Keating, Heaney Named Chair, Vice Chair of RBDA Muni Division

WASHINGTON - The Regional Bond Dealers Association is keeping its current leadership on board for 2009, but has appointed Dan Keating of Samuel A. Ramirez & Co. and Steve Heaney of Stone & Youngberg LLC as chairman and vice chairman of its municipal bond division.

Dan Leland of Southwest Securities Inc. will head the taxable bond division, RBDA announced yesterday. The group has nearly doubled its members to 27 firms since it was created in March 2008.

The RBDA said it plans to focus on several issues this year, including financial regulatory reform, bank investment in the muni market, alternative minimum tax relief for muni bonds, solutions for illiquid auction-rate securities, and the need for regulation of independent muni financial advisers and other unregulated parties "who play a substantial role in the municipal bond market but currently operate outside the purview of any regulators."

The slate of officers includes Mark Medford of Vining Sparks LBG LP as chairman, Ken Williams of Stone & Youngberg as vice chairman, and Si Matthies of Wells Fargo Brokerage Services LLC as treasury-secretary.

Keating - who joined Ramirez this past fall as chief operating officer in charge of public finance, sales, and trading - formerly headed Bear, Stearns & Co.'s muni bond business. He also is past chairman of both the Municipal Securities Rulemaking Board and the muni bond division of The Bond Market Association, now the Securities Industry and Financial Markets Association.

Heaney is a managing director of public finance at Stone & Youngberg. Leland is executive vice president of Southwest Securities. Before joining that firm, he was president of Barre & Co. and is a former arbitrator for the NASD, now the Financial Industry Regulatory Authority.

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