OUR TEAM

Don Rice
Chief Executive Officer
Rice Financial Products Company

Don Rice founded Rice Financial Products Company in 1993 and serves as its Chief Executive Officer.  Under Mr. Rice’s leadership, Rice Financial has provided underwriting services on municipal bond transactions totaling more than $415 billion and has executed derivative transactions with an aggregate notional amount of more than $30 billion.

Mr. Rice’s career in the municipal bond business began at BAML, where he focused on applying taxable fixed income interest rate swap concepts to create new products for the municipal markets.  Mr. Rice was a Director in municipal derivatives, new products and variable rate products.  His many accomplishments while at BAML also include a large, complex swap-based refunding of 200 separate municipal loans for the District of Columbia, which was an Institutional Investor Deal of the Year.

After forming Rice Financial in 1993 and securing a foothold in the derivatives market, Mr. Rice dramatically expanded the firm’s focus to focus on municipal bond underwriting and taxable fixed income trading.  In 1998, he spearheaded the firm’s acquisition of a successful broker/dealer, Apex Securities.  He oversaw the subsequent acquisition of the municipal operations of Pryor, Counts & Co. in 1999.  Under his guidance, the firm moved from being the 32nd ranked municipal bond underwriter in 2006 (full credit to each manager, negotiated issues), to 19th in 2016. Today, Rice Financial employs some of the most experienced sales and trading professionals in the municipal finance industry, averaging 26 years of experience.

In 2009, Mr. Rice created a new subsidiary, Rice Capital Access Program, LLC, to serve the U.S. Department of Education as Designated Bonding Authority for the Historically Black College and University Capital Financing Program.  To date, Rice Capital Access has facilitated $1.3 billion in direct loans for public and private higher education institutions through the Program. While these loans were not publicly offered, the banking and credit analysis services are analogous to those performed by a senior manager on a tax-exempt bond transaction.

As a municipal bond underwriter, Mr. Rice has established a reputation for creative problem solving.  A $114 million bond transaction senior managed by Rice Financial for the Jackson Public School District in Mississippi received the Bond Buyer’s Southeast Region Deal of the Year award.  It was the largest school district bond financing ever completed in the state of Mississippi.

Mr. Rice has received significant notice for his work over the years. His transactions have received award recognition from a number of industry specific publications.  He has received substantial notice in general business publications such as Fortune Magazine as well as numerous awards, including Entrepreneur of the Year by FINRA.

Mr. Rice received an MBA with Distinction from Harvard Business School and a bachelor’s degree in engineering with honors from Kettering University.  He also holds honorary doctorates from the University of Arkansas and Arkansas Baptist University.  Mr. Rice was appointed by the Governor of New York and confirmed by the State Senate to serve on the Board of Directors for the New York State Thruway Authority, and its subsidiary, the New York State Canal Corporation, where he also serves as Chair of the Audit Committee. In recent years, Mr. Rice served on the Board of Directors for Kettering University, New York City’s United Neighborhood Houses, New York City’s Administration for Children Services Office of Head Start, which oversees the Head Start program for 20,000 children.

William Fisher
Chief Executive Officer
Email Mr. Fisher

Mr. Fisher was named CEO of Rice Capital Access Program, LLC, in 2009. In this role, he serves as the Designated Bonding Authority for the U. S. Department of Education’s HBCU Capital Financing Program.

Mr. Fisher is a graduate of Howard University and provides investment banking services to higher education clients nationwide. He served as the original Designated Bonding Authority for the HBCU Capital Financing Program from 1996–1998 during his tenure with Pryor, McClendon, Counts, processing several of the first HBCU loans under the program. During his career Mr. Fisher has participated in transactions for more than 50 different HBCU issuers. The numerous HBCU institutions he has served as senior managing underwriter include Morehouse College, Tuskegee University, and Howard University. Mr. Fisher also oversaw a $66 million swap transaction for Jackson State University and has provided financial advisory services to Jackson State and Grambling State University. He has also served Clark Atlanta University and Tuskegee University as structuring agent and financial advisor in connection with HBCU loan programs.

