Innovative QLICIs
Tom Boccia
Partner
Novogradac & Company LLP
Tom Boccia is a partner in the Cleveland office of Novogradac & Company LLP, where he specializes in community development, including historic rehabilitation tax credit (HTC), new markets tax credit (NMTC) and low-income housing tax credit (LIHTC) transactions. Mr. Boccia has more than 30 years of public accounting experience providing audit, tax and consulting services. He has extensive experience providing services to the real estate industry, with an emphasis in commercial and residential development projects. In addition, he has experience with U.S. Department of Housing and Urban Development (HUD) auditing requirements and providing tax and accounting services to private equity funds. His experience includes working with complex financing for community development real estate developments, including using NMTCs, HTCs, public/private partnerships and other federal, state and local tax credits and incentives. Mr. Boccia also has extensive experience in preparing financial forecasts for HTC and NMTC deals as well as syndicated real estate investments. Mr. Boccia also works extensively with community development entities, tax credit equity sponsors and real estate developers. Mr. Boccia serves as the technical editor for the firm’s Historic Rehabilitation Handbook and for the HTC content of the monthly Novogradac Journal of Tax Credits. He is a speaker at industry events, and serves as chairman of Novogradac & Company’s annual Historic Tax Credit Conference. Before joining the firm, he was a partner in a firm that provided audit and tax services to the real estate industry. His responsibilities included working with clients involved in partnerships, limited liability companies and joint ventures for residential and commercial real estate ventures and hospitality developments. Mr. Boccia received a bachelor’s degree in business administration with an emphasis in accounting from Bowling Green State University. He is licensed in Ohio as a certified public accountant.
Jonathan Goldstein
Managing Director
Advantage Capital Partners
Jonathan I. Goldstein is an experienced investment executive with a background in venture capital, renewable energy and urban investing. As a member of Advantage Capital Partners’ investment committee, he leads the firm’s structured finance practice, which integrates the firm’s fundraising and investment activities. Mr. Goldstein is also a member of both the firm’s strategy council and the clean energy investment team, a group of experienced individuals focused on opportunities to foster alternative energy companies. He is a frequent speaker in the field of public-private partnerships including both economic development and renewable energy. Before joining Advantage Capital in 2010, Mr. Goldstein served as senior vice president at McCormack Baron Salazar (MBS), the leading urban revitalization firm in the country. At MBS, he oversaw the project finance group, which structures the various private, governmental and community funding sources that support each development. Mr. Goldstein also originated and oversaw MBS’s new markets tax credit (NMTC) practice, including $210 million in allocations from the U.S. Treasury. While at MBS, he founded and served as president of Sunwheel Energy Partners, an affiliated firm specializing in solar energy programs for community partners. Before working at MBS and Sunwheel, Mr. Goldstein helped found Taproot Ventures, a Silicon Valley venture capital firm, where he sourced and structured investments in technology companies. He began his career as an attorney, clerking for a federal appellate judge and serving as an Assistant U.S. Attorney with the Justice Department. Mr. Goldstein serves on the boards of Advantage Capital portfolio companies Nextility, an energy services company, and SDBIC, a novel insurance product company. He is a member of the board and executive committee for the New Markets Tax Credit Coalition and serves as chairman of the board of RISE, a regional nonprofit dedicated to housing and urban revitalization. In 2012, he was named to the “Who’s Who in Energy List” by a nationwide coalition of regional Business Journals. He holds a bachelor’s degree from Yale University and a juris doctor from Washington University in St. Louis School of Law, where he has served as an adjunct professor.
Jennifer Novak
President
Capital Markets
As vice president of Capital Markets, Jennifer Novak oversees CRF’s new markets tax credit (NMTC) and CDFI Bond Guarantee programs. She is responsible for CRF’s capital raising, structuring and compliance efforts for both of these federal programs, which total more than $1 billion in capital activity directed toward low-income communities. Ms. Novak is also responsible for outreach, guidance, technical assistance training and education to community development entities (CDEs) and CRF’s lending referral partners. Before her tenure at CRF, Ms. Novak worked at Piper Jaffray & Co. She structured tax-exempt bond transactions for municipalities, school districts, 501(c)(3) organizations, small businesses, states, and state-level issuers. Ms. Novak has a bachelor’s degree from the College of Saint Benedict and a master’s degree from St. Thomas University.