Affordable Housing Institute: Board of DIRECTORS
Thomas Bledsoe
President and CEO, Housing Partnership Network
Tom Bledsoe is the chief executive officer of the Housing Partnership Network and three its affiliates – the Housing Partnership Fund, Housing Partnership Ventures, and Housing Partnership Insurance. Mr. Bledsoe also serves as chairman of the board of the Gulf Coast Housing Partnership, an independent New Orleans-based nonprofit development company created by the Network in the aftermath of the 2005 hurricanes that devastated the Gulf Coast region. Recently, Mr. Bledsoe was elected chairman of the board of the National Community Stabilization Trust, a collaborative venture formed by the Network, Enterprise Community Partners, the Local Initiatives Support Corporation and NeighborWorks America to address the foreclosure crisis confronting communities across the nation.
Mr. Bledsoe became the first full-time president of the Housing Partnership Network in 1998. Under his leadership, the Network has become the leading voice for the high-capacity, partnership-based nonprofits in the affordable housing industry. He has launched innovative social enterprises that enable top performing nonprofits to pool resources and share best practices that enhance their performance and capital market access. These include: an award winning captive insurance company, a highly rated community development financial institution and venture fund, and a nonprofit development company that has built or renovated more than 1500 affordable homes in hurricane devastated Louisiana and Mississippi. Mr. Bledsoe recently formed a group buying company called Housing Partnership Direct that will allow nonprofit developers to purchase building materials – including green products - at significantly discounted prices. He has guided the Network’s strategy to significantly expand its homeownership counseling, foreclosure prevention and community stabilization initiatives.
The Network has been recognized as one of the leading social entrepreneurs in the nation. In January 2008, it was named for the fourth consecutive year by Fast Company magazine as one of the top “social capitalists” in the country. The Network was also one of eight winners (from among 500 entries) of the Yale Goldman Sacks Business Plan Competition in 2005 for Housing Partnership Insurance.
Previously Mr. Bledsoe was the executive director of the Metropolitan Boston Housing Partnership (MBHP), one of the nation's first public/private housing partnerships, and he served as deputy secretary of the Massachusetts Executive Office of Communities and Development and as director of the City of Boston's Mayor’s Office of Neighborhood Services. He holds a BA from Wesleyan University (CT) and a master's degree in public administration from the John F. Kennedy School of Government at Harvard University.
Joseph L. Flatley
President and CEO, Massachusetts Housing Investment Corporation
Joe Flatley is President and CEO of the Massachusetts Housing Investment Corporation (MHIC). He has led the organization since it was founded in 1990 as a private non-profit whose mission is to be an innovative financier of affordable housing and community development, with a focus on ensuring that the benefits of that investment flows to the residents and the businesses in the communities in which the projects are located. Over the eighteen year period since its inception, MHIC has invested over $1.2 billion in 300 projects – for the creation of more than 12,500 units of affordable housing. MHIC finances community development projects and has received five allocations of New Markets Tax Credits totalling $364 million.
Prior to MHIC, Joe served for many years in a number of positions in state government advancing affordable housing and community development, including Director of the Massachusetts Housing Partnership, Assistant Secretary for the Massachusetts Executive Office of Communities and Development (EOCD), and Chief Planner with the Office of State Planning.
Joe serves on a number of national and local boards. A few notable examples include the National Association of Affordable Housing Lenders, the New Markets Tax Credit Coalition, the National Housing Conference, and Citizens Housing and Planning Association. He is a native of Chicago, and is a graduate of MIT and Harvard University, where he earned degrees in city planning.
Tim Palmer
Managing Director, Charlesbank Capital Partners
Prior to co-founding Charlesbank in 1998, Mr. Palmer was a Managing Director of Harvard Private Capital Group. He joined Harvard Private Capital’s predecessor firm in 1990.
Previously, Mr. Palmer was with The Field Corporation, a private equity firm based in Chicago, where he was responsible for private investments in the media and communications industries. Before that, he practiced law for several years with Sidley & Austin, Chicago, primarily in the areas of corporate finance and mergers and acquisitions.
Mr. Palmer serves on the boards of directors of Aurora Organic Dairy, Bankruptcy Management Solutions, CIFC, MasterCraft, Sagittarius Brands and WorldStrides. A native of St. Louis, he graduated from Purdue University and holds a JD from the University of Virginia and an MBA from the University of Chicago.
Catherine Racer
Associate Director, Massachusetts Department of Housing & Community Development
Kate Racer is an Associate Director of the Massachusetts Department of Housing & Community Development (DHCD). Her primary responsibility is the department's Division of Housing Development, which oversees the allocation of low-income housing tax credits and the distribution of state HOME funds, as well as the distribution of funds through several state housing production programs.The department annually allocates approximately $12 million in tax credits and $12 million in state HOME funds to all four HOME program types.
Kate has served as associate director or acting assistant secretary of the Department for the past thirteen years.Prior to assuming her current position, she was director of the state's affordable homeownership program and special assistant to the Governor's Cabinet Secretary for housing.She currently serves on the boards of the Washington-based Council of State Community Development Agencies (COSDA) and the Boston-based Massachusetts Community Partnership Fund.
A graduate of Carleton College with a master's degree from the University of Chicago, Kate taught middle school and high school for ten years in Chicago and New York before moving to Boston and joining a development company specializing in Section 8 substantial rehabilitation projects.After five years in the private sector, Kate accepted a position at the state agency where she still works.
Jared Holbrook Ward
Bank of America
Jared has been in the Commercial Banking business since graduating from Harvard College in 1978. Upon entering the field his father (also a banker) remarked that his second son “showed a singular lack of imagination.” Oh well.
In his 30 years in banking, Jared eventually gained some imagination by moving to Brazil in 1982, and by working in a variety of financing capacities, including international banking, and US commercial real estate.
Interspersed with these lending activities, was a decade of corporate insolvency work, both in the US and worldwide. In particular, he spent almost 3 years (2002-2004) helping to wind down Fleet Bank’s operations in Argentina. This project required all the imagination he possessed!
For the last five years, Jared has been involved with assisting small businesses and non-profits in the Boston area as a Client Manager with Bank of America. Think George Bailey and It’s a Wonderful Life in the digital age. Thankfully, Jared’s clients provide all the imagination required for this exercise.
David Smith
Founder, Affordable Housing Institute
David A. Smith is the founder of the Affordable Housing Institute, which develops sustainable housing financial ecosystems worldwide. He is also founder and CEO of CAS Financial Advisory Services. (CAS FAS, formerly Recap Advisors), a Boston-based firm that specializes in complex multifamily asset problems, with an active practice area in the finance of existing affordable housing. CAS Financial Advisory Services has closed on nearly 800 transactions on more than 100,000 apartments with more than $2.7 billion in value. David provides high-quality analysis to Congress, the Millennial Housing Commission, CBO, HUD, and others, and was a principal member of the 1996 Senate mark-to-market working group. A 1975 Harvard graduate, David is an award-winning author with more than 100 published articles in real estate, valuation, and policy periodicals, and a textbook. David is also a senior fellow at the University of Maryland. Detailed biography here.
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