Top 5 Economists in EB5 Investors Magazine - EB5Investors.com

Top 5 Economists

EB5 Investors Magazine is pleased to announce the Top 5 Economists. To be eligible, distinguished economists needed to draft economic impact studies for the EB-5 industry.

For more information or to contact any of these professionals, we invite you to view their listings at www.EB5Investors.com/directories.

KIM ATTEBERRY

Kimberly Atteberry is the president of Vermilion Consulting LLC. Vermilion helps varied organizations leverage the benefits of the Immigrant Investor Program (EB-5). Vermilion Consulting provides expert advice on project feasibility, EB-5 compliant business plans, job creation analyses, and targeted employment area analyses. Prior to Vermilion, Atteberry was the Chief Economist of U.S. Citizenship and Immigration Services. In 2000 and 2002, she taught Economics and Marketing at the United States Air Force Academy as one of a select group of civilian instructors.

WHY DID YOU GET INVOLVED IN THE EB-5 INDUSTRY?

In 2009, I was hired by USCIS as the Agency’s first economist. After a short time there, I was asked to launch and lead a new division within USCIS focused on economic & statistical analysis. While my duties ranged from procurement oversight to regulatory analysis to special projects for leadership, my most interesting task was to train and advise EB-5 adjudicators on economic impact studies, business plan review, and unemployment analysis. Once I left government employment, it made sense to incorporate EB-5 work into my overall consulting practice.

WHAT NEW TYPES OF PROJECTS AND TRENDS ARE YOU SEEING IN THE EB-5 INDUSTRY?

The EB-5 industry has seen slower activity than normal this past year, partially due to the pandemic, but also due to overall uncertainty. Recently, we have seen a significant uptick in activity and increased optimism. For the first time in a number of years, we are seeing clients interested in starting or expanding regional centers.  In general, project activity remains constrained to commercial real estate.

SCOTT BARNHART

Scott W. Barnhart is president of Barnhart Economic Services LLC, a consulting firm specializing in EB-5 and non-EB-5 economic job creation studies, business plans, TEA designations and legal consulting services. Barnhart is co-owner of Florida First Regional Center and New York City EB-5 Regional Center. He is also an Associate Professor of finance and the Program Director of the Certified Financial Planner program at Florida Atlantic University in Florida. The firm has analyzed a wide variety of projects, from destination resort hotels to large strategic infrastructure projects, with capital expenditures of more than $20 billion with associated gross revenues of $14 billion and job creation estimates of over 450,000 jobs.

WHY DID YOU GET INVOLVED IN THE EB-5 INDUSTRY?

Complete chance! I am a Professor at Florida Atlantic University and in 2007, one of my students was the son of a close childhood friend who invited me to a neighborhood party he was having. At the party, I met a South African gentleman who was looking for an economist to do some “work.” I learned that he wanted to hire me to conduct and EB-5 economic impact study of his project. I reached out to Alan Hodges who was the Director of Economic Impact Analysis at the University of Florida and we have been conducting economic impact analyses for regional center projects and clients ever since! 

WHAT NEW TYPES OF PROJECTS AND TRENDS ARE YOU SEEING IN THE EB-5 INDUSTRY?

Starting this past fall, we have seen a resurgence of new project work from our legacy clients with new projects adjusting to the new TEA rules and the higher $900,000 investment amounts.  TEA locations are now very difficult to find and relatively rare with the new definition that one can only include “directly adjacent” census tracts I would say we can only certify about 1 in 7-10 locations on average as a TEA.  The new projects we are working on now are condominiums and hotels.

JEFFREY CARR

Jeffrey B. Carr is president and senior economist of Economic & Policy Resources, Inc. (EPR), and he and the EPR team of professionals have worked extensively in the EB-5 industry as economists and business plan writers for over 20 years. In addition to EPR’s national economics and business plan writing practice, Carr has lectured on the EB5 program throughout the U.S. and China, and has completed more than 300 assignments under the program, including impact studies, business plans, TEA analysis opinions, and regional center business-operations plans. Carr also has served on the IIUSA Public Policy Committee since 2013.

WHY DID YOU GET INVOLVED IN THE EB-5 INDUSTRY?

