Bill Hobbs, Lender Liaison, joined NCHFA in 2012 after a 35 year career with USDA/Rural Development, having held state wide responsibility for the Single Family Housing Programs, the Multi Family Housing Programs, and the Community Programs as the Director of those divisions during the last 18 years of his career.  His “claim to fame” was always using funds allocated to North Carolina and going after other states’ funds who had failed to use theirs in a timely manner as well as developing partnerships with lenders, Realtors, builders, funders, property  management companies, professional engineering firms and local governments along the way.

A graduate of NC State, Bill is a volunteer and has served as a member of the Boards of Directors of the NC State Alumni Association and the NC State Club, and is an active member of the Lillington Rotary Club. He has two grown daughters who both reside in Clayton, and is married to Pat Hobbs whom he met through the Multi Family Housing program at USDA/Rural Development.  His family welcomed their first granddaughter, Mizz Ella Reis Langston, March 15, 2017.

Bob has 30 years of affordable, multifamily housing experience ranging from LIHTC syndication to preservation and development.  He served as the Chairman of the National Leased Housing Association, a unique organization serving both public and private organizations in the affordable multifamily rental housing field. He is also active with the Council of Independent State Housing Associations (CISHA), the Affordable Housing Tax Credit Coalition, and the ACTION Legislative Steering committee.

His extensive industry and government experience includes serving as the Chairman of the non-partisan Housing Advisory Group, which is active in preserving the Low-Income Housing Tax Credit (LIHTC) program in Congress. He has also served as the Federal Legislative Subcommittee Chair for the Housing Credit Group of the National Association of Home Builders (NAHB). 

Bob has testified before the full House Ways and Means Committee on tax credit reform and residential real estate hearings, as well as Senate and House Subcommittees on affordable housing issues. In 2015, he was inducted into the National Affordable Housing Hall of Fame by Affordable Housing Finance magazine.

He was also honored with the Daniel M. Grady Memorial Award by NAHB for his commitment to advocacy. Prior to joining CohnReznick, Bob was the Senior Vice President and Director of Origination, Affordable Housing, for Boston Capital.

Brandon Rule believes he can change the world for the better through the development of communities!

Brandon hopes to empower people by showing them how entrepreneurship and financial literacy can be tools to create wealth within communities of color.

Brandon studied Economics and Sociology at Marquette University. After graduating he went on to become a banker at PNC Bank. A few years later, he transition into Community Development Finance at Forward Community Investments and Community Reinvestment Fund. In this role, he specialized in small business lending primarily to minority, women, and veteran owned companies who were not bankable within traditional banking standards.

Brandon went on to launch Rule Enterprises, an investment firm which uses commercial real estate as its primary tool of investment. Specializing in affordable housing, Rule Enterprises has developed over $112M in affordable housing with another $100M currently in its pipeline. Brandon has also recently announced the launch of RE-INVEST, an online commercial real estate investing platform that aims to create access to real estate investing in ways that have previously been off-limits for most Americans. He believes the unique opportunity for people to create wealth by investing in real estate without ever purchasing a home can empower families to attain and sustain financial freedom for generations to come. Brandon has recently been named by Yahoo Finance as a top 20 real estate investor to look out for, Milwaukee Business Journal’s 40 under 40, is on the Advisory Board for Marquette University’s and Virginia Tech’s College of Business Real Estate Department and is also a proud member of Alpha Phi Alpha Fraternity Inc.

Bryan Hollander is a vice president in the Acquisitions group at Enterprise Housing Credit Investments, LLC, Enterprise's Low-Income Housing Tax Credit syndication business. He originates affordable multifamily housing investments, focusing on sponsors based in Alabama, Florida, Georgia, Mississippi, North Carolina, South Carolina, Tennessee, and southern

Virginia. Since joining Enterprise in 2011, Bryan has helped manage approximately $1.8 billion in development financed with $775 million of low-income housing and historic tax credit equity. That encompasses 85 investments across 17 states.

Bryan's career in multifamily housing and development finance began in 2007. Before joining Enterprise, he consulted developers, investors, and local governments as an associate at the real estate analytics firm RCLCO. 

