Lynn E. Browne
Tom Buonopane
Joseph L. Flatley
Kurt James
Shawn Luther
Esther Schlorholtz
Kevin Winn

Lynn E. Browne is an Executive Vice President and Economic Advisor at the Federal Reserve Bank of Boston. She has responsibility for the Bank's public information, community affairs, and regional economic programs. In this capacity, she is overseeing a new economic education initiative that uses New England's history to illustrate how economic growth occurs. From 1993 to 2001, she was Director of Research and oversaw the Bank's scholarly research. Ms. Browne has been with the Bank since 1975. Prior to joining the Bank, she worked for the Commonwealth of Massachusetts as an analyst in the Division of Fiscal Affairs and as an economist for the Office of the Governor.

Her personal research interests are eclectic and her past work included analyses of the financial crisis in Asia, regional patterns in residential investment, and the transformation of New England from a mill-based to a knowledge-based economy. Ms. Browne earned a bachelor's degree in economics from the University of Western Ontario, and received her doctorate in economics from the Massachusetts Institute of Technology. (Back to conference main page)

Tom Buonopane is a Manager at Ziner, Kennedy & Lehan LLC. He specializes in the analysis of real estate developments, especially those in the affordable housing industry. He works closely with investors, syndicators, guarantors and development clients, both for profit and not-for-profit, in structuring deals using low-income and historic preservation tax credits and new market tax credits. He has more than eight years of experience in working with tax advantaged real estate. Tom is a graduate of Northeastern University. (Back to conference main page)

Joseph L. Flatley serves as the President and CEO of the Massachusetts Housing Investment Corporation (MHIC), a private non-profit organization whose mission is to be an innovative financier of affordable housing and community development throughout Massachusetts. MHIC raises capital from a broad base of investors, and focuses on financing projects that have historically been unable to compete effectively for financing, while ensuring that the benefits of that investment flows to the communities in which the projects are located. Over the eleven year period since its inception, MHIC's total investments is over $594 million in 208 projects - through its loan and equity programs - for the creation of more than 9,000 units of affordable housing. MHIC has been certified as a Community Development Financial Institution (CDFI) from the U. S. Department of the Treasury and has been selected to receive a New Markets Tax Credit (NMTC) Allocation. Mr. Flatley was the founding President of MHIC, which he worked to establish in 1990.

Mr. Flatley has over thirty years experience in housing and community development. Prior to starting MHIC, Mr. Flatley served in a number of positions in state government over a period of seventeen years, including as Assistant Secretary for the Massachusetts Executive Office of Communities and Development (EOCD), the State's housing and community development agency. Prior to joining EOCD, he served as Chief Planner with the Office of State Planning. Before entering state service, Mr. Flatley worked as a consultant to public and private clients on strategic planning and development projects.

Mr. Flatley serves as the Chairman of the National Association of Affordable Housing Lenders (NAAHL), which is a leading national organization serving lenders who promote private investment and provide financing for affordable housing. He also serves as a board member of Citizens Housing and Planning Association, of the National Housing Conference, of the Initiative for a Competitive Inner City, and on the Mayor's Housing Advisory Committee. Mr. Flatley has served on the Freddie Mac Advisory Council, and on the boards of Directors of the Greater Boston Real Estate Board and of the Real Estate Finance Association. Mr. Flatley has a Bachelor's Degree from MIT, and a Master's Degree in City and Regional Planning from Harvard University. (Back to conference main page)

Kurt James is a partner at Sherin and Lodgen LLP in Boston. Mr. James is a member of the firm's Real Estate Department and is Chair of the firm's Affordable Housing and Community Development Practice Group. Mr. James represents public and private lenders and for profit and non-profit developers in complex financing, low income housing tax credit syndication and bond transactions and acts as bond counsel in tax exempt bond issues.

Mr. James is the founding Co-Chair of the Boston Bar Association Affordable Housing Committee and serves on the Board of Trustees and Development Committee of the Institute for Community Economics, Inc., the Advisory Board and Loan Committee of the Women's Institute for Housing and Economic Development, the Board of the Lawyers Clearinghouse for Housing and Homelessness, and the Board of the Town of Marblehead Fair Housing Committee.

