their swap portfolios to monitor key data, as well as BLX's web-based GIC bidding platform, BLXBid, which allows BLX clients to conduct real time sealed bid auctions for investment related products.
Mr. Chu has been a featured speaker at several industry conferences, including the Bond Buyer's Annual Conference and in educational seminars hosted by CDIAC. Mr. Chu was also the lead author for BLX's booklet, Interest Rates Swaps: Application to Tax-Exempt Financing, which was featured in its entirety in The Handbook of Municipal Finance by Sylvan G. Feldstein, and Frank J. Fabozzi.
Mr. Chu received a B.S. Applied Mathematics and B.A. Economics from the University of California Los Angeles. He is a registered Municipal Advisory representative holding the Series 50 registration.
Eric Chu can be reached at:
Job Titles:
- Managing Director / Los Angeles
- Managing Director for BLX 's Los Angeles
Mr. Casterline serves as Managing Director for BLX's Los Angeles office. With close to 30 years of public finance experience Mr. Casterline applies his expertise to BLX's municipal advisory, interest rate swap advisory, and arbitrage rebate compliance services. He has served as financial advisor in connection with debt financings for the California Science Center, Performing Arts Center of Los Angeles County, Colburn School of the Performing Arts, Sanford Burnham Prebys Discovery Research Institute, City of Vernon, and the Commonwealth of the Northern Mariana Islands. During his 25+ years of public finance experience, Glenn has reviewed and reverse engineered just about every type of public finance structure: fixed rate, variable rate, variable rate swapped to fixed, fixed rate direct purchase, and variable rate direct purchase. Mr. Casterline also serves as manager for many of BLX's largest compliance engagements including City of Long Beach, County of Riverside, and City and County of Denver including Denver International Airport.
Mr. Casterline is a graduate of California State University, Fullerton, where he received a BA in Business Administration with a concentration in Finance. Mr. Casterline is a registered Municipal Advisor representative holding the Series 54 and 50 registrations.
Job Titles:
- Managing Director / Dallas
- Municipal Advisor Representative
Greg Rowan joined BLX in 2002 and is currently a Managing Director in the Dallas office responsible for overseeing the arbitrage rebate practice. Mr. Rowan is engaged in the review of arbitrage rebate analyses, training new consultants, workflow coordination, special project development and managing client relations. He has been involved in the production and review of over 12,000 arbitrage rebate reports, and is responsible for the technical review of rebate reports for many of our client's most complicated tax-exempt financings.
Mr. Rowan is a graduate of the University of North Texas with a BA degree in Finance. Mr. Rowan is a registered Municipal Advisor representative holding the Series 50 registration.
Greg Rowan can be reached at:
Job Titles:
- Managing Director / Los Angeles
- Managing Director at the Los Angeles
Jeff serves as Managing Director at the Los Angeles office of BLX. With more than 28 years of public finance experience, Mr. Higgins currently serves as manager for many of BLX's most sophisticated issuers, including Energy Northwest, Piedmont Municipal Power Agency, State of South Carolina, University of California, State of Hawaii and its agencies, and the City and County of Honolulu. In addition to heading up BLX's Municipal Continuing Disclosure practice area, Mr. Higgins also has significant experience with financial advisory services for unique and complex transactions.
Mr. Higgins is a graduate of Arizona State University where he received a BS in Finance. He is a registered Municipal Advisor representative holding the Series 50 registration.
Job Titles:
- Managing Director
- Managing Director / Dallas
- Municipal Advisor Representative
Currently residing in North Carolina, Mr. Gagnon is a Managing Director at BLX, where he oversees the Program Administration Services practice area. Originally, this comprehensive package of specialized services was targeted only to tobacco settlement asset-backed bonds. In order to meet the needs of a changing marketplace, Mr. Gagnon has expanded the practice to include other non-tobacco bond related engagements, which require similarly nuanced administrative agent services.
Mr. Gagnon is a graduate of Texas Christian University where he received a BA in Business Administration, with a concentration in Finance. In addition, Mr. Gagnon holds the Chartered Financial Analyst (CFA) designation.
Mr. Gagnon is a registered Municipal Advisor representative holding the Series 50 registration.