Bryan holds a master's degree in city and regional planning from The University of North Carolina (UNC) at Chapel Hill. While at UNC, he served as a research assistant at the Center for Community Capital. He is a LEED accredited professional and a member of the Urban Land Institute.

Chris Key is a partner in the metro Atlanta office of Novogradac. Mr. Key has extensive experience in developer consulting with an emphasis in real estate partnership audit, taxation, final cost certification audits, development period special purpose attest engagements and consulting. He is experienced in affordable housing transactions, specializes in the low-income housing tax credit (LIHTC) and has extensive experience in performing LIHTC property compliance testing.

Mr. Key has worked extensively with equity sponsors specializing in equity fund audit and tax consulting, as well as auditing requirements of the U.S. Department of Housing and Urban Development. He is a frequent speaker at industry conferences and seminars on affordable housing industry topics. Mr. Key received his bachelor’s degree in accounting from Anderson University in South Carolina and is a member of the Georgia Society of CPAs. He is licensed in Georgia as a certified public accountant.

First coming to the Agency in 2011, Claudia has held many positions including foreclosure prevention underwriter, underwriting team lead and compliance and quality assurance analyst. Prior to her time at the Agency, she held positions at Wells Fargo and HPW Mortgage. 

Currently living in Raleigh, Claudia holds a Bachelor of Science from West Virginia University.

Cynthia Blue is the Interim Director of the City of Greensboro’s Neighborhood Development Department, which serves as a catalyst for neighborhood revitalization and leads the development and implementation of affordable housing programs to improve the lives of Greensboro residents.

Neighborhood Development focuses on creating vibrant, diverse neighborhoods through the delivery of two major service areas: Housing Services - Provides programs for the creation of new affordable housing units and preserves the quality of the City’s existing housing stock; and Code Compliance - Enforces the City’s code ordinances to improve the appearance of the community and maintain standards for a lower crime rate and a higher quality of life. 

The City has recently adopted HousingGSO, a 10 year plan to guide the City’s public investments in affordable housing and neighborhoods.  Cynthia has over 20 years of experience in the financing and development of affordable housing, rehabilitation programs, housing services and community investments. 

As a leader, she seeks to bring together the people, resources and passion for the work of community development. She is a member of the American Institute of Certified Planners and holds a Master’s Degree in Urban and Regional Planning.

Darren Swanson is the Managing Director of Acquisitions for Red Stone Equity Partners, where he is responsible for the origination, acquisition, financial underwriting, partnership structuring, and syndication of tax credit investments for the southeastern region. 

Darren has 15 years of combined experience in LIHTC syndication, real estate lending and investing for developers of affordable housing. 

Prior to joining Red Stone, Darren was a banker where he provided developers of affordable housing with a debt financing and tax credit equity investments.  Darren is actively involved in civic and industry organizations, including serving on an advisory board of Charlotte-based non-profit developer of affordable, after serving eight years as a member of its Board, including two years as its Chairman. 

David Bennett serves as President of Centrant Community Capital, a wholly-owned subsidiary of the North Carolina Bankers Association. 

In this position, David oversees all aspects of loan underwriting, membership & business development, loan servicing, asset management and strategic planning for Centrant’s affordable multifamily housing loan program, which operates in North Carolina, South Carolina, Georgia, Virginia, Tennessee and Texas.

Before joining Centrant in 2012, David worked as Director of Manuals & Training for Credit Risk Management, LLC, a bank consulting firm located in Raleigh, NC.  In this position, he oversaw the development, delivery and maintenance of the firm’s on-line credit manual and training programs for community bank clients across the Southeast.  Prior to that, he worked as a Program Specialist in the Community Investment Services (CIS) Division of the Federal Home Loan Bank of Atlanta, where he served as coordinator for the Bank’s Affordable Housing Program (AHP) competitive grants and the revolving Predevelopment Loan Fund.  While at FLHB Atlanta, David also worked for several years in the Bank’s Credit, Collateral and Member Services Division as a Senior Collateral Risk Analyst.

