Summit Founding Partner Albert Lee Interviewed by OrangeSlices AI
In January, GovCon website OrangeSlicesAI caught up with Summit’s Albert Lee following a string of wins for the firm across several federal agencies to learn more about the concept of a virtual bench, how advisory differs from consulting, and the lens of partnership this successful team embraces. During the interview, Lee discusses Summit’s trajectory, the pivotal strategies that have contributed to the firm’s success, and its future landscape. Lee’s experience sheds light on some incredible lessons for scaling a business as well. You won’t want to miss it!
Katie Janik Joins Summit as a Senior Portfolio Adviser and Subject-Matter Expert
At the start of 2024, Summit welcomed one of our newest subject-matter experts, Katie Janik. Janik is a financial strategy professional with substantial project finance experience, particularly in the renewable energy, oil and gas, infrastructure, and financial services sectors. She joins Summit from Transurban, where she was director of impact investment. She was also founding principal of Garnet 3 Consulting, which provided advisory, training, and information management services to protect clients’ investments in renewable energy projects.
Janik’s career has established her as a leader in project finance, asset monitoring, project restructuring, policy and procedure management, tax equity, and business automation. She is also experienced in managing cross-functional teams and conducting training workshops. You can catch her talking about federal infrastructure and energy finance with partner Anthony Curcio on a recent episode of the Federal Credit Fridays podcast.
Brian Oakley, a director at Summit, shares his thoughts and perspectives on the trends within federal lending in infrastructure finance over the last 20 years. Oakley has over 30 years of experience providing financial advisory services to environmental, energy, transportation, and infrastructure clients in both the private and public sectors, but primarily as an adviser to federal allocators of capital.
This podcast features two guests who each bring deep experience in water infrastructure and are on the front lines of new clean water projects: Michael Gaughan and Eric Law. Gaughan is executive director and secretary of the Vermont Bond Bank, and he was previously a director for the National Development Council, a national community development finance nonprofit. Eric Law is a manager at Summit Consulting, where he advises clients on federal infrastructure transactions.
Shalini Benson is a senior adviser and subject-matter expert in Summit’s federal financial management practice, and she brings 25 years of experience in the federal, private, and nonprofit sectors in leadership roles. Benson has been a leader at five different federal agencies, including three budget offices. She has extensively taught and led budget staff and policy makers through the federal budget process, and she is also an alumna of the Office of Management and Budget.
Katie Janik is a portfolio adviser in Summit’s federal transaction advisory practice and has substantial project finance experience, particularly in the renewable energy, oil and gas, and infrastructure sectors. Janik’s career has established her as a leader in project finance, asset monitoring, project restructuring, policy and procedure management, tax equity, and portfolio automation.
Ken Kuchno is a senior telecom adviser at Summit Consulting with more than four decades of experience working with the U.S. Department of Agriculture’s Rural Utilities Service in a number of different roles, ranging from reviewing system designs for the construction of telecommunication facilities to development of processes and procedures to evaluating applications to manage a multibillion-dollar program portfolio.
The Federal Credit Reform Act of 1990 places the Office of Management and Budget (OMB) at the center of loan scoring and budgeting, as it provides wide authority to OMB in overseeing loan terms and conditions, risk tolerance, underwriting policy, and everything that drives credit risk for federal loan programs. Director Sarah Cunningham joins the podcast to discuss the evolution of OMB over the last 20 years as well as Circulars A-11 and A-129, which offer guidance to federal loan programs.
Missed an episode? Listen to past Federal Credit Fridays here.
About Federal Credit Fridays: The U.S. government is one of the largest lenders and credit guarantors on earth. Its portfolio is estimated at over $3.6 trillion, as measured by loan assets and the face value of loan guarantees. The government uses credit for a wide variety of policy missions, including housing, higher education, small businesses, rural and urban economic development, infrastructure, and export promotion, among others. This podcast will familiarize you with the vast world of federal credit, and we hope that you’ll learn about similarities and differences between these programs as well as the importance of their work to achieving policy missions within the framework of public-private collaboration.
Summit Director Speaks on Panel at 2024 AGA National Leadership Training
On February 28, Summit director Sarah Cunningham joined a panel at the 2024 AGA National Leadership Training along with Kathy Stack and Shannon Arvizu of the Department of Commerce and Tina Kim from the Office of the New York State Comptroller. The panel discussed data as the key to program impact, how to strengthen partnerships between oversight and programs, and how to make investments toward better outcomes and programs.
Cunningham also moderated an AGA “Wake Up Wednesday” webinar on January 24, “Finding the Data to Drive Improved Performance: Tips for Government Practitioners.” It featured Kathy Stack, Bob Westbrooks, and Shelley Metzenbaum.
