Scott Kupperman, Owner, Kupperman Location Solutions (KLS)
Scott Kupperman formed Kupperman Location Solutions (“KLS”) in July of 2011 after spending 12 years with A. Epstein and Sons International, Inc., a Chicago-based architectural/engineering/construction firm. KLS focuses on providing full-service site location consulting services designed to maximize the long-term value of a wellinformed facility location decision. The firm specializes in working with companies in the food and beverage industry, including processors, ingredient and packaging suppliers, and distribution facilities for grocery retailers.
Scott’s 25 plus years of experience include more than 11 years working for one of Florida’s largest community developers. His background includes nationwide experience in evaluating property solutions, labor availability, utility availability, state and local government support, incentive programs, and other state and local resources that offer value to a requirement.
Over the past 20 years, he has worked with clients to successfully deliver such site selection services as site acquisition support, acquisition/ operating cost analysis and comparison, due diligence management, entitlement and permitting acquisition, and incentive identification and negotiation. As a sole practitioner, Scott manages and coordinates all aspects of the site selection process in a highly cost-effective manner.
Scott has and continues to speak at economic development functions around the country and contributes to publications that cover the economic development and location consulting realm. A sampling of client relationships includes:
EDUCATION
MBA, University of Miami, 1985
Bachelor of Science, Management, Tulane University, 1984
Scott Kupperman can be contacted by e-mail: scott@kuppermanls.com
Brian Corde Co-Founder & Managing Partner, Atlas Insight, LLC
Brian Corde is a co-founder and managing partner at Atlas Insight, LLC. Atlas assists businesses from all sectors in helping them choose strategic operating locations for their operations, helping to create competitive advantage and achieve overall corporate goals by using location and incentives as ways to reduce operating costs and produce optimum results.
Corde brings 20 years of economic development experience to the Atlas team. Prior to founding Atlas, he was a regional practice leader within BDO Seidman’s Business Location Incentives and Site Selection (BLISS) group and was the point person on the firm’s U.S. and European site selection clients. Prior to joining BDO, Corde was a partner with Mintax, where he developed their site location and discretionary incentive practice and held the position of executive director over the Location Advisory and Economic Development Incentive group at ADP.
Throughout his career, Corde has assisted numerous Fortune 500® companies such as Wells Fargo, Allstate, HSBC, Kraft, Philip Morris, Pfizer, Computer Sciences Corporation, and Yahoo with their site selection and incentive needs. He has also assisted government agencies with their business attraction and retention policies, and has helped write incentive legislation to keep them competitive within the global marketplace.
Corde has authored numerous articles for various trade publications, including Area Development magazine, and has been the featured speaker at conferences including the Industrial Asset Management Council (IAMC), CoreNet Global, Tax Executive Institute, and The World Research Group. He is the former Chair of the Associate Membership Committee for IAMC.
EDUCATION & AWARDS:
Corde is a graduate of Rutgers University with a degree in Economics, with concentrations in Accounting and Finance.
He received accolades for his work within the Labor Studies Department and was invited back as a teaching assistant.
In 2011, one of Corde’s site selection projects won a CiCi award given by Trade & Industry Development magazine for major community impact. After Hurricane Katrina, he was an invited guest of the governor of Louisiana in Washington, D.C., to help develop strategy and incentive policy to encourage redevelopment in the states of Florida, Mississippi, and Louisiana.
Brian Corde can be contacted by e-mail: bcorde@atlasinsight.com
Bradley Migdal, Senior Managing Director, Business Incentives Practice, Cushman & Wakefield
Brad Migdal has over 15 years of experience managing corporate site selection engagements, business incentives projects, and economic development consulting assignments. Brad’s expertise is in the areas of domestic site selection and location analysis, economic incentives research and acquisition, and demonstrating the economic and fiscal impacts of a wide variety of projects to both corporations and governments. He specializes in working with state agencies and local municipalities in connection with negotiating incentive packages and developing corporate attraction strategies. Brad has successfully completed projects for Fortune 1000 companies in the automotive, consumer products, financial services, telecommunications, energy, pharmaceuticals, food and beverage production, and packaging industries.
Brad is a sought-after speaker for economic development events, real estate, and tax conferences. In addition, he has been quoted in The Wall Street Journal, Crain’s Chicago, and written articles for economic development and real estate journals. He is a frequent participant in economic development conferences, most noted for his expertise in economic development incentives. Brad is on the editorial advisory board for Area Development magazine, an advisor for Consultant Connect, and a founding member of the Site Consultant’s Advisory Group.
Brad was the executive managing director and national practice leader for Industrial Site Selection and Business Incentives for Transwestern. He has also been with Newmark Grubb Knight Frank, PricewaterhouseCoopers, and Deloitte in their national consulting and incentives practice.
CLIENTS SERVED:EDUCATION:
Brad has a BA in International Relations from the University of Wisconsin-Madison, Juris Doctor from the John Marshall School of Law,
and an LLM in Taxation from The Boston University School of Law.