David holds a Bachelor of Arts degree in History from Duke University, a Master of Arts degree in History from Wake Forest University, and a Master of Public Administration degree from Georgia State University. He is a graduate of the North Carolina School of Banking, and holds professional certifications as a Certified Housing Development Finance Professional from the National Development Council, and Credit Risk Certification from the Risk Management Association.

David has partnered with his longtime friend and colleague, Bob Moss, to form MG Housing Strategies.  David brings a unique set of skills and experience to our nation’s capital on behalf of affordable housing and MGHS clients. The goal of MGHS is to expand the support for our clients affordable housing legislative agenda and foster the coalitions that are necessary to move that agenda to successful outcomes.

After working in Washington, DC for almost 10 years in a variety of capacities for Representative Richard Gephardt (D-MO) and Senate Majority Leader George Mitchell (D-ME), David worked at Boston Capital from 1995 to 2020 as Vice President and Director. Shortly after joining Boston Capital, David positioned its principal’s, already pioneers in the affordable housing industry, as leading voices on policy and advocacy with decision makers in the nation’s capital. 

David’s responsibilities include representing MGHS’s clients housing, tax and regulatory agendas before the administration and Congress in Washington, DC, regularly meeting with administration officials, legislative leaders and senior legislative staff.  He also briefs clients on the legislative and political landscape. 

David has served as the Executive Director of the Housing Advisory Group, since 1995.  A 501 c 6 organization founded in 1993, the Housing Advisor Group was established to help educate state and federal officials on housing programs and to formulate policies leading to the expansion of affordable housing production. The Housing Advisory Group’s membership consists of developers and professionals from across the country involved in the affordable housing industry. David is an original member of the Affordable Housing ACTION Campaign, where he sits on the steering committee.   He also serves on the policy/legislative subcommittee and the tax reform working group.  David is a member of the Affordable Housing Tax Credit Coalition and the National Leased Housing Association.  He works closely with the Council of State Housing Associations on policy and national advocacy.

On behalf of his many affiliations, David regularly consults with Members of Congress and congressional staff on policies affecting affordable housing.  He is a sought-after speaker at national conferences, industry gatherings, state association meetings and with investor groups across the country. 

On the home front in Boston, David serves on the Board of Directors of the John F. Kennedy Library Foundation, the Community Advisory Board of WBUR, Boston’s NPR news station and as Chairman of the Board of Directors for the Alliance of Business Leadership.

Genevieve Chow is a District Community Affairs Officer for the Office of the Comptroller of the Currency’s Northeastern District, based in New York, N.Y.  She joined the OCC in October 2015 and has more than 16 years of experience in community development and CRA compliance in the banking industry. 

 In her current role, she provides outreach, training, and technical assistance to OCC examiners, bankers, and community groups on community development and related issues.  She also provides consultative services to national banks and federal savings associations to help them identify opportunities, resources and potential partnerships to support community development activities. 

 Ms. Chow holds a BA from Barnard College and an MBA from Columbia Business School.

Greg Mayo oversees CAHEC's originations, underwriting, and closings of tax credit investments as well as serving as a member of the company’s Executive Leadership Team. Mr. Mayo and his department also assists CAHEC Capital, Inc. and CAHEC New Markets, LLC, in originating, underwriting, closing loans for affordable housing, and providing investment capital for economically distressed communities.

Since joining CAHEC in 1999, he has personally closed more than 200 transactions exceeding $500 million in net equity. Mr. Mayo has extensive experience with adaptive reuse projects, multi-property portfolio transactions used to preserve affordable housing, and other projects utilizing a combination of federal and state tax credits. 

Prior to joining CAHEC, Mr. Mayo led the City of New Bern (NC) Community Development Division for seven years, gaining valuable experience in a multitude of community revitalization programs, including the creation and preservation of affordable housing. He has a Bachelor of Arts degree in Public Policy from the University of North Carolina at Chapel Hill and a Masters in Public Administration from East Carolina University.

CAHEC, based in Raleigh, NC, is one of the largest nonprofit regional equity syndicators in the US and has been active in southeast since 1992. The company has more than $2.5 billion of capital under management with investments in more than 700 properties.

Isabelle White is a Senior Business Advisor in the banking Supervision, Regulation, and Credit department of the Federal Reserve Bank of Richmond.

Her work focuses on strategic planning, risk assessment, and high priority initiatives such as emerging technology and climate change.

She received a bachelor’s degree in Economics/Business from Randolph-Macon College and a graduate certificate in Procurement and Contract Management from the University of Virginia.

Jack Holtzman is a Co-Director of the Fair Housing Project of Legal Aid of North Carolina, in addition to being a Senior Staff Attorney with the North Carolina Justice Center, in Raleigh.

He has worked with affordable housing developers, property managers, local gov’t officials and community advocates to further fair housing across the state.  

Jack has practiced civil rights law in North Carolina since 1986.

Joseph Breen is a Section Chief with the Division of Aging and Adult Services at DHHS.  As part of his responsibilities he manages the Emergency Solutions Grant (ESG) program.  ESG is a HUD funded program that provides grant dolloars to programs across North Carolina serving persons who are homeless or at risk of becoming homeless and have no resources available to them.  These programs include shelter operations and services, rapid rehousing fiscal and service assistance, prevention fiscal and service assistance and street outreach along with some operational support funding. 

 Joe has been active in social services since 1979 and has held positions in public assistance, mental health, protective services, developmental disabilities and homelessness.  Joe was responsible for establishing a homeless shelter specifically for persons with chronic and persistent mental illness in Tampa Florida in the early 1990’s.  Joe has also served as a consultant in various states helping to solve federal compliance issues. 

Breen holds both a Bachelors and Master’s degree from the University of Massachusetts Boston, College of Public and Community Service.

LaQuana serves as a Program Director at the Foundation for Health Leadership and Innovation (FHLI) and is responsible for managing the day-to-day operations and strategies of the statewide NCCARE360 program. She recently transitioned to FHLI from the North Carolina Department of Health and Human Services (NCDHHS), where she worked for the last four and a half years; two years in the Office of the Secretary with Healthy Opportunities, where she served as program manager of NCCARE360 implementation; and in an earlier roles as a Public Information Officer and Communications Unit Manager in the Division of Public Health - Public Health Preparedness and Response Branch.

LaQuana earned a BS in Public Health Education from UNC at Greensboro, a Master of Public Administration from North Carolina Central University, and was a Community Mobilization Fellow at the Black AIDS Institute – African American HIV University in Los Angeles, California.

In addition to the in-depth knowledge of health and human service referral coordination technology, social determinants of health, program management and crisis communication, LaQuana has a long career in local public health and public service, including more than ten years with Wake County Human Services. When LaQuana is not serving as a trailblazing leader in health and human services across the state of North Carolina, she serves as an active member of Delta Sigma Theta Sorority, Incorporated and volunteer volleyball coach for girls age 8 – 12.

Laura Hogshead was appointed chief operating officer of the North Carolina Office of Recovery and Resiliency (NCORR) in late 2018. In this role, Hogshead oversees the expenditure of hurricane recovery funds from the U.S. Department of Housing and Urban Development (HUD) for areas hit by Hurricanes Matthew and Florence.

Laura is a native North Carolinian who, before returning to her home state, spent most of her career in Washington, DC. She was the HUD chief operating officer from 2013 to 2017 and served as a lead HUD staffer on the U.S. House of Representatives Appropriations Committee from 2007 to 2013. Before that, she was a Presidential Management Fellow at HUD, specializing in homeless programs.  

Dr. Mandy Cohen was appointed to the role of Secretary of the North Carolina Department of Health and Human Services (DHHS) in January 2017 by Governor Roy Cooper. Secretary Cohen and her team work tirelessly to improve the health, safety and well-being of all North Carolinians. DHHS has 17,000 employees and an annual budget of $20 billion serving as the home to NC Medicaid, Public Health, Mental Health/IDD/SUD, State Operated Hospitals and Facilities, Economic Services, Adult and Child Services, Early Childhood Education, Employment Services, and Health Services Regulation. Secretary Cohen and her team are focused on responding to and recovering from the COVID-19 pandemic, building a robust, efficient Medicaid program, improving early childhood health, safety and education, combatting the opioid crisis, and ensuring equitable access to health resources.