Job Titles:
- Chief Business Development Officer
Nancy Kummer has been providing consulting and analytical services to state and local governments as well as nonprofit agencies since joining BLX in 1999. In addition to managing BLX's West Coast post-issuance compliance practice, she spearheads the firm's national business development efforts as well as its ESG/sustainable finance consulting practice. She has extensive technical and regulatory knowledge and personally oversees engagements for many state and city level clients.
She is a magna cum laude graduate of the University of California, Los Angeles, with a BA in Business Economics. She is also a registered Municipal Advisor representative holding the Series 50 registration. Ms. Kummer is an approved verifier with the Climate Bonds Initiative.
Nancy Kummer can be reached at:
Job Titles:
- Managing Director / Phoenix
- Managing Director and Head of the BLX Phoenix
Robin Schlimgen is Managing Director and head of the BLX Phoenix office, which opened in Spring of 2007. She holds a Bachelor of Science degree in Finance and Real Estate as well as completing the Karl Eller Entrepreneurship Program from the University of Arizona. Ms. Schlimgen is a 26 year veteran of arbitrage rebate compliance services.
Job Titles:
- Chief Operating Officer
- Industry Leader
- Municipal Advisor Representative
- Senior Member of the BLX Management Team
With more than 30 years of arbitrage and public finance experience, Ms. Stallings is a senior member of the BLX management team, and serves as the Business Group Leader of BLX's Compliance Services, which encompasses Arbitrage Rebate and Yield Restriction Compliance, Post-Issuance Compliance, Secondary Market Disclosure and Program Administration Services. She is responsible for all aspects of project management, client services, work quality and the overall operations of the compliance and consulting services nationwide, overseeing production in the Los Angeles, Phoenix, Dallas, and New York offices.
In addition to her management responsibilities, Ms. Stallings is an industry leader in monitoring compliance as it relates to tax-exempt financings for all types of issuers of municipal bonds. Her expertise, which includes the highly complicated areas of student loan and housing bond structures, is enhanced by her close working relationship with Orrick Tax Partners.
Ms. Stallings joined BLX's predecessor organization, the Financial Services Group of Orrick in 1999 as part of the acquisition of the Arbitrage Rebate Consulting Group of Dain Rauscher Incorporated (Dain). From 1994 through 1999, as Vice President and Manager, she was responsible for the oversight of the Dain Group. For the five years between 1989 and 1994, she directed the daily functions of the Arbitrage Rebate Services Group at First Southwest Company, and was instrumental in the establishment of that practice.
From 1986 to 1989, Ms. Stallings was associated with the Federal Reserve Bank of Dallas and the Federal Reserve Board in Washington, D.C. where she performed audits of bank holding companies and Federal Reserve branches respectively.
Ms. Stallings is a graduate of Nebraska Wesleyan University where she obtained a Bachelor of Science Degree in Business administration with an emphasis in Finance.
Ms. Stallings is a registered Municipal Advisor representative holding the Series 50 registration. She has also previously served as a registered representative holding a FINRA Series 7 license from 1990 to 2015. Ms. Stallings is an associate member of the National Association of Bond Lawyers and a member of the Government Finance Officers Association.
Sandra Stallings can be reached at:
Job Titles:
- Managing Director / Los Angeles
- Program Administrator for the California Statewide Community Infrastructure Program
Vo Nguyen joined BLX in 2007, and is currently a Managing Director in the Los Angeles office. Mr. Nguyen is engaged in the review of arbitrage rebate analysis, and is the lead consultant for the Denver International Airport, Clark County, Snohomish Public Utility District, and the City of Pasadena. His responsibilities include performing arbitrage rebate analysis, advising and training junior consultants along with his client relationship duties.
Mr. Nguyen is also the Program Administrator for the California Statewide Community Infrastructure Program. The California Statewide Community Infrastructure Program ("SCIP") is a program of the California Statewide Communities Development Authority. It is a joint powers authority sponsored by the League of California Cities and the California State Association of Counties.
Mr. Nguyen is a graduate of University of California Riverside with a BS in Business Administration.
Vo Nguyen can be reached at: