Engagement Team
Senior-led. Florida-based.
Federal-grade.
Five named senior personnel with a combined 90+ years of target-industry-analysis experience across the USDA Foreign Agricultural Service, federal real-estate finance, municipal economic development, and U.S. commercial real estate. Every deliverable is led, authored, or reviewed by someone listed on this page — with explicit RFP-requirement coverage mapped below.
90+
Combined years senior practice
14
Countries served by team
3
Named teaming firms
100%
RFP § 2 / § 3 / § 5 coverage mapped
Senior Engagement Leadership
Methodology lead, credentialing anchor — and Project Manager
HSG's lead methodologist owns the analytical rigor of the engagement; HSG's Project Manager (Jelani House) owns the weekly City PM cadence, schedule, deliverable oversight, and the AI-augmented production model that lets senior judgment be the bottleneck.
Senior Economist & Methodology Lead
Brad DillmanCAIA, FRM, RAI
Florey Street Advisors· Founder & Principal
20-year career in econometric forecasting and target-market modeling for U.S. real estate and credit markets. Chief Economist at RPM Living (48,000+ multifamily assets) and Cortland (where his work supported $700M+ in equity raised for the $1.25B PURE Multifamily acquisition); Director of Economic Research at PulteGroup; VP Analytics at DebtX, where he priced loans for HUD/FHA, Freddie Mac, Fannie Mae, FHFA, and SBA — including a role in HUD/FHA's $17B single-family NPL sales. Founder of Florey Street Advisors, an AI-native advisory platform. Brad serves as HSG's Senior Economist and methodology anchor on this engagement: lead author on Tier 2 econometric methods (synthetic control + NLP topic modeling) and Tier 3 advanced analytics if elected, and independent quality-assurance lead across all six engagement phases.
- M.Sc. (Honors), London School of Economics · B.A. (Honors), University of Washington
- CAIA, FRM, and RAI charter holder
- Featured in NYT, WSJ, AP, Bloomberg, NPR Marketplace, Reuters TV
- Stata, ML, regime-switching/Markov, VAR, GARCH, Monte Carlo specialist
- Pioneer of AI-native econometric advisory in U.S. real estate
- $17B HUD/FHA single-family NPL sales pricing role at DebtX
Jelani House
Project Manager
House Strategies Group · Founder & Managing Director
Jelani is HSG's Project Manager and the City's primary point of contact for this engagement — owns the weekly City PM cadence, schedule, milestone-delivery governance, cross-phase deliverable oversight, and final QA before client release. 17+ years of progressive federal consulting experience supporting HUD, Ginnie Mae, VA, USDA, Treasury, and the Federal Reserve across multiple prime contract vehicles; $25M+ career consulting sales. Most recently Associate Director at Guidehouse (2020–2024) in the Federal Financial Services practice, where he won and ran the Ginnie Mae Global Investor Market Advisor (GIMA) federal advisory contract — designed and executed Ginnie Mae and HUD road shows and conferences across multiple U.S. and international cities (including the U.S.–Latin America Investor Roundtable Series), with direct hotel-venue and facility-operator engagement at scale. Earlier: Project Manager / Senior Consultant at Novad Management Consulting (2008–2018) supporting HUD's Office of Asset Sales as Program Financial Advisor across multiple SFL / MFL / HECM loan-sale transactions. Education: B.A. Economics and English Literature (Double Major), University of Virginia (2006), with the McIntire Business Institute (MBI) certificate from UVa's McIntire School of Commerce; M.S. Finance, Georgetown University McDonough School of Business (2021); Phillips Exeter Academy (2002). Previously held Project Management Institute (PMP) certification. HSG's 8(a) principal of record; authorized to negotiate and execute on HSG's behalf.
- Project Manager on this engagement — face of contract, City's primary point of contact, weekly City PM cadence owner
- 17+ yrs federal consulting · $25M+ career consulting sales
- M.S. Finance, Georgetown University McDonough School of Business (2021)
- B.A. Economics + English Literature (Double Major), University of Virginia (2006)
- McIntire Business Institute (MBI) certificate, UVa McIntire School of Commerce
- Phillips Exeter Academy (2002)
- Previously held Project Management Institute (PMP) certification
- Associate Director, Guidehouse (2020–2024) — won and ran the Ginnie Mae Global Investor Market Advisor (GIMA) contract (multi-city / international road shows and conferences with direct hotel and facility-operator engagement)
- Project Manager / Senior Consultant, Novad Management Consulting (2008–2018) — HUD Office of Asset Sales Program Financial Advisor across multiple SFL/MFL/HECM loan-sale transactions
- Architect of HSG's AI-augmented production discipline + AI/Expert Reconciliation Log (transparency deliverable)
- HSG Founder & Managing Director · SBA 8(a) Small Disadvantaged Business prime of record
Senior Engagement Team
Senior Industry Economist and Senior Advisor / Alternate PM
Each member owns a defined slice of the engagement — backed by a firm-level teaming agreement and named explicitly in the RFP-coverage matrix below.
Senior Industry Economist · Trade & Regulatory Advisor
Kevin Latner
Latner & Associates· Principal
25+ year senior career in U.S. Foreign Agricultural Service (FAS) target-industry analysis across postings in Beijing, Chengdu, Tokyo, and Washington — followed by senior-executive roles at the U.S. Grains Council (Senior Director, China; 2011 USDA UES authorship) and Cotton Council International (Executive Director, $25M global trade-promotion organization; 2012/2013/2014 USDA MAP/FMD UES submissions) — and currently Principal of Latner & Associates, where he applies a proprietary Comprehensive Industry Strategic Plan (CISP) and Results-Oriented Management (ROM) framework to convert "activity-based" market-development organizations into "strategy-based" target-industry strategies. Latner & Associates client portfolio includes USLGE and AFIA market assessments, the IAC federal-grant-compliance build-out for Native American agricultural producers, and the pre-merger LIA + USHSLA strategic alignment that formed the Leather and Hide Council of America (LHCA) — a literal industry-cluster-formation case. Kevin lead-authored or supervised hundreds of GAIN Reports — USDA's authoritative public market-intelligence product. The GAIN methodology + the Latner CISP / ROM framework together anchor HSG's § 2.3 methodology bridge. On this engagement, Kevin serves as Senior Industry Economist · Trade & Regulatory Advisor — co-lead of the Phase 3 Cluster Audit deliverable with Maurice W. House and co-lead of the Phase 4 Benchmarking & Best Practices deliverable with Brad Dillman, including the execution of approximately three peer-city EDC director interviews via his FAS senior-officer alumni network.
- M.S. Agricultural Economics + J.D. International Trade Law (UC Davis); Member, California State Bar (Member ID 173542, admitted 1995)
- Principal, Latner & Associates (2014–present) — CISP / ROM methodology applied to USLGE, AFIA, IAC, LIA + USHSLA → LHCA, LHCA Real Leather. Stay Different. + Kite Mark certification
- Vice President, Leather and Hide Council of America — formed via LIA + USHSLA cluster consolidation that Kevin led
- Executive Director, Cotton Council International (2011–14) — 3 consecutive USDA FAS MAP/FMD UES submissions for $25M global program
- Senior Director, China Office, U.S. Grains Council (2010–11) — 2011 UES authorship + U.S.-China Ag Food Partnership co-authorship
- USDA FAS career (1996–2010): Director, Agricultural Trade Office Chengdu (2008–10); Attaché Beijing (2005–07) and Tokyo (2000–04)
- Languages: Chinese (Limited Working) · Italian (Professional Working) · Japanese (Limited Working) · Spanish (Full Professional Working)
Senior Advisor & Alternate Project Manager
Maurice W. House
House Strategies Group· Co-Founder & Chief Executive Officer
Retired U.S. Senior Foreign Service Minister-Counselor with three-plus decades of global leadership in international agricultural trade and federal program management. Served as Minister-Counselor at the U.S. Missions to the European Union (Brussels) and the People's Republic of China (Beijing), and as Deputy Administrator, Office of Global Analysis at USDA's Foreign Agricultural Service — where he supervised 75 economists and analysts producing all U.S. international agricultural economic analysis. Led the interagency task force whose work informed White House, USDA, and NSC responses to the 2007–2009 global food price crisis. As Co-Founder & CEO of HSG, Maurice has continued this body of analytical work through HSG's senior consulting role at Rumik Consultancy on multi-year USDA APHIS strategic workforce-planning engagements (2020–present), including the agency-wide Ideal Workforce Composition Study, the 5-year IS Succession Management Plan, and country-level office-placement justifications (sample work products on file). Maurice serves as the named Alternate Project Manager for this engagement. M.S. Agricultural Economics, University of Illinois Urbana-Champaign.
