Team Bios

The senior members of our public finance team are:

Samuel A. Ramirez
President/Chief Executive Officer, founder and owner of Ramirez & Co., Inc.
samuel.ramirez@ramirezco.com / (212) 248-0510

Over the years, Mr. Ramirez has given unstintingly of his time to many business and civic organizations. He has served on the Board of Directors of the Bond Market Association and chaired its Sales and Marketing Committee. He is a former member of the National Association of Securities Dealers ("NASD") Business District Conduct Committee #12 New York Division. He was also a Director and served as Chairman of the Nominating Committee of the Municipal Securities Rulemaking Board. Mr. Ramirez is a member of the Municipal Forum, the New York Bond Club, and a current member and former President of the Municipal Bond Club of New York.

Mr. Ramirez is actively involved in various philanthropic activities as well. Currently, he is a trustee of the Museum of the City of New York and a member of the Philharmonic Symphony Society of New York, Inc. He is also a member and former Director of the Lotus Club of New York, a member and former Governor and Chairman of Athletics of the Downtown Athletic Club and a current Director and past President of the Catholic Big Brothers of New York.

Daniel L. Keating
Chief Operating Officer
dan.keating@ramirezco.com / (212) 248-0530

Mr. Keating joined Ramirez & Co. as its Chief Operating Officer in October 2008. Previously Mr. Keating was a Senior Managing Director at Bear, Stearns & Co. and was the head of Municipal Sales, Trading, Underwriting, Public Finance and Municipal Derivatives. He was a member of the Board of Directors of Bear, Stearns & Co., the broker/dealer subsidiary of The Bear Stearns Companies and past Chairman of the firm’s President’s Advisory Committee.

With over 35 years in the industry and most of his career at Bear, Stearns, Mr. Keating has experience as a salesman, trader, and underwriter in virtually every aspect of tax-exempt and taxable financing for many of the country’s largest, most frequent, and most sophisticated municipal issuers. He is a past Chairman of the Bond Market Association’s Municipal Securities Division and is a former member of the BMA’s Board of Directors and the Executive Committee. Dan is also a past Chairman of the Municipal Securities Rulemaking Board. In 2004, the Municipal Forum of New York honored Mr. Keating with its Career Achievement in the Private Sector award.

Mr. Keating is a former member of the Board of Advisers of the Valerie fund, a center for the treatment of childhood cancer. He is a graduate of St. Peter’s College in New Jersey and resides in New York City.

Stuart Bromberg
Director of Municipal Strategy
stuart.bromberg@ramirezco.com / (212) 248-0505

Stuart Bromberg joined Ramirez & Co. in early 1995 as Director of Municipal Strategy. He is a 30 year veteran of the municipal market. Prior to joining Ramirez & Co., Mr. Bromberg worked at CS First Boston for 15 years, serving the last ten years of his career as Director of Municipal Strategy. In that capacity, he worked closely with sales, secondary trading, underwriting and public finance. As a former Senior Analyst at Moody’s Investors Service, he used this expertise at CS First Boston to prepare various public finance clients, primarily in California, New York, Massachusetts, and Texas, for visits to the various rating agencies and bond insurers. Working closely with issuers and their financial advisors, he was able to develop strategies to obtain the highest ratings possible for his clients. In addition, when municipal clients brought issues to market, Mr. Bromberg helped to educate the sales force so that they could better communicate credit factors to institutional and retail investors, thus enabling the client to obtain the lowest net interest cost for their issue.

Mr. Bromberg is a Certified Public Accountant and received a BA and MBA in Accounting from Pace University.

Ryan Donovan
Managing Director
ryan.donovan@ramirezco.com / (212) 248-0540

Ryan Donovan joined Ramirez & Co. in September 2008, after spending most of his career at Bear Stearns where he was a Senior Managing Director and Head of the Municipal Derivatives Marketing Desk. His responsibilities included structuring and execution of derivative products for issuers and buy-side accounts as well as jointly managing Bear Stearns’ proprietary and third-party Tender Option Bond Programs. He has executed billions, in notional amount, in various derivative products including swaps, caps, floors, rate locks, inflation-linked swaps, total return swaps, and secondary trust securitizations. He has worked with a wide array of municipal clients in the housing, health care, higher education, and general infrastructure sectors. He has served as the Chairman of SIFMA’s new products committee and is a member of the GASB’s task force on municipal derivatives.

He launched the Municipal Capital Markets Group at Ramirez & Co. which has assisted issuers in analyzing existing derivative portfolios and helping to develop and execute risk reducing strategies. Additionally, the Group has been engaged by several issuers to execute escrow restructurings.

Mr. Donovan holds Series 7, 53, and 63 FINRA licenses and a B.S. in finance from the University at Albany.

Fernando Grillo
Managing Director, Chicago
fernando.grillo@ramirezco.com / (312) 630-2002

Fernando Grillo rejoined the Firm in August 2005 as head of the Firm's Chicago public finance office and is responsible for the operation and management of the Firm's Midwest banking business. Mr. Grillo previously worked for the Firm between 1995 and 2000. Between stints at Ramirez, Mr. Grillo served as Secretary of the State of Illinois Department of Financial and Professional Regulation where he oversaw the consolidation of four former state departments (Banks and Real Estate, Financial Institutions, Insurance, and Professional Regulation) into one department.

Mr. Grillo has extensive experience in municipal finance, municipal law, and government regulation. He has worked extensively in public service with the State of Illinois, the City of Chicago and other governmental agencies in Illinois. In addition to his most recent position of Secretary, he has served as Deputy Commissioner of the Chicago Department of Housing, where he participated in the development of the City's housing financing policies and programs, and served as the Department's intergovernmental liaison. Mr. Grillo is an attorney licensed to practice in the State of Illinois. He received his BA from Andrews University and his JD from The John Marshall Law School.