Bradley Migdal can be contacted by e-mail: Bradley.Migdal@CushWake.com
Amy Gerber, Executive Managing Director, Business Incentives Practice, Cushman & Wakefield
Amy Gerber brings over 20 years of industry experience and is an executive managing director in the Business Incentives Practice at Cushman & Wakefield. The practice helps companies negotiate with state and local governments to mitigate both up-front costs and ongoing taxes and expenses. Amy specializes in state incentive and tax negotiation and implementation. She utilizes her state and local tax background when working with economic development teams to interpret and amend tax statutes that generate significant operating and tax savings for her clients.
Amy has led and managed numerous multistate incentive negotiation engagements for both office and industrial projects for clients and has also led the efforts to modify state incentive legislation on behalf of her clients. She came to Cushman & Wakefield from Jones Lang LaSalle. Prior to joining Jones Lang LaSalle, she worked at KPMG, LLP with the State and Local Tax Practice/Strategic Relocation and Expansion Services division.
EDUCATION AND PROFESSIONAL AFFILIATIONS:
Amy Gerber holds a Bachelor of Science degree in Accounting from Montana State University. She is a board member with the
Georgia Chamber of Commerce and was a member of Leadership Georgia class of 2016. She is also a member of the Georgia Association
of Manufacturers.
Amy Gerber can be contacted by e-mail: Amy.Gerber@cushwake.com
Benton C. Blaine, Vice President, Infrastructure & Economic Development, McGuireWoods Consulting LLC
As a vice president on McGuireWoods Consulting’s Infrastructure & Economic Development team, Benton Blaine assists companies in their expansion and development projects. His experience with site selection, incentives negotiation, and public-private partnerships allows him to provide value-added services to a range of internal company stakeholders including finance, operations, real estate, government relations, and tax.
Benton has successfully orchestrated inbound projects from countries such as China, Germany, Hungary, Israel, Italy, Switzerland, and the U.K., among others. In assisting inbound and U.S.-based companies, Benton has analyzed hundreds of locations for companies across 30+ U.S. states and secured capital savings and/or mitigated risk that has had a direct reduction in a client’s initial or recurring costs.
The business acumen developed as a senior manager at a “Big Four” accounting firm, licensed real estate broker, and on a Fortune 500 company’s real estate legal team has helped Benton locate headquarters, manufacturing, chemical, distribution, and office projects.
Benton has been a speaker or presenter for events such as the SelectUSA Summit and Area Development’s Meet the Consultant, covering topics including pitfalls when entering the U.S. market and creating win-win solutions for companies and economic development agencies.
Benton Blaine can be contacted by e-mail: bblaine@mwcllc.com
Kathy Mussio, Co-Founder and Managing Partner, Atlas Insight
Kathy Mussio is a co-founder and managing partner of Atlas Insight. With over 25 years of combined experience as a management, incentive, and site selection consultant, she is widely considered an industry expert in the site selection and incentive negotiation business. Kathy provides location strategy for both industrial and commercial clients, with a focus on Atlas’ manufacturing clients.
Kathy has conducted successful negotiations for some of the world’s largest corporations. She brings her years of incentive negotiation and management experience to ensure that incentive packages negotiated for Atlas’ clients can also be realized at their maximum value. For clients’ site selection needs, Kathy works with companies to provide data, analysis, and the guidance to help the decision of where to locate, expand, or consolidate. While many of Atlas’ clients are large corporations in the Fortune 500®, Kathy also works with small to mid-sized companies, and with project sizes large and small.
In the early part of her career, Kathy focused on real estate development and the associated zoning and land use entitlements that are typically required. This also entailed working with development-related tax credits, such as New Markets Tax Credits and Brownfield Tax Credits. Kathy is a reliable opinion source for the trade publications and national newspapers, including The Wall Street Journal. She has also written numerous expert articles for regional and national publications. She has been a frequent guest of state, regional, and local governments to assist with development of strategic plans to attract business investment. Before co-founding Atlas Insight, Kathy was a regional practice leader in the Business Location Incentive and Site Selection group at BDO.
EDUCATION:Kathy can be contacted by e-mail: kmussio@atlasinsight.com
Dennis Shea, President/Publisher, Area Development Magazine
Dennis J. Shea is President and owner of Halcyon Business Publications, Inc (HBP) since 1986. Founded in 1965 the company today specializes in economic development media including leading enterprises in publishing (Area Development magazine), a suite of online media (areadevelopment.com ) and has organized more than 45 best practices conference events (Consultants Forum) and workshops open to economic developers.
He also is a co-founder and Managing Director of FastFacility LLC the developer of both FastFacility.com a free access searchable building and site database and FastGIS, custom built GIS database applications for economic development agencies.
He has been a featured speaker at professional ED conferences throughout North America, Europe and Asia and maintains affiliations with several economic development associations in the U.S., Mexico and Canada.
Mr. Shea is a graduate of Long Island University, is married with two sons, Justin and Matthew (who develop and manage Area Development’s website and online services) and is active in several charitable organizations including the Wounded Warrior Project.
Dennis Shea
President/Publisher
Area Development Magazine
FastFacility / FastGIS
400 Post Ave, Westbury, NY 11590
Ph: 800 735 2732 x 208
dshea@areadevelopment.com