Analyzing the social and economic impacts of COVID-19 with U.S. Census data, insights for policy makers, new Summit wins at HUD, and more
A Special Note from the Summit Partners
The year 2021 has not only been a memorable year at Summit, for obvious reasons, it has also been a remarkable year at Summit. Notwithstanding 19 consecutive months serving clients remotely, the level of our client service has not missed a beat. Owing to our dedication and focus on service, the Summit team has received one of the highest ratings of client service satisfaction from our public-sector clients.
This year, we also saw success in relationship-driven account management. As our clients increased their activities, they have come to increasingly trust and rely on Summit’s services and expertise to advance mission-critical objectives. These new engagements have allowed Summit to serve our clients in both traditional competencies and new areas.
Our economic vitality has allowed us to reward, retain, and reinvest. This year, Summit had one of the largest increases in reward packages in base salary and bonus payments. These increases allow Summit to remain competitive in the talent market.
And 2021 was a record year for recruiting and promotions. With the new promotions, Summit increased women and minority representation among our leaders. This has further boosted the diversity of opinions and perspectives within our ranks and thereby strengthened our firm.
In addition, we are in the process of expanding our data science team and exploring new capabilities to serve our clients. We are hiring software engineers and adding a new advisory board member with data science expertise. This will strengthen our core competency and Summit’s standing and reputation in data analytics.
Finally, to ensure our staff have a well-deserved break over the holidays, we are closing the Summit offices from December 24–31 to give everyone a chance to spend time with family and friends, relax, and recharge. We look forward to a productive, challenging, and rewarding 2022!
Sincerely,
Albert Lee, J. Anthony Curcio, and Gob Juntima Partners, Summit Consulting, LLC
Summit Senior Manager Corey West Featured in ConnectUs Manager Spotlight
We are proud to announce that Senior Manager Corey West was recently featured in a ConnectUs Manager Spotlight with former Summiteer Angelo Curto.
Watch and learn more about how they built their highly effective relationship and how it continues to benefit them, their clients, and their companies.
Summit and NuvoLogic Win Additional Year Supporting HUD’s Single-Family Housing Investigations
Summit is excited to share that we were awarded a new year with the U.S. Department of Housing and Urban Development’s Office of Fair Housing and Equal Opportunity to support HUD’s single-family housing investigations with NuvoLogic Consulting.
In addition, we will be providing loan underwriting and closing support to HUD’s Office of Residential Care Facilities with NuvoLogic to help process applications. Thank you to everyone who worked tirelessly to bring these wins home!
Check out our new podcast episode about NuvoSumhere. The interview features Judy Phruksaraj, CEO of NuvoLogic, and J. Anthony Curcio, Partner at Summit.
About NuvoSum: NuvoSum is a mentor-protégé joint venture between NuvoLogic Consulting, Inc. and Summit Consulting, LLC, under the U.S. Small Business Administration’s Mentor-Protégé Program. NuvoSum combines the resources, talents, and experience of both partners to pursue competitive set-aside contracts for economically disadvantaged woman-owned small businesses (EDWOSB) and 8(a) small businesses. Learn more by visiting nuvosum.com, or email the team at info@nuvosum.com.
The Social and Economic Impacts of COVID-19: Using the Census Household Pulse Survey to Measure Equity Advancement
How are Americans handling the COVID-19 pandemic? The U.S. Census Bureau, with help from other federal agencies, has been hard at work collecting data using the Census Household Pulse Survey (HPS). Since April 2020, researchers have been using this quick-turnaround survey to gather vital information about how the pandemic is affecting Americans both socially and economically.
Summit’s program evaluation team will be sharing insights from that survey over the next several weeks. Read the first installment here.
Susan Newton-Rhodes rejoined Summit as a director in November after a short hiatus to help launch a start-up focused on impact investments. She first joined Summit in 2012 as a contractor, supporting the Community Development Financial Institutions Fund’s Bond Guarantee Program, a contract that Summit is still active on today. Ms. Newton-Rhodes will focus her efforts on supporting additional development opportunities in the impact investing space while also lending her valuable support to other teams within the company.
The Infrastructure Investment and Jobs Act, also known as the Bipartisan Infrastructure Deal (BID), is historic not only for the $1.2 trillion size of the bill, but also for the 5-year length of the authorization. This makes the BID immune to partisan quarrels that could slow the movement of money into transportation infrastructure projects.