J. Art Morales
Managing Director, Texas
art.moreales@ramirezco.com / (713) 526-0050

Mr. Morales rejoined Ramirez & Co. in 2005 and is responsible for the continued development of the Firm's client base in the Southwest Region. He has extensive domestic and international experience in finance, as well as in the audit and real estate investment and financing areas. He has worked in the following areas: toll roads, airport systems, water and sewer systems, higher education, school districts, hospitals, housing, tax increment financing, rapid transit, sports facilities and other general purposes.

Mr. Morales holds a MBA from Pepperdine University and a BBA from the University of Texas at El Paso. Mr. Morales is also a licensed Real Estate Broker in the State of Texas. Mr. Morales also serves as a volunteer in several community organizations.

Robert Pattison
Managing Director, Albany
robert.pattison@ramirezco.com / (518) 431-1045

Robert Pattison joined Ramirez & Co. in November 2008 after spending the past two years as a Vice President in J.P. Morgan’s Tax-Exempt Capital Markets Northeast Group where he led the investment banking coverage for numerous New York state and local issuers. Prior to working at J.P. Morgan, Mr. Pattison worked in UBS’s Municipal Securities New York Group. At UBS and J.P. Morgan, he structured over $3.5 billion in financings and developed customized financing strategies for numerous New York state and local issuers. He is a recognized expert for DASNY’s Mental Health Services Facilities Improvement, Department of Health of the State of New York, State Personal Income Tax, and Upstate Community Colleges (Service Contract Revenue) bonding programs. Mr. Pattison has structured financings for NYS HFA PIT and NYS GO as well as served as lead banker for the Local Government Assistance Corporation and the Empire State Development Corporation.

Mr. Pattison holds Series 7 and 63 NASD licenses and a B.S. in Chemical Engineering from Cornell University, a M.S. in Chemical Engineering from Tufts University, and an MBA from Northeastern University.

Kimberly Quinones
Managing Director of Public Finance
kimberly.quinones@ramirezco.com / (213) 627-6120

Ms. Quinones joined Ramirez & Co, Inc. in September 2006 as a Managing Director in the Firm’s Los Angeles Office. She has 24 years of experience in Public Finance and is responsible for the Firm’s banking efforts in California and the Western Region. Her extensive experience with state-level issuers, cities and counties, ranges from working with general fund credits (including pension obligation issues) to funding major infrastructure projects. In transportation, Ms. Quinones works with the Ramirez team to serve issuers across the nation and in Puerto Rico.

Ms. Quinones was previously with Citigroup in Los Angeles and New York, joining Citigroup as a Director in the Northeast in 2000 and moving to Los Angeles as a Director in the Public Finance group in 2002. Prior to her position with Citigroup, Ms. Quinones was with Raymond James & Associates in New York, where she established its Public Finance effort in the New York tri-state area in 1997. She also served in the public sector in 1996-1997, as the Director of Economic Development, Office of the Deputy Mayor for Economic Development and Planning for the City of New York, where she represented the Mayor’s Office on the board of the NYC Economic Development Corporation and the NYC Industrial Development Authority.

Ms. Quinones was awarded a BA in Economics from Princeton University in 1982. She is a past President of the Financial Women’s Association (www.fwa.org), a 1200 member professional association and non-profit corporation promoting professionalism in finance and leadership roles for women. Ms. Quinones was also a member of the Board of Governors of the Municipal Forum of New York from 1998-2000.

Ted Sobel
Managing Director
ted.sobel@ramirezco.com / (212) 378-7127

Ted Sobel recently joined Ramirez & Co. as a Managing Director and Head of Public Finance. Prior to joining Ramirez, Mr. Sobel led the Infrastructure Group at Banc of America Securities and before that he was the Manager of the Public Finance Utility and Energy Group at UBS. At both firms, Mr. Sobel was responsible for a variety of sector coverages, including electric utilities, water and sewer, state revolving fund, pension obligation, Puerto Rico and general infrastructure projects. In the past five years, Mr. Sobel has served as his firm’s senior banker for over $25 billion of financings. Included in this total are transactions for the Commonwealth of Puerto Rico (General Obligation, Electric Power and Infrastructure Finance Authority), Colorado Springs Utilities, Texas Water Development Board, Florida’s Citizens Property Insurance Corporation, Rhode Island Clean Water Finance Agency, Orlando Utilities Commission, Nebraska Public Power District, Jacksonville Electric Authority and the Colorado Water Resources and Power Development Authority. In his career, Mr. Sobel has led two “Deal of the Year” transactions, the first for the Rhode Island Depositors Protection Corporation (“DEPCO”) and the second, more recently, for Citizens Insurance

Mr. Sobel has been a featured speaker before the Council of Infrastructure Financing Authorities and the American Public Power Association. He received a B.A. in Political Science from Colgate University and a M.B.A. from the University of Pennsylvania’s Wharton School of Finance.

Fernando Vinas
Senior Vice President, Director of Investment Banking
fernando.vinas@ramirezco.com / (787) 759-8080

Lead Banker at Ramirez & Co. for the Commonwealth of Puerto Rico, Mr. Vinas joined Ramirez & Co. in April 2007. He is a MSRB municipal and NASD general principal with twenty-five years of banking experience.

His professional career began with Case in 1981 at the Western Hemisphere Credit Training Center. Subsequently, he worked as Registered Sales Representative with Merrill Lynch. Mr. Vinas attended University of Michigan's Public Finance Institute. Mr. Vinas holds a BA from the University of Puerto Rico and an MA in economics from the Pennsylvania State University.