Professionals
Proficiency, Integrity & Care
Our professionals have the experience and expertise to assist with our client’s financial advisory needs, including plan of finance development and execution, financial modeling, strategic planning, credit review and rating agency strategy, review of financial documents and the analysis of the long-term implications of various financing options.
The firm’s shareholders have decades of experience in servicing the needs of governmental issuers and have assembled a talented team of professionals with diverse experience and backgrounds.
Shareholders
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Kim M. Whelan
Co-President
Office: 6000 Midlantic Drive Suite 410 North Mount Laurel, NJ 08054
Kim M. Whelan founded Acacia Financial Group, Inc. in 2006 as Co-President and is a member of the firm’s management committee bringing over twenty years of experience as a financial advisor. Prior to founding Acacia, Ms. Whelan was a partner with Public Financial Management, Inc., the president and sole owner of a New Jersey based regional financial advisory firm, and an investment banker in municipal finance on Wall Street. Ms. Whelan has extensive experience in the municipal financial advisory field.
She has developed a particular expertise in the design and implementation of alternative financing techniques. She has utilized this expertise in serving state and state-level entities throughout the nation to implement high level policy objectives and successful financial strategies.
Ms. Whelan has served on the Board for the New Jersey Building Authority and is a member of the Government Finance Officers Association (“GFOA”) and the Association of Environmental Authorities (“AEA”). Ms. Whelan earned a Bachelor’s degree from the Philadelphia University, with a concentration in finance.
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Noreen P. White
Co-President
Office: 6000 Midlantic Drive Suite 410 North Mount Laurel, NJ 08054
Noreen P. White founded Acacia Financial Group, Inc. in 2006 as Co-President and is a member of the firm’s management committee. Prior to forming Acacia, Ms. White was the President, and founder, of Municipal Advisory Partners, Inc. For over 35 years, she has worked with high profile and complex issuers with specific expertise in bond pricing and investor relations. She has spoken before numerous industry groups including the National Association of State Treasurer’s, GFOA, State Debt Management Network and the NJ League of Municipalities. Ms. White served as a member of the Municipal Securities Rulemaking Board and was the recipient of the 2018 Frieda Johnson Award for her work in municipal finance.
Prior to entering the field of investment banking at Bear Stearns & Co, Inc., Ms. White was a protein chemist in the laboratory of the late Dr. Stanford Moore, Nobel Laureate. She published a scientific paper based on her research. Ms. White is a graduate of Smith College and completed graduate work in Information Processing and in System Analysis at the New School for Social Research. She received her M.B.A. in finance from New York University. Ms. White is a Certified Municipal Finance Officer and a Certified County Finance Officer in New Jersey.
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Peter D. Nissen
Managing Director
Office: 6000 Midlantic Drive Suite 410 North Mount Laurel, NJ 08054
Peter D. Nissen is a 19-year veteran of the public finance industry, having worked with other financial advisory firms before founding Acacia in 2006. Prior to this experience, Mr. Nissen gained four years of engineering experience with an internationally renowned engineering corporation. Mr. Nissen serves as day-to-day advisor to many of the firm’s high-profile accounts.
Mr. Nissen oversees all of the firm’s quantitative services including the evaluation of derivative products. He is expert in preparing financial models for the clients of the firm. These models enable our clients to evaluate multiple financing scenarios and the impact on their operations. Mr. Nissen has developed innovative computer analyses for the restructuring and optimization of existing escrows, the investment of new bond proceeds for construction funds and reserve funds, the utilization of various derivative instruments, forward purchase and repurchase agreements, swaption and warrant products, and synthetic rate and forward rate products. Mr. Nissen has extensive experience in the preparation and review of financing documentation and in the marketing and pricing negotiation of both taxable and tax-exempt debt on both a competitive and negotiated basis.
Mr. Nissen earned a Bachelor of Science degree in Engineering from Drexel University.
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Joshua C. Nyikita
Managing Director
Office: 6000 Midlantic Drive Suite 410 North Mount Laurel, NJ 08054
Joshua C. Nyikita founded Acacia in 2006 as a Managing Director. Prior to founding Acacia, Mr. Nyikita served as a Senior Managing Consultant with Public Financial Management, Inc. for five years and as an Assistant Vice President at regional financial advisory firm for four years. During his 17 year career, Mr. Nyikita has worked with numerous county and state-level issuers on a variety of transactions. Mr. Nyikita currently has day-to-day responsibility for the firm’s work with the States of Connecticut, Ohio, and Wisconsin along with multiple clients throughout the State of New Jersey.