Luckily for policy makers at both the federal and state levels, there is an established bipartisan pathway to direct BID funds to predetermined communities that need it most. Chosen by the governors of each state in 2018, there are 8,766 federally designated Opportunity Zones where BID dollars could flow, each observing not only state goals for economic development, but also federal policy goals for equity. Read morehere.
Check out previous posts in Summit’s Opportunity Zones series:
Insight for Policy Makers: When Acute Community Needs Meet Economic Resilience Priorities
As the full impact of the American Rescue Plan Act of 2021 is realized, economic development and resiliency policy officials in all of the nation’s states, territories, and tribes are grappling with how to make best use of unprecedented amounts of federal funding.
These officials face daunting and competing challenges: they must not only deploy the capital in ways that comply with federal guidelines, they must also invest rationally into projects and programs that can sustain themselves for years and decades after this onetime money is spent.
As Summit leaders and experts talk with state and local policy makers, a few key insights are emerging. Read the full article by Partner Anthony Curcio here.
Latest Episodes
Judy Phruksaraj of NuvoLogic and Anthony Curcio of Summit Talk About NuvoSum, Our Joint Venture
Mary Baker, Government Affairs Counselor at K&L Gates, Talks Opportunity Zones with Summit’s Auyon Rahman
Summit continues to work collaboratively with our Federal Student Aid (FSA) partners to improve internal communications and day-to-day operations that enhance the NextGen Program Office’s capacity to manage increasingly complex and high-profile IT systems. With our expertise, FSA has become more results-driven, empowering its employees to be customer-focused while advancing the needs of student borrowers and institutions of higher education.
Summit developed a nationwide commercial loan training series and underwriting template to train Rural Development’s loan specialists on all elements of financial statements, qualitative and quantitative analysis to reveal drivers of risk, the role of credit enhancements, and stress testing and sensitivity analysis on borrower forecasts. Summit’s training included developing a curriculum, pre-training materials, course materials, and post-training materials to measure the retention of information at least 2 months after course completion. This training effort was the most significant nationwide commercial underwriting training undertaken by RD in 20 years.
Celebrating Summit Day 2021
Summiteers had a great time celebrating Summit Day at our happy hour at the H Street Country Club in early November. There were drinks, food, and plenty of games, as well as the chance to connect in person and welcome the newest members of the team.
U.S. Department of Housing and Urban Development, Office of Healthcare Programs
Summit was awarded a new year with the U.S. Department of Housing and Urban Development’s Office of Fair Housing and Equal Opportunity to support HUD’s single-family housing investigations with NuvoLogic Consulting. In addition, we will be providing loan underwriting and closing support to HUD’s Office of Residential Care Facilities with NuvoLogic to help process applications.
U.S. Department of the Treasury, CARES Act Advisory for the CERTS Program
Summit was awarded a task order for ongoing support for reviewing, process documentation, and ad hoc requests on the Treasury’s CERTS program.
U.S. Department of Transportation, MARAD
Summit was awarded a contract modification to assist the client with financial underwriting and financial statement spreading.
Fannie Mae, Model Risk Management – Performance Monitoring
This is Summit’s second contract with Fannie Mae in the past three months. In this option year award, we have been tasked with automating and delivering advanced quantitative techniques to the monitoring of risk models.
This is the final option year in an increasingly ambitious agenda to make recommendations to the GSEs (Fannie Mae and Freddie Mac) on how to improve their fair lending models. The work is statistical in nature and one of the hottest topics coming out of the new administration.
U.S. Department of Education, Office of Federal Student Aid – NextGen Program Management Support Service
Summit won the recompeted task order under our Transformation Support Services Blanket Purchase Agreement to continue providing program management support to Federal Student Aid as they work to modernize their portfolio of IT systems. The team will continue providing project management, risk management, schedule management, communications, acquisition management, cost estimation, and governance support across the Next Gen Program Management Office and Student Aid and Borrower Eligibility Reform (SABER) initiative.
Development Finance Corporation – Operational Support Services
Summit won the BPA and Base Task Order 1 to continue our work at the Development Finance Corporation providing federal credit support, data analytics, and program evaluation.
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