In earlier positions, Mr. Fisher was an advisor with Public Financial Management (PFM) and a manager for M. R. Beal & Company. He holds a JD from Emory University School of Law and a BBA from Howard University.

Emory Dawson
Chief Credit Officer

Veteran credit analyst Emory Dawson joined Rice Capital Access in 2010.  Mr. Dawson has 39 years of experience in municipal credit analysis, most recently with HRF Associates, a New Jersey based financial services consulting firm.  In a previous position, he was Director of Municipal Underwriting at American Capital Access (ACA)

Mr. Dawson began his career at Moody’s Investors Service, serving as a Review Analyst for seven years.  In this role, he supervised the review and analysis of and assigned credit ratings to transactions for all types of major issuers, including major airports, public power agencies and large water and sewer issuers.  Later positions included Director of Municipal Research at Marine Midland Bank (four years), Managing Director at Union Bank of Switzerland (8 years), Director of Municipal Underwriting at American Capital Access (10 years) and Senior Vice President at HRF Associates (one year).

At ACA, he syndicated and reinsured virtually all transactions underwritten at the company over a 10-year span, including private colleges and universities, private K-12 schools, transportation facilities, ports and airports, sports facilities, bio-mass and thermal energy facilities, and health care facilities, among others.  He marketed credit enhancement products, sourced high yield transactions worthy of credit enhancement, and credit underwrote and managed the documentation and booking of high yield transactions for the company’s portfolio of municipal, project finance, and not-for-profit taxable and tax-exempt securities.  Over the course of his career at ACA, he sourced 33% of the company’s $7 billion book of high yield municipal and project finance business and was responsible for 30% of the company’s total booked premium ($400 million).  He also created and executed reinsurance agreements meeting state insurance and rating agency guidelines for the syndication of all exposure above ACA’s single risk limit.

Mr. Dawson received a BA in political science from Morehouse College and a master’s degree in regional planning from Syracuse University.

Andy Moleon
Lead Credit Officer

Andy Moleon is Lead Credit Officer at Rice Capital Access and a Senior Vice President with Rice Financial. Mr. Moleon has 20 years of experience in the banking and capital markets. Before joining Rice, his roles included market risk management at Goldman Sachs, research at Moody’s Investors Service, credit risk management at Morgan Stanley and energy service/government equipment underwriting at Bank of America Merrill Lynch. Mr. Moleon holds a Master’s Degree in Public Administration with a specialization in Public Policy and Finance from New York University as well as a Bachelor’s Degree in Finance and Investments from Baruch College-CUNY. The son of immigrant parents from Haiti, Mr. Moleon speaks both French and Haitian Creole.

Vikas Dayal joined Rice Financial in October 2009. Mr. Dayal was formerly employed with JPMorgan as an analyst where he provided analytical support and transactional execution for over $1 billion of senior managed municipal bond and swap transactions for higher education and non-profit clients. Before joining Rice Financial, Mr. Dayal worked at a financial advisory/project development firm as an Associate responsible for working with businesses and governments in emerging markets seeking funding for potential projects and expansion.

Mr. Dayal received a BA degree in economics from the University of Michigan and an executive MBA from Columbia University.

Keisha McLaughlin-Eleazar joined Rice Financial’s Higher Education Finance Group in 2020 from HSBC Bank USA. Ms. McLaughlin-Eleazar has 19 years of experience in financial services, including positions with Mackay Shields, UBS, Deutsche Bank and JPMorgan Chase Bank. Her specific areas of expertise include compliance and operational risk assessment, document management and review, client service and remediation, borrower screening, and booking and settlement of domestic and international bank debt trades. Ms. McLaughlin-Eleazar received a BA in Criminal Justice from John Jay College in New York.

Murielle Foyou joined Rice Financial in 2016.  She currently assists Vikas Dayal and Will Fisher in the firm’s role as Designated Bonding Authority (DBA) for the U.S. Department of Education HBCU Capital Financing Program.  Ms. Foyou is actively involved in the day-to-day responsibilities of the firm’s role as DBA, regularly interacting with HBCU clients, the Department of Education and related banking institutions to ensure loan applications and related projects and tasks remain on track. Ms. Foyou received her Bachelor’s Degree in Public Communications from the University of Vermont.