Mr. Nyikita has transaction experience in a wide range of industry sectors including general obligation, lease appropriation, higher education, transportation, water and wastewater utility and economic development. Mr. Nyikita has advised clients on the use of fixed and variable rate debt, private placement structures, and derivatives as well as the development of long-term capital planning models. Mr. Nyikita has developed presentations to ratings agencies and investors, negotiated with letter of credit banks and bond insurers and provided testimony before State level boards and committees.
Mr. Nyikita earned a Bachelor of Science Degree in Business Administration from the University of Delaware.
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Jennifer G. Edwards
Managing Director
Office: 6000 Midlantic Drive Suite 410 North Mount Laurel, NJ 08054
Jennifer G. Edwards joined Acacia Financial Group upon its formation in 2006. Ms. Edwards has fifteen years experience providing financial advisory services to numerous school districts, municipalities and authorities. Ms. Edwards has extensive experience structuring and managing general obligation bond, revenue bond, pooled bond and renewable energy transactions and has provided analytical and technical support for infrastructure and solid waste financing projects.
Ms. Edwards serves as project manager on county, municipal and school district financings and is responsible for quantitative analyses performed including the incorporation of investments of new bond proceeds and comprehensive tax impact analyses. In addition, Ms. Edwards is project manager for numerous improvement authority clients and is responsible for structuring and managing pooled bond financings for such clients.
Ms. Edwards earned a Bachelor’s Degree in Mathematics from the Richard Stockton College of New Jersey.
Team
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Phoebe S. Selden
Senior Vice President
Office: 221 N. LaSalle Street Suite 1500 Chicago, IL 60601
Phoebe Selden is nationally recognized as a government finance, transportation and privatization (P3) expert, with about 30 years of public sector experience. She has focused her career on developing innovative plans of finance and rating agency strategies for large urban and complex infrastructure clients and has completed over $16 billion of bond financings. She has worked on over 20 P3 projects. Ms. Selden’s transportation clients span all sectors: airports, highways, parking, ports, rail, rental car facilities, toll roads and transit. Other industry focus areas include water / wastewater and economic development projects. Services include traditional financial advisor, P3 and budget / financial strategy development work.
Ms. Selden began her career at Ernst & Whinney, serving public sector clients and commercial and M&A assignments for seven years. She served the City of Chicago for 13 years, ultimately as City Comptroller, and launched and led the Chicago office of Moody’s Investors Service, before joining another independent financial advisory firm. Ms. Selden earned her Bachelor of Science in Accounting from DePaul University and passed the CPA exam in 1983.
Ms. Selden is an Advisor to the Government Finance Officers Association Debt Committee, a member of the Finance Committee Steering Group for Airports Council International and a prior member of the Metropolitan Planning Council.
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Dominick Setari
Senior Vice President
Office: 1441 Broadway Suite 5104 New York, New York 10018
Dominick Setari joined Acacia in late 2019 as a Senior Vice President. Prior to joining Acacia, Mr. Setari served as Senior Vice President at a regional financial advisory firm and prior to that was Director of Capital Finance at Montefiore Medical Center in the Bronx, New York. Mr. Setari is registered with the SEC and the MSRB and has passed the MSRB Series 50 examination.
Mr. Setari has over 25 years’ experience as a public finance banker, financial advisor and municipal officer serving clients in the General Obligation, Lease Appropriation, Healthcare, Transportation and Water/Wastewater sectors. He has expertise in the areas of complex financial modeling, structuring of municipal bond transactions, debt and transaction management, and development and execution of plans of finance.
Mr. Setari earned a Bachelor of Science Degree from Fordham University with a concentration in Finance. He also earned a Master of Business Administration (MBA) from Columbia University.
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Brittany M. Whelan
Senior Vice President
Office: 6000 Midlantic Drive Suite 410 North Mount Laurel, NJ 08054
Ms. Whelan joined Acacia in 2011. Prior to joining Acacia, she interned as a financial assistant since 2005, where she focused on supporting local entities within the State of New Jersey. Ms. Whelan has a broad area of expertise in connection with State level issuers, transportation clients, redevelopment entities, solid waste authorities, higher education institutions, water/wastewater agencies, as well as boards of education. Ms. Whelan advises these issuers on a broad array of services including capital planning and the implementation of financing structures. Ms. Whelan’s strengths include cash flow management and forecasting, new money project financings, refunding transactions, pooled financings, revenue-backed projects, and renewable energy initiatives.
