A massive pork processing plant in a small Illinois town is powered by solar thanks to CSRE’s commercial PACE financing — a first for the company, and for Illinois, and an example that advocates hope will inspire other industries to embrace the form of financing for clean energy projects.
Eric Alini is the Chief Executive Officer of Counterpointe Sustainable Advisors with its various subsidiaries and Managing Partner of Counterpointe Energy Partners.
Prior to founding Counterpointe, Mr. Alini was Managing Director at Merrill Lynch in the Principal Finance Group of Global Structured Finance and Investment. In this role, he managed Merrill Lynch’s internal capital, responsible for investing and risk management of over $21 billion. In addition, Mr. Alini managed Merrill Lynch Bank USA’s portfolio of asset-backed securities and held a number of senior positions in Global Corporate Loan Portfolio Management, CMBS trading, and as Head of International CMBS. Also at Merrill Lynch, Mr. Alini has been an executive producer for several film projects including The Stanford Prison Project and Ride and structured financing for multiple media companies including Paramount Studios, Ivan Reitman’s Monticello Pictures, and the launch of Marvel Studios.
Mr. Alini started his career as a corporate bond trader at Bear Stearns and has served in government for the Resolution Trust Corporation (RTC). He is a board member of PACENation and the USGBC chapter in New York City Urban Green.
J. Chris Hoeffel is President and Chief Operating Officer of Counterpointe Sustainable Advisors with its various subsidiaries.
Christopher Hoeffel was most recently Co-Founder and President of CoreVest (previously Colony American Finance), the leading private lender to residential investors nationwide; he was directly responsible for underwriting, capital markets, finance and asset management. CoreVest was a leading player in the SFR capital markets and was acquired by Redwood Trust in 2019; Chris subsequently served as a Managing Director of Redwood and as a member of the Investment Committee.
Chris was previously a Managing Director at Investcorp, where he was Head of Real Estate Debt Investments and also Head of Investment Operations and Investor Relations for Real Estate and Corporate Investments in the US and Europe. Mr. Hoeffel joined Investcorp from JP Morgan / Bear Stearns & Co. where he was a Senior Managing Director and Global Co-Head of Commercial Mortgages and founder of a leading Wall Street lending operation in the US, Europe and Japan. Mr. Hoeffel had previous positions at Eastdil Realty, Chemical Bank and the mortgage banking firm Walker & Dunlop.
Chris is a former President of the Commercial Mortgage Securities Association (now CREFC) and serves on its Executive Committee. He has also held leadership positions at the Mortgage Bankers Association and was a member of the Real Estate Roundtable. Mr. Hoeffel holds a BS in Business Administration from Georgetown University and an MBA from the Wharton School of The University of Pennsylvania.
Douglas Harmon is a Managing Director at Counterpointe Sustainable Real Estate, where he leads the Principal Transaction Group.
Mr. Harmon brings decades of finance experience to CounterpointeSRE to focus on new construction development, transitional and rehab investments. Prior to CounterpointeSRE, Mr. Harmon served as a Managing Director at Arden Group as Portfolio Manager of the Arden Credit Fund. Doug focused on bridge and permanent lending as an Executive Vice President with A10 Capital, a commercial real estate lending platform for middle-market borrowers throughout the United States. At RBS Securities, Mr. Harmon was a Managing Director as a senior originator and co-headed the Leveraged Capital Markets effort. During his tenure at RBS, Doug originated and syndicated in excess of $1 billion of commercial real estate loans. Preceding RBS, Doug was head of the commercial real estate syndication platform for KeyBank and was co-head of the Mortgage Desk for European commercial real estate platform at Merrill Lynch.
Mr. Harmon earned a B.A. from Colgate University and an M.B.A. from Kellogg School of Management – Northwestern University.
Michele Pitale, M.D. is a Managing Director at Counterpointe Sustainable Advisors and leads Counterpointe’s portfolio management team focused on commercial PACE financing.
Dr. Pitale provides an expertise in deep energy retrofits and a passion for advancing projects with community benefits that provide accretive economics for owners. Prior to focusing on sustainable energy finance, Dr. Pitale practiced medicine as an Assistant Professor of Surgery and Otolaryngology at Albert Einstein College of Medicine in New York and as a surgeon at the National Institutes of Health (NIH) in the Laboratory of Clinical Investigation, NIAID in Bethesda, MD.
