About Us: Principals
The principals at Environmental Capital have over $10 billion in public finance experience for a wide variety of municipal issuers. Our initial focus and experience in the environmental area, has expanded to include the structuring and placement of all types of environmental assets. We now advise clients in almost every aspect of public financing from relatively uncomplicated general obligation bonds through complex revenue supported debt.
Environmental Capital advised clients on developing environmental attributes from a variety of activities pertaining to green house gas emission reduction, carbon sequestration and renewable energy projects.
Richard N. McCarthy
President
Mr. McCarthy is the founder and President of Environmental Capital. Since its establishment, Environmental Capital has advised municipal issuers on financings of over $2,000,000,000. Environmental Capital has performed a wide variety of other financial advisory assignments for county, city and town clients, such as water, sewer and solid waste system consolidations, mergers and sales; the development of regional authorities; financial feasibility studies; utility rate studies; etc. While Environmental Capital was founded to focus on the field of environmental finance, the firm’s practice has expanded to encompass many other areas of public finance, including general municipal and not-for-profit finance.
Mr. McCarthy has worked in the area of public finance for the last twenty-three years. Prior to establishing Environmental Capital in 1990, he was a Vice President at Bear Stearns in charge of solid waste financings (1987-1990) and the manager of the Resource Recovery and General Obligation Bond Group in the Public Finance Department at Manufacturers Hanover Trust Company (1982-87). Before entering the field of public finance, he was a Vice President at Manufacturers Hanover Trust Company in corporate finance.
Mr. McCarthy specializes in start up financings and financings with new or unusual structures. He has advised seven New York State authorities on their development and initial financings. He serves as the financial advisor to ten New York State authorities, to which he provides a variety of financial and strategic advice. He has pioneered the use of subsidized loans offered by the New York State Environmental Facilities Corporation for solid waste projects and for advance refundings. Over the past several years, Mr. McCarthy has been responsible for developing advance refundings that have saved his clients over $29 million.
Mr. McCarthy serves as the President of the Columbia-Greene Hospital Foundation, the fundraising arm of the Columbia Memorial Hospital in Hudson, N.Y. He is also on the board of the Olana Partnership, a not-for-profit organization that seeks to preserve and use as a base for art education. Olana, the home of Frederic Church, one of the most renowned landscape painters of the 19th Century.
Mr. McCarthy received his Bachelors degree from Cornell University and his Masters of Business Administration from the University of Chicago. He is a Certified Public Accountant.
Denise Farrell
Managing Director
Ms. Farrell has extensive experience in public finance. Ms. Farrell leads Environmental Capital’s team in the emerging market for all types of greenhouse gas emission reduction projects as well as renewable energy project financings. She is responsible for the structuring and placement of carbon credit assets for municipal and corporate clients as well as advising carbon credit purchasers on portfolio acquisitions. Ms. Farrell has placed over 1,000,000 VERs to date including one of the largest placements generated by a New York State project.Currently Ms. Farrell is developing carbon credit projects for waste waster and avoided deforestation projects. Ms. Farrell has experience in all types of municipal bond financings including Environmental Facilities Corporation State Revolving Fund borrowings, solid waste authority projects and water and wastewater projects.
Prior to working for Environmental Capital she worked for over 12 years in the Municipal Underwriting and Acquisition Finance areas specializing in structured finance. Ms. Farrell also taught credit analysis in domestic and international training programs. Ms. Farrell serves on the Board of Advisors for the New York Community Trust’s Westchester Division as well as the Georgetown University’s Alumni Admissions Program.
She holds a BS from Georgetown University and an MBA from Fordham University’s School of Business and attended the Columbia School of International and Public Affairs.
Walter Kulakowski
Senior Vice President
Mr. Kulakowski is responsible for carbon credit sourcing and providing financial advisory services at Environmental Capital. In the carbon credits area, he has advised public clients on landfill gas, resource recovery, wastewater treatment, and afforestation carbon credit projects. His efforts focus on carefully defining eligible projects, evaluating optimal protocol(s), and developing marketing approaches to best highlight specific project characteristics. Recent financial advisory assignments include development of a comprehensive solid waste utility financial model, and two financings during the troubled fall of 2008, including the first solid waste authority relying on post-Carbone Supreme Court decisions .
Mr. Kulakowski has 21 years experience in municipal investment banking at Citi in the Infrastructure and Solid Waste Groups. He financed over $21 billion in senior managed municipal debt issuance, largely in areas of alternative energy, solid waste, project finance, privatizations, water and wastewater and state revolving funds. He is experienced with all types of public and private debt offerings, as well as derivatives, and limited partnership and tax-driven equity transactions. Mr. Kulakowski implemented financial restructuring plans for several projects and utilities. For a municipal waste utility, he modified the existing governance from monopoly to free market operations and implemented an associated debt refinancing with significant present value savings. For a Florida water desalination privatization, he restructured the transaction for two separate contractor bankruptcies, while maintaining both investment grade ratings and municipal bond insurance. His work in the solid waste finance area resulted in a 25% market share for senior managed transactions. .
Before this, Mr. Kulakowski was head of air pollution control programs for both the City of Indianapolis and, as an appointment of the Governor, the State of Indiana over a 5-year period. He initiated and completed a variety of high profile regulatory and enforcement initiatives. He devised and implemented some of the first emissions offsets completed within the region. .
Mr. Kulakowski also worked for two energy and environmental consulting firms near Washington D.C. where, among other efforts, he developed ethanol use in petroleum refineries, and successfully developed shareholder disclosure litigation over environmental liabilities of a major steel company. He holds a B.Sc. from McGill University, Montreal.
Christopher Foley
Analyst
Mr. Foley is an analyst at Environmental Capital, specializing in financial modeling and analysis. Prior to joining Environmental Capital, Mr. Foley had worked at American Express Business Finance where he was responsible for the procurement of capital equipment for a variety of business relationships. Mr. Foley facilitated contracts and served as a liaison for both the credit management and risk management departments.
Mr. Foley has performed various forms of Debt Service analysis and EFC comparability analysis and is responsible for all functions involving the sale of bonds and notes.
Mr. Foley received a Bachelor of Arts in Business Management from Gettysburg College in 2004.