- 30+ years U.S. Foreign Agricultural Service · Minister-Counselor (senior career rank)
- Brussels (EU): principal U.S. agricultural trade officer for the EU region, 2010–14
- Beijing: directed $20B+ market with 52 staff; secured 2005 cosmetics + 2006 beef market reopenings
- Algiers: grew U.S. agricultural exports from $17M to $1.1B
- $1.2B FAS export-credit portfolio manager (1989–92)
- Lead, 2007–09 global food-price-crisis interagency task force
- Languages: French (advanced), Chinese, Thai
30-second verification
Kevin and Maurice served together at FAS Beijing (2005–07). The reports are public.
Mr. Latner drafted GAIN Reports that Mr. House approved as Minister-Counselor. Five of those reports are archived on the USDA Foreign Agricultural Service public system. Search the report IDs below at gain.fas.usda.gov:
CH6010
Annual Feed & Grain
CH6049
Bio-Fuels
CH7027
Geographical Indication Signs
CH7030
Plant Variety Protection
CH7046
IPR / Geographical Indications
The methodology in those reports — industry size, value-chain mapping, demand and trade-flow analysis, workforce assessment, peer-country benchmarking, regulatory review, emerging-sector identification, stakeholder consultation, recommendations — maps section-by-section to RFP § 4.4.
RFP Requirements Coverage
How this team maps to RFP 26-157 evaluation criteria
Every Section 2, Section 3, and Section 5 evaluation requirement — and exactly which person, firm, or work item satisfies it. Built so City evaluators can score the response in a single pass.
Evaluation Weights
40%
§ 2 Qualifications & Experience
Brad + Kevin + Maurice — credentialing anchors
35%
§ 3 Project Approach
Brad's methodology + Jelani's drafting
15%
§ 4 Cost Analysis
Firm-fixed-price with detailed labor build-up
10%
§ 5 Business Enterprise
HSG 8(a) SDB prime — independently satisfies §5
§2 — Qualifications & Experience
40% of evaluationFirm + senior-staff credentials anchored by 50+ combined years of federal target-industry analysis (USDA Foreign Agricultural Service Country Reports — the federal gold-standard methodology), reinforced by 20+ years of econometric chief-economist practice from Brad Dillman.
Firm experience delivering similar services in past 10 years
Coverage lead
Kevin Latner & Maurice W. House
+ Supporting
- HSG firm: 11-year federal/municipal practice (USDA, HUD, VA, Navy, State)
Specific credential / work item
Combined 53 years of senior service in the USDA Foreign Agricultural Service, lead-authoring or supervising hundreds of FAS Country Reports — the federal gold-standard methodology directly analogous to the City's target-industry analysis.
≥2 past target-industry / market-analysis projects + public-sector experience + public engagement
Coverage lead
Kevin + Maurice (FAS Country Analyses); Brad (CRE target-market portfolio)
Specific credential / work item
FAS Country Analyses across China, Belgium/EU, Thailand, Pakistan, Nigeria, Algeria — directly comparable methodology with senior public-sector dialogue. Reinforced by Brad's 20-year corporate target-market modeling at CoStar, PulteGroup, Cortland, RPM Living.
Organization chart with reporting relationships
Coverage lead
Jelani House (Project Manager)
Specific credential / work item
PM (Jelani House) → Senior Advisor / Alt PM (Maurice House) + Sr Economist & Methodology Lead (Brad Dillman) + Senior Industry Economist · Trade & Regulatory Advisor (Kevin Latner) + Sr Analyst (Michael Nelson) + Analyst (Amy Han) + 1099 specialists.
Resumes for all key personnel; PM and Alt PM ≥5 yrs applicable experience in past 10
Coverage lead
Jelani House (PM) · Maurice W. House (Alt PM)
Specific credential / work item
Kevin: 25+ years USDA FAS + Cotton Council International Executive Director + U.S. Grains Council Senior Director China. Maurice: 38 years FAS Senior Foreign Service Minister-Counselor; named Alternate PM.
§3 — Project Approach
35% of evaluationFederal-grade analytic rigor (Brad's Tier 2/3 econometric methods + cross-phase QA gates) supporting the Claude-augmented production model that Jelani drives — letting senior judgment + interview labor be the bottleneck rather than drafting cycles.
Analytic framework + economic & market assessment (LQ, workforce, emerging sectors)
Coverage lead
Brad Dillman
+ Supporting
- Michael Nelson (analytical execution)
Specific credential / work item
Lead author on Tier 1 quantitative analysis (BLS QCEW, ACS PUMS, Florida DEO LMS data acquisition + LQ computation + employment-by-industry analysis + workforce capability assessment). Stata + ML + econometric forecasting bench.