Dr. Pitale earned a BS in chemistry from Juniata College and holds an M.D. from Temple University in Pennsylvania. Dr. Pitale was a post-doctoral research fellow in the Critical Care Medicine at the NIH after completing her surgical residency at SUNY-Downstate and otolaryngology at Georgetown University Hospital. She has authored surgical chapters in textbooks and a number of peer-reviewed research articles. Dr. Pitale’s background provides a unique perspective on the business needs of sustainable finance real estate markets.
Evelyn Giaccio is a Managing Director at Counterpointe Sustainable Advisors and General Counsel at Counterpointe Sustainable Real Estate.
Ms. Giaccio is responsible for all legal, regulatory, litigation and compliance matters for CounterpointeSRE. She brings extensive in-house and law firm experience in diverse corporate and commercial real estate transactions, including acquisition, joint venture, private equity, financing, leasing, development, construction, project finance and private placement.
At The Guardian Life Insurance Company of America, Ms. Giaccio counseled the real estate debt and equity, private equity and private placement investment teams on portfolios exceeding $18 billion. While Counsel at Paul, Weiss, Rifkin, Wharton & Garrison LLP and at Dewey Ballantine LLP, Ms. Giaccio represented and advised lenders, owners, developers, investors, sponsors and other clients on a variety of real estate and private equity transactions. At Goldman, Sachs & Co., Evelyn was the first in-house real estate counsel responsible for all owned, leased and developed properties in the Americas and internationally.
Evelyn earned a B.A. from Barnard College, M.S. from NYU Schack Institute of Real Estate and J.D. from Harvard Law School.
Mary-Stuart Freydberg is an Executive Director at Counterpointe Sustainable Advisors and serves as Head of ESG Research.
Ms. Freydberg focuses on the commercial real estate markets to invest in efficiency and renewable energy upgrades and oversees the firm’s ESG investment framework. Prior to Counterpointe, Ms. Freydberg was Senior Director at Merrill Lynch where in CMBS Research she advised the originators, trading desk and institutional investors on North American Real Estate. Previously at Fitch IBCA, she published extensively and headed CMBS research while rating both domestic and international transactions. Mary-Stuart brings extensive construction loan experience as well as underwriting experience from her time at J.E. Roberts Co., an Archon Group Joint Venture with Goldman Sachs.
Bernard Bartolome brings more than 20 years of financial and business process management experience. He has spent years in the residential lending arenas of Processing, Underwriting, Servicing, and Insuring. Bernard achieved his firsthand experience in process optimization while spearheading the design and implementation of standard operating procedures, streamlining processes through development of operational and business policies and automation of processes at Digital Risk from 2007 until 2015.
Terry Stark is an Executive Director and is responsible for business development and origination. Located in Southwest Florida, Terry brings an extensive financial background to the PACE team. Terry previously spent over 15 years with PNC Bank in the St. Louis, MO market running the Business Banking division in St. Louis and Southern Illinois. Terry also worked with the City of St. Louis on the creation of their Property Assessed Clean Energy program. His drive helped the program come to life with PNC Bank as the lender. After relocating to the Ft. Myers market in SW Florida, he continues to open doors to new markets and new opportunities for PACE to shine whether a client is doing a retrofit or new construction project.
CJ DeSantis is responsible for establishing new partnerships with cities and counties and managing existing relationships with participating PACE municipalities. Prior to CES, CJ was a Managing Director in Deutsche Bank’s CRE Group where he managed relationships with conduit originators, federal agencies and financial institutions helping them liquidate their bad real estate.
Devesh Nirmul is a leader within the energy, sustainability and resiliency space with demonstrated experience in government and public policy, residential and commercial real estate/property management and sustainability-focused non-profit organizations. He works on expanding the PACE Market in Florida, creating value-driven financing solutions for commercial building ownerships and their trusted advisors and engages relevant non-profit organizations on the strategic use of PACE financing to accelerate the uptake of energy and resiliency investments amongst private building owners. Devesh brings a mix of science, policy, and strategy to the firm and sustains his effectiveness by maintaining globally recognized industry credentials. He is an accredited LEED AP, a Certified Energy Manager (CEM) and a Certified Sustainable Development Professional (CSDP).