The New York City Municipal Water Finance Authority announced Tuesday that Thomas Paolicelli will be its new executive director.
Paolicelli is a vice president and senior analyst at Moody's Investors Service covering public infrastructure. He begins at the water authority on Sept. 2.
"The water authority has a very long history of very good management, so I'm looking to continue what has been a strong and stable enterprise," Paolicelli said.
Paolicelli, 42, has worked at the authority before, first as deputy treasurer, then as treasurer from 2000 to 2005. In this role, he coordinated bond issues and the authority's commercial paper program. The authority's capital program calls for $15.89 billion of spending from the current fiscal year through 2017. The authority expects to sell $2.3 billion of bonds annually through fiscal 2011.
"There's a big capital program to finance, so that's obviously the biggest challenge," he said.
Paolicelli earned a bachelor's degree in civil engineering from the University at Buffalo in 1988 and worked as a civil engineer on water and sewer projects in the Albany area before returning to school. He earned a master's degree in public administration from Nelson A. Rockefeller College of Public Affairs and Policy at the University at Albany in 1997.
He then worked at Moody's for about two years before going to the water authority, and returned to Moody's in 2005. At Moody's, he was the lead analyst for state revolving funds across the nation and also covered toll roads, airports, and public power utilities.
The authority, which sold $2.58 billion of debt last year, was the 12th largest issuer of bonds in the nation, according to Thomson Reuters.
Paolicelli replaces Patrick McCoy, who last month announced he would step down to return to the New York Metropolitan Transportation Authority as finance director.
The authority finances capital projects for New York City's water system, which provides approximately 1,185 million gallons a day to about nine million people in the metropolitan area.
