COIN Board Named

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Insurance Commissioner Dave Jones on Thursday announced his appointments to the California Organized Investment Network Advisory Board.

COIN guides insurer capital into what the network feels is socially responsible, environmentally sustainable and community financial investments.

COIN’s investment officers lead two funds: the Qualified Investment Platform and the CDFI (Community Development Financial Institution) Tax Credit program, which screens investment deals across asset classes for risk, rates of return and provision of tangible benefits to California’s undercapitalized communities and environment; and the CDFI Tax Credit Program, which provides a 20 percent state tax credit on a $50,000 minimum investment, loan or deposit into a COIN-certified CDFI for 60 months.

“The COIN program has proven to be a highly successful effort in providing funding for important projects in underserved communities throughout the state, and I am confident our new board members are up to the task of furthering the success of this initiative,” Jones said in a statement. “Without question, their work on the COIN Advisory Board will be especially important given these difficult economic times.”

Following are the COIN Board appointees:

Vanessa Rodriguez – senior vice president of Mercury public affairs;
Tony Tomich – consultant to the CFO of the finance transformation group at Zurich Financial;
Sukh Singh – general secretary of the Indus Valley Chamber of Commerce;
Stefan Dobrus – CFO and senior vice president at CSE Insurance Group in Walnut Creek;
Ralph Lippmann – director of the California Community Economic Development Association;
Patricia GoPaul – senior vice president and corporate secretary with Impact Community Capital LLC;
Martin Erwin – serves in the corporate law department at State Farm Insurance Cos.;
Jerry Rioux – director of the San Luis Obispo County Housing Trust Fund (HTF);
Jeff Westerman – moderator and speaker for programs on complex litigation, including the Sarbanes-Oxley Corporate Responsibility Act;
Michael Hickey – government relations counsel at MetLife in Washington, D.C.;
Alan Fisher – executive director of the California Reinvestment Coalition;
Arthur Fatum – CFO and executive vice president of capital markets at the Low Income Investment Fund;
Douglas Bystry – president and CEO of the Clearinghouse CDFI;
Darrell Teat – associate vice president at Nehemiah Community Reinvestment Enterprises;
Andrew Gross – principal and president of the Development Co. of Thomas Safran & Associates;
Beth Sirull – executive director of Pacific Community Ventures in 2009.