Dr. Cohen leads the COVID-19 response for the State of North Carolina. Her team at NC DHHS oversees the operational response – including hospital surge capacity, testing capacity, tracing capacity, and PPE availability – in addition to constructing the advanced data infrastructure necessary to collect and analyze key data points to drive decision making. Secretary Cohen also leads the development of North Carolina policy guidance which informs the actions needed to slow COVID-19 spread.

Secretary Cohen has made closing the coverage gap in North Carolina a key priority. Additionally, Dr. Cohen’s “buying health” agenda heavily focuses on broad drivers of health (often referred to as the social determinants of health). Under Secretary Cohen’s leadership, North Carolina implemented the first-in-the-nation statewide coordinated care network, NCCARE360, to electronically connect those with identified needs to community resources and allow for a feedback loop on the outcome of that connection. This private-public partnership has been a key feature of NC’s COVID response and backbone to the innovative Health Opportunities pilot authorized under North Carolina’s 1115 Medicaid waiver.

Secretary Cohen is an internal medicine physician and has experience leading complex health organizations. Before coming to the North Carolina Department of Health and Human Services, she was the Chief Operating Officer and Chief of Staff at the Centers for Medicare and Medicaid Services (CMS). She brings a deep understanding of health care to the state and has been responsible for implementing policies for Medicare, Medicaid, the Children’s Health Insurance Program and the Federal Health Insurance Marketplace.

Secretary Cohen has been recognized a national leader for her work at DHHS. In February of 2019, Modern Healthcare named Secretary Cohen one of the Top 25 Women Leaders in Healthcare. In September of 2020, Secretary Cohen was awarded the Leadership in Public Health Practice Award from Harvard University’s T.H. Chan School of Public Health for her strong leadership during the COVID-19 pandemic response, including her use of data and ability to communicate with empathy, compassion, and transparency.

Secretary Cohen is also an Adjunct Professor in Health Policy & Management at the University of North Carolina at Chapel Hill Gillings School of Global Public Health.

A graduate of Cornell University, she received her medical degree from Yale School of Medicine and a Master’s in Public Health from the Harvard School of Public Health. She trained in Internal Medicine at Massachusetts General Hospital. Secretary Cohen is married to Sam Cohen, a health care regulatory attorney and Senior Vice President for Health Policy at Curi. They have two daughters, ages 6 and 8.

Michael L. Browder, Sr. serves as the Region IV Deputy Administrator for the Southeast Region comprising of Alabama, Florida, Georgia, Kentucky, Mississippi, North Carolina, South Carolina, Tennessee, Puerto Rico and the U.S. Virgin Islands.

Browder is responsible for directly advising and assisting the regional administrator in the day to day operation of the largest region in the nation working to ensure HUD's Region IV Office meets the agency's mission, goals, and performance measures in the delivery of services, products, and programs in: Community Planning and Development; Fair Housing and Equal Opportunity; Federal Housing Administration: Single Family and Multifamily; Public and Indian Housing, and Office of Sustainable Housing and Communities.

Browder served as the HUD Field Office Director for the Commonwealth of Kentucky prior to serving most recently as the Acting Region IV Deputy Regional Administrator. Under his leadership in Kentucky, his office was instrumental in successfully accomplishing several significant departmental initiatives. Those initiatives included the HUD EnVision Center Initiative with the Housing Authority of Bowling Green; the Job Corps Partnership Initiative; the Kentucky Prescription Assistance Program (KPAP) Partnership Initiative; the Single-Family FHA Nonprofit Pilot Initiative and a pilot program of FHA-insured Nonprofit Mortgages.

Before joining federal service, Browder served as a public housing executive for a Georgia public housing agency and prior to that as an executive for a tribally designated housing entity (TDHE) in Alaska. In 2005, he founded a firm specializing in the economics of real estate development, commercial real estate development and investment, asset and property management. Before founding the firm, he served as the Director of Asset Management and the Interim Multi-Family Portfolio Property Manager for a private firm where he was responsible for all LIHTC syndicated assets and from 2001 to 2004 he served as a Vice President with the Bank of America Community Development Banking.