Advanced econometric methods (causal inference, hedonic, DiD, NLP)
Coverage lead
Brad Dillman
Specific credential / work item
Synthetic control causal inference for cluster-policy counterfactuals + NLP topic modeling on stakeholder transcripts + targeted hedonic-regression or difference-in-differences extensions where cluster work warrants them. All included in the $100,000 base bid.
Stakeholder engagement: interviews, focus groups, surveys
Coverage lead
Jelani + Kevin + Maurice + Stakeholder Coord
+ Supporting
- Brad Dillman (survey instrument design)
Specific credential / work item
~50 stakeholder interviews + 3 focus groups + 1 employer survey across employers, small business, education, healthcare, civic, and public sector — senior-led where the cluster requires it, Florida-based 1099 coordinator for logistics. City Q&A 4: no minimum requirement; TBD with City.
Peer-city benchmarking + best practices + competitive advantages
Coverage lead
Brad Dillman + Kevin Latner + HSG analyst bench
+ Supporting
- Michael Nelson (peer-city quantitative pull)
Specific credential / work item
4 peer-city EDC director interviews (City's stated minimum, Q&A 11) led by HSG's senior team — Brad's CRE chief-economist peer network across the 54-MSA CoStar portfolio (which already includes Tampa-St. Petersburg-Clearwater) and Kevin's FAS senior-officer alumni network — supplemented by quantitative peer-city analysis from HSG analyst bench.
Recommendations + strategic framework + 24-month roadmap + P3 architecture + workforce-dev
Coverage lead
Jelani House (lead author) + Maurice (workforce-dev section)
Specific credential / work item
Jelani drafts Phase 5 deliverable using AI-augmented production model with senior input from Maurice; Brad QA-gates the analytical layer; Kevin QA-gates the strategic-framework layer.
Process for incorporating public input into final study
Coverage lead
Amy Han + Stakeholder Engagement Coordinator
Specific credential / work item
Public input portal management + community-engagement coordination + transcript management across all stakeholder segments.
Project schedule, deliverables, and City PM coordination
Coverage lead
Jelani House (PM)
Specific credential / work item
Weekly City PM cadence (face-of-contract) across the 16-week engagement, with senior status touchpoints and milestone deliverable governance.
§5 — Business Enterprise Outreach & Utilization
10% of evaluationHSG SBA 8(a) Small Disadvantaged Business prime independently satisfies §5 + two named small-business subs (Florey Street, Latner & Associates) + Florida-based 1099 specialists for stakeholder coordination and document production.
SBE / MBE / WBE status
Coverage lead
House Strategies Group LLC
Specific credential / work item
SBA-certified 8(a) Small Disadvantaged Business — prime contractor of record. As an 8(a) SDB prime, HSG independently satisfies §5 SBE/MBE/SDB outreach without reliance on a SDB subcontractor.
Subcontractor utilization plan (RFP Attachment C)
Coverage lead
Two named teaming subcontractors
Specific credential / work item
Florey Street Advisors LLC (Senior Economist & Methodology Lead) · Latner & Associates (Project Management).
Analytical Bench
HSG analysts and named 1099 specialists
Senior-led delivery means every deliverable is authored or supervised by named senior personnel — but the heavy analytical lift is supported by HSG's in-house bench and a small, named 1099 specialist roster.
Senior Analyst
Michael Nelson
HSG senior analyst supporting economic-data acquisition, location-quotient computation, and chart production. ~250 hours across the engagement.
Analyst
Amy Han
HSG analyst supporting peer-city research, stakeholder-meeting logistics, and document production. ~220 hours across the engagement.
1099 Specialist
Stakeholder Engagement Coordinator
Florida-based 1099 stakeholder-engagement coordinator supporting the 110+ touchpoint program — scheduling, transcript management, and stakeholder follow-up.
1099 Specialist
Document Production & Design
Senior visual-design support for the Final Report, exhibits, and the live proposal companion portal.
Named teaming firms
Senior Economist & Method Lead
Florey Street Advisors, LLC
AI-native econometric advisory founded by 20-year CRE chief economist Brad Dillman, CAIA · FRM · RAI.
Project Management subcontractor
Latner & Associates
Washington, D.C. · agricultural-economics consultancy led by 25+ year USDA FAS senior officer Kevin Latner.
Talk to the team
Schedule a 30-minute capability briefing
Walk through the team, methodology, and engagement architecture with Jelani House and the senior team.