While our first EB-5 assignment was in 1997, EPR made a strong commitment to the EB-5 program in 2004. Since then, we have worked along with other EB-5 professionals to help developers complete projects when other avenues were not available. At the same time, we also saw the program as a good way to assist immigrant investors to realize their goal of permanent U.S. residency. This work built upon our extensive experience with conducting economic impact studies, and it also utilized our extensive litigation experience as expert witnesses. Putting the two together made sense to us as a win-win proposition.

WHAT NEW TYPES OF PROJECTS AND TRENDS ARE YOU SEEING IN THE EB-5 INDUSTRY?

The industry has been impacted by the combination of the COVID pandemic, uncertainty surrounding the litigation relating to 2019 DHS regulations, and the upcoming sunset of the regional center program.  Even so, we are seeing some renewed interest in the program—with the assumption that something workable will happen regarding the regional center program’s reauthorization. However, this new interest appears fleeting, and many experienced participants are taking a “wait and see” approach. If there is a positive outcome for reforms and this includes an increase in visa availability, the future looks much brighter for the regional center program going forward. 

DAVID EVANS

David Evans joined Evans, Carroll & Associates (ECA) in 2012 and has led its EB-5 economic impact practice since 2016. The firm specializes in economic analysis for EB-5 programs and the development of custom econometric models for individual industries and companies. ECA has successfully submitted hundreds of EB-5 economic impact reports that have been approved by USCIS. Prior to joining ECA, Evans served as the Chief Scoring Officer for Capital One Bank (1999-2011). He started his career in economic consulting (1989-99), most notably at PriceWaterhouseCoopers. Evans received his degree in Economics from Brown University in 1989.

WHY DID YOU GET INVOLVED IN THE EB-5 INDUSTRY?

After 22 years in corporate America, I was exploring my next career move – and for the first time in his life, my father (Michael Evans, who founded ECA) said to me, “Son, I need your help.” Since then – over the past 10 years – what’s kept me enthusiastic in the EB-5 industry is threefold:

1. Being part of the win-win of creating new jobs and providing opportunity to immigrants.

2. The variety. I’ve written reports ranging from a flight simulator attraction to Asian carp fishing.

3. More than any other work I’ve done, EB-5 truly combines art and science.

WHAT NEW TYPES OF PROJECTS AND TRENDS ARE YOU SEEING IN THE EB-5 INDUSTRY?

The most significant change we’ve seen recently is the importance of pre-identifying whether projects are located in Targeted Employment Areas. Prior to the November 2019 policy change, nearly all project locations qualified as TEAs; this is most certainly no longer the case. The other major trend is since USCIS rescinded Tenant Occupancy, nearly all new projects have been heavily dependent on construction jobs, especially those exceeding 24 months (whereby direct construction jobs can be included as well). Otherwise, we are seeing a bit of a resurgence in new projects, perhaps due to increased confidence that EB-5 is here to stay.

ISMAEL FERNANDEZ

Dr. Ismael Fernández, originally from Madrid, is the founder and president of Greengate Consulting, an Atlantabased consultancy firm. With a PhD and MBA from Georgia Tech, Fernández, a published author in the field of technology valuation, extended his career into the EB-5 space as an economist given his experience in financial modeling. Prior to funding Greengate, Fernández was a senior manager at General Electric, leading a global team forecasting demand for gas turbine parts. Since 2010, Fernández has assisted hundreds of firms to get established in the U.S. and secured dozens of I-526, I-924, and I-829 approvals.

WHY DID YOU GET INVOLVED IN THE EB-5 INDUSTRY?

For me, the EB-5 industry was a natural extension to the practice I founded when leaving GE. Given my background and origin, I fit well in the shoes of foreign investors looking to migrate to the U.S. for business purposes, especially the Spanish-speaking regions of the world. My practice aimed to those families that were seeking to start their own business in the U.S. Since I was accustomed to building complex financial models, I found EB-5 economic models a natural extension to my education and skillset. We love to be creative about our work, and to advocate for our clients using numbers.

WHAT NEW TYPES OF PROJECTS AND TRENDS ARE YOU SEEING IN THE EB-5 INDUSTRY?

The majority of EB-5 investors continue to favor realestate projects with the perception of less risk and higher returns, especially now. Given the long USCIS processing times however, EB-5 benefits are coming second to return on investment. This means that projects have to show a higher appreciation for the EB-5 investment than in the past couple of decades. Projects within a solid TEA are at a competitive edge, but because the long I-526 processing times, I would caution those projects that rely on TEAs that could potentially see an improvement of economics in the next few years while the approval is still pending.

EB5Investors.com Staff

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