He earned an MBA from the University of Missouri-Kansas City and a B. Sc. in Business Economics from the University of Utah. Browder is the father of three adult children and has eight grandchildren.

Nikitra Bailey recently joined the National Fair Housing Alliance (NFHA) as the senior vice president of public policy where she leads a visionary, comprehensive policy strategy to implement NFHA’s mission.

NFHA is the country’s only national civil rights organization dedicated solely to eliminating all forms of housing and lending discrimination and ensuring equal opportunities for all people.

Previously, Ms. Bailey served as an executive vice president at the Center for Responsible Lending (CRL), the policy affiliate of Self-Help, the nation’s largest community development lender. At CRL, Ms. Bailey played an integral role in developing and driving the strategic direction of the organization’s consumer protection and fair lending agenda.

She advanced national and state public policy reforms that provide access to safe and responsible credit on affordable terms for families and communities traditionally underserved by the banking system. She led mortgage advocacy and was the principal strategist for coalition partnerships that span civil rights, faith, women, labor, and community advocates across the nation.

In addition, she managed CRL’s resource development efforts. Ms. Bailey is the author of numerous reports and articles on predatory lending’s impact on people of color and women and a frequent media contributor to the New York Times, American Banker, Washington Post, and the National Newspaper Publishers Association outlets. She has also delivered expert testimony to the Congress on housing finance reform, mortgage lending discrimination, and the state of housing in America.

Currently, Ms. Bailey serves on the Consumer Financial Protection Bureau Consumer Advisory Board, as vice-chair of the NC Housing Coalition, and as a board member of the National Institute for Minority Economic Development. She is a member of the Insight Center's Closing the Racial Wealth Gap Initiative Experts of Color Network.

Ms. Bailey holds a J.D. from the University of Pittsburgh School of Law, and a B.A. from the Pennsylvania State University.

Rebecca Darling is a partner in the metro Atlanta office of Novogradac. Ms. Darling has experience in all areas of real estate accounting, with an emphasis in the new markets tax credit (NMTC), historic rehabilitation tax credit (HTC) and affordable housing sectors. She specializes in the audit and taxation of NMTC, HTC and low-income housing tax credit partnerships, including those subject to the auditing requirements of the U.S. Department of Housing and Urban Development.

Ms. Darling has provided accounting, financial statement audits, tax preparation, and cost certification audits for numerous organizations in the affordable housing industry. She has extensive experience in assisting in the facilitation, review and preparation of NMTC allocation applications.

Ms. Darling works closely with the Novogradac NMTC Working Group, a membership organization that is highly regarded for its effort in addressing technical programmatic issues surrounding the NMTC industry. She is a contributor to the Novogradac New Markets Tax Credit Handbook and Novogradac Introduction to New Markets Tax Credit booklet. Additionally, she is a frequent speaker at industry events.

Ms. Darling earned a bachelor’s degree in business administration with a concentration in accounting from Kennesaw State University. She is licensed in Georgia as a certified public accountant.

Rich Lee is a Senior Community Partner Coordinator at the N.C. Housing Finance Agency, a self-supporting public agency. He works on the Agency’s loan pool programs: the Community Partners Loan Pool (CPLP) and the Self-Help Loan Pool (SHLP) which annually help more than 500 low- and moderate-income families with the purchase of their home.

Prior to working on the loan  pool programs, he served as a Foreclosure Prevention Team Leader, managing two of the Agency’s foreclosure prevention programs: the Home Protection Program & Loan Fund and the National Foreclosure Mitigation Counseling Program.

Prior to joining the agency in August 2008, he served as Executive Director of the Durham Affordable Housing Coalition for eight years and prior to that, as Housing Development Specialist for eight years. While at the Coalition, he helped secure more than $12 million for various affordable housing programs and organizations. In 2008, Rich was recognized by the N.C. Housing Coalition with a Service Achievement Award. 

He has a Masters in City & Regional Planning from the University of North Carolina in Chapel Hill and a Bachelors of Arts in Public Policy from Duke University.

Sarah Grymes, an experienced housing development expert with a strong financial background, joined Dogwood’s Impact Team in early January 2021. Grymes serves as Vice President of Impact for Housing. 