Ms. Whelan earned a Bachelor’s degree in Economics with a concentration in Finance from E. Craig Wall Sr. College of Business Administration at the University of Coastal Carolina.
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Joseph A. Calogero
Vice President
Office: 6000 Midlantic Drive Suite 410 North Mount Laurel, New Jersey 08054
Joseph Calogero joined Acacia in October 2014. Mr. Calogero is currently responsible for providing analytical support to all of Acacia’s clients. Mr. Calogero is responsible for providing technical and analytical support for governmental entities ranging from small local governments to large state level Authorities. His experience includes working with the State of Alaska and the Massachusetts State College Building Authority as well as many other state level issuers, higher education institutions, and local Townships and Boroughs. He brings experience in New Money and Refunding Transactions including general obligation, project finance, revenue and other types of obligation issuances.
Mr. Calogero earned a Bachelor of Science degree in Finance from the College of Business Administration from Rider University in Lawrenceville, New Jersey.
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Michael Schimenti
Associate
Office: 6000 Midlantic Drive Suite 410 North Mount Laurel
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Alexia DiCiurcio
Associate
Office: 6000 Midlantic Drive Suite 410 North Mt. Laurel, NJ 08054
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Joshua Cooperman
Senior Project Advisor
Office: 111 Anza Boulevard Suite 107 Burlingame, California 94010
Josh Cooperman has represented municipal issuers, primarily in California, for over 25 years, with emphasis on certificate of participation, lease revenue, water and sewer, and master lease programs, including the State of California, Regents of the University of California, numerous counties, and cities, school districts, county offices of education and community college issuers. He also specializes in private school and 501(c)(3) conduit financings.
Among his transactions are a long-term tax-exempt cashflow program for Trinity County, to avert potential insolvency, a tax-exempt FHLB-backed variable rate financing for a Bay Area aquarium, a private “direct placement” LOC-optional variable rate program for a private San Francisco Bay Area school, and a variable rate program for a policy institute’s urban center/museum.
He has been a speaker on emerging tax-exempt financing concepts for the California Assn. of County Treasurers-Tax Collectors and the California Assn. of School Business Officials, as well as serving on their boards and as section chair, and is co-author of Leasing: Their Form and Function, a sourcebook on municipal lease concepts and programs, published by the California Debt and Investment Advisory Commission, through the California State Treasurer’s Office.
He is a graduate of Stanford University and Stanford Law School, and attended the New York University LLM Program in Taxation. He is also a member of the California and New York bars.
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Edward H. Hynes
SVP of Local Government Services
Office: 6000 Midlantic Drive Suite 410 North Mount Laurel, New Jersey 08054
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David P. Shields
SVP of Local Government Services
Office: 6000 Midlantic Drive Suite 410 North Mount Laurel, New Jersey 08054
David P. Shields joined Acacia Financial Group in 2012 as a Senior Vice President of Local Government Services. Mr. Shields brings forty plus years in various public management positions including a township committeeman to West Deptford Township (New Jersey) from 1979 through 2002 as well as serving the mayoral seat for the township committee from 1983 through 2002. Mr. Shields served as West Deptford Township’s School Board President from 1976 to 1979. At the Gloucester County Utilities Authority he served as Commissioner from 1985 through 1989, and also as Chairman to that Authority from 1990 through 2011. Mr. Shields was a member of the Executive Board for the New Jersey League of Municipalities from 1992 to 1999.
He has gained extensive planning and construction management expertise through Bell Atlantic from 1968 to 1994 and the Delaware River Port Authority from 1994 to 1996. Mr. Shields served as the Executive Director of the Gloucester County Improvement Authority from 1996 through 2011, managing the financial sustainability and operational continuity of a solid waste disposal facility, nursing home, child development center and equestrian facility. Mr. Shields managed oversight of building projects including courthouse facilities, inner city parking garage, public library and other various structures as well as an equestrian center and initial development phases of a port on the Delaware River in Gloucester County. Mr. Shields if the CEO-CFO of his business and site development consulting company, EAGLE VI, LLC, which was founded in 1998. He currently holds a New Jersey Real Estate license. He has achieved several certifications including assessor certifications for appraisals, property tax administration and income approaches to valuation certification for real estate.
Mr. Shields brings to the firm his broad experience in financial and budget management as well as long-range planning and public management experience. Mr. Shields earned a BA in Political Science from Glassboro State College and has also completed a range of construction administration, management and engineering studies through Temple and Rutgers Universities.
