Title: Vice President
Firm: Goldman Sachs
Age: 35
Galen co-leads coverage of a number of important clients at Goldman Sachs that range from general government, school districts, transportation and utility districts.
Galen has worked on some of the more innovative and complex financings in his time at the firm. He worked on San Diego USD’s 2016 transaction that won the Bond Buyer's overall Deal of the Year Award. The transaction helped create a path for school districts in California to secure AAA ratings. Galen also helped create the idea and analysis for the amortization optimization and MADS smoothing for which the Bay Area Toll Authority won the Far West Region Deal of the Year in 2017.
One of Galen's first assignments as an analyst was to work with the City of Sacramento on building a new arena for the Sacramento Kings, a complex transaction which he ultimately saw through to its completion in 2015. Over a four-year span during which the NBA team changed ownership and various financing structures were explored, Goldman Sachs, in partnership with the city, identified and refined a unique lease revenue financing structure whereby a combination of team revenues, parking system revenues and ancillary property taxes from the development of the downtown arena site help support lease payments from the city’s General Fund.
Galen said he sees the future of public finance banking as "both exciting and terrifying."
"We are seeing technology deployed in various parts of the industry, especially the sales and trading side, that is incredibly powerful,” Galen said. “The terrifying thing is the idea of technology making us all obsolete. My favorite thing about this industry is all the wonderful people I get to work with — issuers, lawyers, advisors, and even a few of the other bankers — however, there are fewer and fewer chances to interact, as technology and competition forces us all to be more efficient."
Galen is a leader in his local community. Prior to working at Goldman Sachs, Galen was a math teacher at West Oakland Middle School through Teach For America, where he became passionate about educational equity. He then spent a year as a Coro Fellow in the Public Affairs program, the nation’s oldest independent leadership training program. Galen has volunteered with the City of Oakland, Oakland Parks and Recreation, and he currently serves as a board member of Camp Phoenix, a Bay Area nonprofit that provides a three-week outdoor overnight summer camp experience for underprivileged kids.
Galen holds a bachelors in finance with honors from the University of San Francisco. He was student body treasurer and his now-wife, Casey Farmer, was student body president.