Mr. James received his B.A. in Economics in 1982 from Haverford College, attended the University of St. Andrews, Scotland, and received his J.D. in 1985 from Boston University School of Law. (Back to conference main page)

Shawn Luther is a Staff Attorney with Local Initiatives Support Corporation (LISC), the nation's largest community development intermediary. In that capacity, he is responsible for closing predevelopment, acquisition and construction financing to community development corporations, providing technical assistance to LISC's local program offices and supporting LISC's New Markets Tax Credit efforts. His previous experience has included counseling underwriters and issuers of tax-exempt, single- and multi-family housing bonds, as well as parties to corporate lending transactions. Mr. Luther is a graduate of the University of Wisconsin and the State University of New York at Buffalo School of Law. He is admitted to practice law in the States of Massachusetts and New York. (Back to conference main page)

Esther Schlorholtz is corporate CRA Officer and Senior Vice President of Boston Private Bank & Trust Company, a full service commercial bank headquartered in Boston, Massachusetts, with assets of $1.3 billion. Ms. Schlorholtz is responsible for implementing and managing the Bank's Community Reinvestment Act (CRA) programs. The Bank's CRA programs focus on meeting the banking needs of individuals, businesses, government entities and non-profit organizations in the Greater Boston area, with an emphasis on Boston, Brookline, Newton, Cambridge, Wellesley and Weston. In 2002, the Bank was rated "Outstanding" for its CRA performance by the Federal Deposit Insurance Corporation.

Ms. Schlorholtz is responsible for designing and implementing residential, small business and commercial community development products and services for the Bank. She also originates affordable housing and community economic development lending business, oversees the Bank's active involvement in the community reinvestment programs of the Federal Home Loan Bank of Boston, and manages the Bank's CRA investment and charitable donations program.

Currently, Ms. Schlorholtz serves on the Board of Directors of the Massachusetts Community & Banking Council (MCBC). She is co-chair of the MCBC Economic Development Committee, former co-chair of the Affordable Housing Committee and a member of the Affordable Home Mortgage Committee, in which capacity she has participated in the production of annual studies on home mortgage lending patterns in the Greater Boston area. She also serves on the Board of Directors, Executive Committee and Housing Development Committee of the Metropolitan Boston Housing Partnership (MBHP). She serves on the Board of Directors and various committees of the Citizens' Housing and Planning Association (CHAPA). She is a member of the Rogerson Communities Board of Overseers, the Loan Committee of the Massachusetts Housing Investment Corporation, the Shirley-Eustis House Board of Overseers and is involved in numerous other community development initiatives. She recently served on Boston Mayor Thomas Menino's Blue Ribbon Housing Finance Panel, the Board of the Hyde-Jackson Main Street Program and the Board of Historic Neighborhoods.

Ms. Schlorholtz has been responsible for obtaining grants sponsored by the Bank totaling $5.7 million for twenty-six affordable housing developments through the Federal Home Loan Bank of Boston's Affordable Housing Program. The grants are creating or preserving over 1700 units of low- and moderate-income housing in Boston and Newton, including rental, homeownership transitional and cooperative housing.

Prior to joining Boston Private Bank, Ms. Schlorholtz was Vice President at Shawmut Bank, where she was a lending officer in the Community Investment Unit of the Commercial Real Estate Department. Her focus was on financing affordable housing and economic development transactions across the Commonwealth of Massachusetts.

Ms. Schlorholtz worked for nine years at the City of Boston's community development department. There, as Assistant Director of Housing and Neighborhood Development, she oversaw federal, state and city funding to create affordable housing and encourage economic development in Boston.

Ms. Schlorholtz has also worked in India as Research Associate for the Asian Women's Institute. At Isabella Thoburn College in Lucknow, she carried out a research project on rural community development. A former resident of Lahore, Pakistan, Ms. Schlorholtz speaks Urdu, and has studied with the Berkeley Urdu Program in Pakistan.

She is a graduate of Tufts University, where she received a Master of Arts in Urban and Environmental Policy, and of Harvard University, where she received a B.A. (Back to conference main page)

Kevin M. Winn joined Nuestra Comunidad Development Corporation in 2001 following a 20-year banking career in Boston. His banking career included positions as branch manager, commercial lender, CRA officer and specialized lender for community based non-profits. At Nuestra he is responsible for all lending activities and technical assistance for economic development and homeownership. (Back to conference main page)