Speakers

John Sabatier is a managing director with Stifel, Nicolaus & Co. in its public finance housing group. Sabatier’s primary focus is multifamily affordable housing municipal bond underwriting, specializing in multifamily municipal debt structuring with 4% low-income housing tax credits. Sabatier is a registered securities representative (S.7, S.63, S.79) with more than 25 years of combined experience developing, operating and financing multifamily affordable housing communities throughout the country.

Reagan Maechling is vice president of acquisitions at Enterprise Housing Credit Investments, an Enterprise Community Partners affiliate. She is responsible for originating and overseeing the underwriting of low-income housing tax credit (LIHTC) transactions in Southern California, Texas, Louisiana, Oklahoma and Arkansas. In this role, she also manages developer relationships and supports the promotion of Enterprise’s broad range of affordable housing and community development tools, including Bellwether Enterprise mortgage financing, the Enterprise Community Loan Fund, new markets tax credits, local policy efforts, grants and technical assistance. Maechling has more than 18 years of experience in affordable housing and real estate development. During her tenure at Enterprise, Maechling has underwritten or secured approximately $1.2 billion of LIHTC equity investments in about 96 developments. Prior to joining the organization in 2007, Maechling held project management positions for affordable and market rate housing developers in Northern and Southern California. She holds a master’s degree in urban planning and bachelor’s degrees in political science and international development studies from UCLA.

Amy Hook is the chief social impact officer and leads the social impact office at Novogradac. The social impact office advises the firm’s executive committee on ways to deploy labor and capital consistent with Novogradac’s commitments to continuous improvement, positive change within the firm, the professions in which the firm works and within the communities Novogradac serves. The social impact office is responsible for defining environmental and social risks and opportunities and creating a living social impact strategy to address those risks and opportunities. Hook also works with clients to build out their social impact programming including strategy creation and goal setting, impact measurement and evaluation, and reporting. 

With over 15 years of experience in the social impact realm, Hook has worked in different market sectors including public, non-profit and private organizations. Prior to joining Novogradac, Hook led environmental, social and governance (ESG) at Regions Bank where she worked on impact reporting; stakeholder engagement; diversity, equity and inclusion; environmental sustainability and environmental and social risk management.  Prior to leading ESG efforts for Regions Bank, she worked on environmental sustainability at SunTrust as the first corporate sustainability leader the company hired. 

Before leading social impact programming in the banking industry, Hook focused on the capacity building of community development organizations throughout the United States, including affordable housing developers, community development service providers and government entities. Working in this arena for over 7 years at both ICF International and Enterprise Community Partners, she led initiatives partnering with HUD, DOE and others to create strategies, trainings, tool(kit)s, communications, and policies and procedures to improve affordable housing and community development delivery.  Most notably, Hook led the multifamily sector of the Better Buildings Challenge and HUD’s first renewable energy technical assistance program, Renew300. 
 

Jennifer Schwartz serves as the director of tax and housing advocacy at the National Council of State Housing Agencies (NCSHA), where she manages NCSHA’s policy and legislative activities related to the low-income housing tax credit and tax-exempt private activity housing bonds, including serving as co-chair of the ACTION Campaign. She also works on other NCSHA housing policy priorities, including Fair Housing and HUD program funding and programmatic issues. She rejoined NCSHA in 2014 after previously holding the role of senior legislative and policy associate at the organization from 2001-2005. Prior to returning to NCSHA, Schwartz was the director of policy and programs for the Southern Governors’ Association, where she focused on facilitating bipartisan collaboration on policy areas including economic development, healthcare, trade, workforce development and energy/environment. Earlier in her career, she worked as a counselor and case manager at Women’s Protective Services, a domestic violence shelter and rape crisis counseling center in Massachusetts, and as a project consultant for the Massachusetts Advocacy Center (now Massachusetts Advocates for Children). Schwartz earned a master’s degree in public administration and public policy from the London School of Economics and Political Science and holds a bachelor’s degree from Brandeis University with a double major in psychology and sociology.

Michael Novogradac is the managing partner of Novogradac, which has been in business since 1989. He specializes in affordable housing, community development, historic preservation and renewable energy. Mr. Novogradac’s focus is in real estate taxation and accounting. He is the author of numerous real estate-related tax and accounting articles and books, including the Novogradac Opportunity Zones Handbook, the New Markets Tax Credit Handbook and the Low-Income Housing Tax Credit Handbook. A frequent speaker at tax incentive conferences and forums throughout the country, Mr. Novogradac also broadcasts a weekly podcast, Tax Credit Tuesday. As a leading industry expert, he is frequently quoted in national media, such as The Wall Street Journal, The New York Times, Politico, Bloomberg, Forbes, CNBC News, NBC News, National Public Radio and Crain’s New York Business.  Mr. Novogradac is active in advocating for the inclusion of affordable housing, historic preservation, community development and renewable energy incentives in federal and state tax policy, and serves as advisor on industry and governmental affairs for the NMTC Working Group, LIHTC Working Group and the Opportunity Zones Working Group. Mr. Novogradac provides input to the U.S. Department of the Treasury, Internal Revenue Service, Community Development Financial Institutions Fund, and other federal and state agencies as well as members of Congress, including testimony before the United States House Committee on Ways and Means. Mr. Novogradac also serves on the executive committee of the Housing Advisory Group and the boards of directors of the Affordable Housing Tax Credit Coalition, the National Housing Conference, the NMTC Coalition and Historic Tax Credit Coalition. In 2016, Mr. Novogradac was inducted into the Affordable Housing Hall of Fame. He also received The Affordable Housing Visionary Award from The NHP Foundation in 2018, in recognition of his contributions to the affordable housing community and in 2020 was honored as one of the top 25 OZ Influencers through Opportunity Zone Magazine. Mr. Novogradac graduated from the University of California, Los Angeles, with a bachelor’s degree in economics. He received an MBA from the University of California, Berkeley. He is licensed in California, Oregon, Maryland and Texas as a certified public accountant. You can follow Mr. Novogradac on twitter @novogradac and on his blog at www.novoco.com/blog or listen to his weekly podcast at www.novoco.com/podcast.

Derek DeHay is a managing director on the affordable housing real estate investment sales team at Lument and works out of Austin, Texas. DeHay has been involved in the valuation and disposition of over $4.6 billion of affordable housing properties across the country. Within the real estate investment sales team at Lument, he works with existing and new clients on evaluating exit options, marketing properties, and selling affordable housing properties and interests. Prior to joining Lument, DeHay worked as a managing director with Newmark’s Affordable Housing Group for over 10 years. DeHay’s background in the affordable housing industry includes asset management, underwriting partnership interests and properties, acquisitions/dispositions, managing renovations, and new development. His experience includes properties that participate in various HUD programs, the LIHTC program, and USDA programs. Having previously worked with both developers/general partners and limited partners, he understands the complex dynamic within an LIHTC partnership. He graduated from the Hankamer School of Business at Baylor University with a BBA in finance and real estate. During his career, he has earned the CCIM designation, Texas Real Estate Broker’s license, and has had General Contractor licenses in multiple states.