Summit Partner Anthony Curcio Speaks at U.S. Chamber of Commerce Conference
On February 23, Summit partner Anthony Curcio spoke on federal credit at the U.S. Chamber of Commerce conference “Retooling the Space Industry,” which focused on the importance of the U.S. domestic space industry providing innovative capabilities to support the country’s national security mission.
As a leader in the industry, Summit is dedicated to sharing our knowledge and expertise to drive innovation and success. Curcio’s inclusion as a speaker underscores Summit’s commitment to delivering unparalleled insights and solutions in the federal credit domain.
The U.S. Department of Labor’s Chief Evaluation Office (CEO) partnered with the Mine Safety and Health Administration (MSHA) to examine the rate of black lung disease across the United States. Specifically, CEO and MSHA sought to understand (1) whether black lung cases and deaths are more prevalent in the Navajo Nation or Appalachia than other parts of the United States, (2) how black lung incidence compares between current, former, and non-coal mining communities, and (3) how residential coal burning correlates with black lung cases and deaths.
Summit used a mixed-methods approach that incorporated both qualitative and quantitative data to answer these questions and identified two potential next steps to help future researchers understand the impact of coal on health. The final report was published on the Department of Labor’s website.
Curious about our other case studies? See more here.
Summit Helps Modernize Title XI Program at Maritime Administration
Summit’s subject-matter experts have played a crucial role in assisting the Maritime Administration (MARAD) in modernizing the Title XI program regulations for the Federal Ship Financing Program. The most recent update, effective as of January 16, 2024, signifies a significant step forward in aligning financial requirements with contemporary vessel financing practices and federal credit standards. This overhaul allows MARAD to assess a broader range of financial indicators, thereby ensuring more comprehensive evaluations of the financial health of U.S. shipowners and shipyards.
The collaboration between Summit and MARAD underscores the importance of expert guidance in navigating complex regulatory frameworks and implementing reforms that promote efficiency and competitiveness in the maritime industry. By leveraging Summit’s expertise, MARAD is well positioned to enhance the effectiveness and relevance of its financial protocols, ultimately benefiting stakeholders across the U.S. maritime sector.
Summiteers Compete in 2024 Du Bois Visualization Challenge
In celebration of Black History Month, a group of Summiteers participated in the 2024 Du Bois Visualization Challenge. This challenge was created by the Data Visualization Society to celebrate the data visualization legacy of W.E.B. Du Bois, a Black American civil rights activist, sociologist, and writer, by re-creating his visualizations from the 1900 Paris Exposition using modern tools. The team ultimately decided to split into two groups to re-create Du Bois’s Plate 6 using both R and Python.
Team R included Kathryn Cronquist, Paige Hayward, and Shannon Houser, and Team Python included Olivia Hebner, Thienthanh Trinh, and Nicole Schwartz. To learn more about the tools and techniques the teams used, check out the full post on the Summit blog.
Summit Hosts 10th Annual DC DataFest April 12–14
For the past 10 years, Summit has teamed up with theSocial Data Science Center at the University of Maryland to host DC DataFest, a weekend-long competition that encourages undergraduate student teams to analyze rich, complex datasets from a major organization and present their insights to a panel of expert judges.
The 2024 DC DataFest will be held virtually, and students are allowed only two PowerPoint slides to convince the judges that they have found the best data-supported insights or visualization. DC DataFest promotes collaboration, creativity, critical and practical analysis skills, and—most of all—fun.
Spots are still available! To register, visit Summit’s DC DataFest webpage or click the “Register” button below.
Summit is proud to announce the second winner of the Summit Consulting Fellowship at UCLA, David Henning. He is a fifth-year student using both administrative and self-collected data. Henning has obtained panel tax data on all firms in Uganda from the Ugandan government. In addition, he has raised funds to run his own data collection efforts surveying firms in Uganda, and he expects to merge these self-collected data with the administrative records. Currently, Henning is using these data to examine the impacts of government audits on firm productivity.
The Summit Consulting Fellowship was established by partner Albert Lee, who received his PhD in economics from UCLA in 1999 and is a current member of the UCLA Economics Board of Visitors. It is awarded to graduate students advancing economics through creative use of data.
.png?upscale=true&width=1100&upscale=true&name=Federal%20Credit%20Fridays%20social%20card%20(2).png)
.jpg?upscale=true&width=1040&upscale=true&name=shutterstock_2269656513%20(1).jpg)
-Jun-19-2023-07-32-12-8902-PM.png?upscale=true&width=520&upscale=true&name=Untitled%20design%20(1)-Jun-19-2023-07-32-12-8902-PM.png)