In this role, Grymes oversees Dogwood’s work with area partners to help increase the number of affordable housing units, help residents stay in existing homes safely and help reduce homelessness. She also works to address the numerous and complex contributing issues that cross all of Dogwood’s strategic priorities.

Grymes most recently served as the Executive Director of the Housing Assistance Corporation (HAC) in Hendersonville, where her work included overseeing more than $25 million in real estate assets and seeking out and securing land and financing for single and multi-family development.

Prior to her role with the Housing Assistance Corporation, Grymes worked as the director of resource development for the United Way of Henderson County. She is also an experienced bank executive serving with Mountain Bank, Mountain 1st Bank and Trust and Bank of North Carolina. Grymes is an active member in the community serving on numerous boards and committees including the Henderson County Chamber of Commerce, the AdventHealth Foundation Board and the Blue Ridge Humane Society. 

Susan M. Westbrook has certifications in several affordable housing programs and currently specializes in the Low Income Housing Tax Credit and HOME programs. 

She has 26 years experience in compliance monitoring, asset management, and property accounting.  Her experience includes: monitoring for compliance with governmental regulations and loan requirements, training staff and the general public in various affordable housing programs, reviewing financial statements and budgets, and reviewing requests for loan modifications.  Prior to entering the affordable housing field, Mrs. Westbrook has over 7 years experience in income tax consulting, income tax training and accounting.

Mrs. Westbrook is currently employed by NC Housing Finance Agency as the Manager of Rental Assets.  Her certifications include: Housing Credit Certified Professional issued by the National Homebuilder’s Association; Housing Development Finance Professional issued by the National Development Council; HOME Specialist issued by HUD; National Affordable Housing Professional-e, Fair Housing & Section 504 Compliance, and Certified Professional of Occupancy issued by NAHMA; C3P and STAR designations issued by Spectrum Enterprises; as well as various other designations in the affordable housing field.  She is also a licensed Real Estate Broker in North Carolina.

Hall serves as the manager of rental development at the NC Housing Finance Agency.

She has worked with the agency for 19 years, most recently as the senior Housing Development Analyst.

Tara received her bachelor’s degree at Christopher Newport University and her Masters of Business Administration at Averett College.

Tim Cafferty is the President and owner of Outer Banks Blue Realty Services in Kitty Hawk, NC, and Sandbridge Blue Realty Services in Virginia Beach, Virginia.

Tim is the former Chairman of the Dare Education Foundation and currently serves as the organizations Housing Committee Chair.   

In his role with DEF Tim dedicates a great deal of time in helping oversee 36 apartment units in Dare County that were constructed solely for the purpose of attracting teachers to the area.

With a tourism-based economy that limits year-round housing, providing affordable housing to teachers has been a critical component of DEF since 2008, when the housing program was launched.

These two-bedroom units have been made available to more than 200 educators and employees since the program’s inception.  The DEF housing program assists the school system in recruiting teachers for needed positions that are difficult to fill such as foreign languages, advanced math, technology and special needs.

Valerie has spent over 30 years in the housing and community development industry serving in a wide range of roles in the state, local, non-profit, and private sectors. 

In January 2020, Valerie rejoined the Rural Economic Development Division of the N.C. Department of Commerce as the CDBG Section Chief. She and her team manage a $49+ million-per-year portfolio grant programs focusing on neighborhood revitalization and assisting low-to-moderate households throughout small communities and counties in North Carolina.

In addition, Valerie oversees $56.9 million in a supplemental CDBG award received through the CARES Act in response to the COVID-19 pandemic and serves as the North Carolina Consolidated Plan Coordinator. 

Prior to NC Commerce, Valerie served as the Senior Housing Planner in the Neighborhood Development Division of the City of Greensboro. In this role, Valerie provided strategic leadership on housing issues; led the efforts on establishing policy and procedures including assisting with the City’s comprehensive planning initiative; and designed and developed programs using federal funds including HOME and CDBG, state funds, and local funds to develop and manage multifamily and single-family development projects. 

