Banco Popular de Puerto Rico

Laura Franke is a Senior Managing Consultant in PFM’s Los Angeles office. Prior to joining PFM, Ms. Franke founded an independent financial advisory firm that specialized in assisting public agencies and private sector clients with debt financing for energy and water efficiency projects. At PFM, she continues to focus on providing clients with services that include: evaluation of municipal debt bond types, incentives, and grants to achieve the most cost-effective debt issuance for environmental projects; development, funding and management of Property Assessed Clean Energy (PACE) Programs; evaluation, structuring and funding of power purchase agreements and leases; and traditional municipal debt issuance for capital projects and cash flow financing. Prior to founding her financial advisory firm, Ms. Franke was an Investment Banker for over 20 years with expertise in the management of pooled debt issuance. As an investment banker at Piper Jaffray Companies and George K. Baum & Company, Ms. Franke worked with over 500 California clients and issued municipal debt exceeding $17 billion. As a member of the Program Management team to California School Boards Association (CSBA) for its annual Cash Reserve Program, Ms. Franke worked closely with school districts and Program colleagues to prepare, structure and simultaneously issue tax and revenue anticipation notes (TRANS) for over 400 participants with a par amount exceeding $1 billion (peak amount in 2001, annual amounts varied). In addition to this Program, Ms. Franke managed issuance of dozens of General Obligation Bonds, Certificates of Participation, and Refundings. Ms. Franke was born and raised in the Seattle, Washington area and is a graduate of Central Washington University where she earned a Bachelor of Science degree in Business Administration.

Mr. Richardson has over 25 years of experience in public finance, in the capacity of issuer, managing underwriter and financial advisor. He is a former economic development director for the City of St. Louis and the State of Illinois. Mr. Richardson began his career with A.G. Edwards in June of 1990 and specializes in general obligation bonds, refunding bonds, lease/revenue bonds and certificates of participation. He has completed financings for major municipal issuers across the country, including the State of Ohio, City of Chicago, City of St. Louis, City of Kansas City, Metropolitan Washington Airports Authority, Missouri Environmental Improvement and Energy Resources Authority among others. Mr. Richardson is a member of Wells Fargo’s Sustainable Public Infrastructure Group which has a nationwide mandate to assist municipalities with financing projects designed to use energy more efficiently, including renewable technologies such as solar or wind. The group also assists clients in implementing certain provisions that were created or enhanced under the American Recovery and Reinvestment Act. Mr. Richardson is a current Board of Directors member at Swarthmore College. Mr. Richardson holds a BA in Economics from Swarthmore College, an MBA from The Wharton Graduate School, University of Pennsylvania. Mr. Richardson also holds Series 7, 53, 52 and 63 securities licenses.

Bill Carnahan is the Executive Director of the Southern California Public Power Authority. SCPPA is a joint action agency, consisting of twelve municipal electric utilities and one irrigation district that deliver electricity from northern Los Angeles County to the Mexican border. SCPPA has issued over 10 billion in bonds, notes and refunding bonds for a variety of projects including Hydro, Nuclear, Renewable and Gas generation projects and three transmission projects. Several new Renewable projects are under consideration. Previously, Carnahan was Public Utilities Director for Riverside, responsible for the water and electric systems. Prior to that, he was General Manager of Utilities for Fort Collins, Colorado; and Light and Power Superintendent for Lamar, Colorado. Carnahan has served as president and board member for numerous industry boards, including: California ISO, California Municipal Utilities Association, American Public Power Association, Colorado Association Municipal Utilities, and SCPPA. Carnahan holds a Bachelor degree in Electrical Engineering from Colorado State University.

Karen Ribble is a senior director in the US public finance group at Fitch Ratings. She is the western regional head for local government, tax-supported ratings. In addition to working on tax-supported credits, she has experience in credit analysis in water and sewer and other revenue supported areas. Karen co-authored Fitch’s recent special report titled, Impact of the Fiscal 2012 California Budget on Local Governments. Previously, Karen worked in the Mayor’s Office of Public Finance in the City and County of San Francisco, and was responsible for issuing the city’s general obligation bonds and other general fund obligations. Prior to that, Karen worked for Bondlogistix LLC, providing arbitrage rebate and other analyses for tax-exempt bond issuers throughout the country. Karen earned a B.A in international political economy from the University of California, Berkeley. She is a member of the California Society of Municipal Analysts and the National Federation of Municipal Analysts.

Tim is head of the Western Region Public Sector and Infrastructure (PSI) Banking Group and a member of the PSI Operating Committee. He joined Goldman Sachs in 2003 in Los Angeles and was named managing director in 2004.Tim has more than 30 years of experience in infrastructure finance, project finance, public private partnerships and government finance throughout the United States with a specific focus on the 13 Western states. He provides a diverse background in various forms of infrastructure financing, completing projects that cover a broad range of assets and services, including water, surface transportation, transit, power, renewable energy, wastewater, toll roads, schools, real estate, sports facilities and general government, among other financings needs. Tim has financed over $75 billion in projects, using various financing vehicles and credit structures, including taxable, tax-exempt, asset securitization, revenue bond, GO bond, lease, availability payment, tax credit and SPV project financings. He has been actively involved in public private partnerships and government privatizations efforts, including the first and largest US transit P3 concession, water P3 concessions and various US military privatization efforts. Tim has also been active in providing both sell side and buy side advisory services in connection with infrastructure assets.Prior to joining the firm, Tim was a managing director and co-head of Merrill Lynch’s Western Region Public Finance Group and a managing director in Bank of America Securities’ Real Estate Secured Finance Group. He also spent three years as chief financial officer of Adexa, Inc., a privately held software company.Tim earned a BS in Industrial Engineering from Stanford University and an MBA, with honors, from the Wharton School of the University of Pennsylvania. He is active with various local charities in the Los Angeles area.