Other notable roles held by Valerie include operating her own consulting business, holding strategic positions at Virginia Housing Development Authority, overseeing special needs housing programs at the Virginia Department of Housing and Community Development, and serving as the Assistant Director/Fair Housing Director for Housing Opportunities Made Equal of Virginia. 

Valerie’s background also includes affordable housing development, project management, program development, strategic planning, small business development, commercial underwriting, community planning, fair housing, policy development, and technology deployment. 

Valerie earned her B.S. degree in Urban Studies and Planning from Virginia Commonwealth University in Richmond, Virginia. She also is certified by the National Development Council as a Housing Development Finance Professional and is licensed by the North Carolina Real Estate Commission as a broker. 

Valerie is proud to be a North Carolina native and the parent of two successful young adults-Christopher, a fashion model and entrepreneur and Courtney, a publicist with a renowned public relations firm.  In May 2021, Valerie married Thomas E. Fegans.

Victor has six years of FDIC experience serving as a Community Affairs Specialist for North Carolina, Virginia, and West Virginia, South Carolina and Alabama. He serves as the Alliance for Economic Inclusion (AEI) manager for West Virginia and Alabama-Black Belt and provides technical assistance to Bank On Virginia Beach, Bank On Roanoke and Bank On Charleston, SC.

He played a lead role the development and expansion of the Virginia CRA Bankers Resource Collaborative and Carolinas CRA Bankers Collaborative. He has served as a team lead and member on interdivisional and interregional projects across federal agencies.

Victor has several years of executive management experience in the banking, lending, economic and community development and financial product and services development with expertise in working across multiple business channels, public institutions and government agencies.  

He is the former Senior Director of the National Institute of Minority Economic Development where he had oversite responsibility for  Research and Policy, Minority Executive Education Leadership Institute, the US DOT Small Business Transportation Center Mid-Atlantic Region, Minority Business Development Agency of North Carolina and Historically Black Colleges and Universities (HBCU) National Engagement Initiative.

He served as the US Segment Market Leader for Community Banks for GE/Genworth Mortgage Insurance. Victor is the former chairman of Reinvestment Partners a national community development and civil rights organization. He has served as an adviser to senior White House staffers, Federal Reserve Banks, Federal Home Loan Bank, congressional members and state government officials on affordable housing, small business lending, student debts, mortgage lending, rural development, racial wealth gaps and racial disparities and community economic development.

He is a graduate of North Carolina State University.

Will Parry-Hill is the Manager of Government and Industry Relations for the North Carolina Housing Finance Agency.  He works on state and federal housing policy and represents the agency with members of Congress, the General Assembly, and the business community.

Prior to his tenure at the Housing Finance Agency he has worked as a secondary school teacher and in several governmental and political roles. He holds a bachelor’s degree in History from Greensboro College.

Zelleka A. Biermann manages the multi-family affordable housing development programs for the City of Charlotte’s Housing & Neighborhood Services department. She administers over $210M for Charlotte’s Housing Trust Fund development projects and all federally funded housing Programs, including HOME & CDBG. She is responsible for loan/grant underwriting, evaluation, project readiness and feasibility, from construction to occupancy.

Prior to joining The City of Charlotte, Zelleka owned and operated her own business, and has held Chief Financial Officer and Controllers position with national and international firms in the U.S. and Europe. Zelleka received her B.S. (Accounting/Finance) from University of Minnesota Carlson School of Business and received her Master of Taxation Program from Golden Gate University in CA. She is fluent in three languages.

Zelleka is a certified Project Manager, Housing Development (HDFP) and an Economic Development Finance Professional (EDFP) from The National Development Council. She is a graduate of Dimension in Leadership & Shared Leadership Program with the City of Charlotte and a Licensed Real Estate Broker in North Carolina.

Zelleka has served on for-profit and non-profit boards, works with various community housing development organizations, and coordinates housing efforts of neighboring towns for the Charlotte-Mecklenburg HOME Consortium.

She provides strategic planning, financial analysis, project development and implementation to bring robust housing and community development programs to communities. Her efforts have resulted in hundreds of affordable homes, improved infrastructure, new community facilities and communities better equipped to meet the needs of their citizens.