Edmund Soong, Executive Vice President
Certifications/Licenses: Series 50, Municipal Advisor Representative; Series 54, Municipal Advisor Principal and Series 65, Investment Adviser Representative

Mr. Soong has a diverse background, having worked at a leading national municipal law firm, investment banking firms, and – since 1997 – as a municipal advisor in the Los Angeles office of PRAG. He has advised on the marketing and structuring of a variety of municipal transactions, which include asset-backed, public power, transportation, wastewater, water, general obligations and leases. Mr. Soong has assisted clients with capital planning models, derivative products, reinvestment of proceeds, swaps and variable rate securities.

Mr. Soong received a B.S. in Computer Science from Columbia University’s School of Engineering and Applied Science.

Louis M. Choi, Senior Managing Director
Certifications/Licenses: Series 50, Municipal Advisor Representative; Series 54, Municipal Advisor Principal and Series 65, Investment Adviser Representative

Mr. Choi is an integral member of PRAG’s financing teams for a wide array of general governments and revenue issuers. His experience with these clients include general and transactional municipal advisory work, long-term financial and capital planning, debt administration and other ad hoc services.

Mr. Choi also serves as the primary resource for technical and quantitative analysis for PRAG’s West Coast financial advisory practice. His quantitative modeling experience includes the development of options-based models, Monte Carlo simulations, linear optimization structuring models and swap pricing models. He has applied these solutions to some of the most complex problems found in the municipal markets, such as the use of programmatic rate locks and option valuations for callable stepped-coupon bond structures.

Mr. Choi has acquired the MSRB’s Series 50 designation as a municipal advisor. Additionally, he is a Registered Investment Advisor and acts as the primary investment advisor for PRAG’s Los Angeles office.

Prior to joining PRAG, Mr. Choi was an investment banker in the public finance departments of Bear, Stearns & Co. Inc. and Banc of America Securities LLC. Before his municipal securities career began, Mr. Choi was a software solutions developer in the avionics industry. He also holds bachelor’s degrees from the University of California, Los Angeles in Physics and Biochemistry.

Michelle Issa, Senior Managing Director
Certifications/Licenses: Series 50, Municipal Advisor Representative and Series 54, Municipal Advisor Principal

Ms. Issa joined PRAG in October 2009 after 22 years of broad-based public finance experience in California, Florida and Oregon with investment banking firms. She has experience at the state and local government level, encompassing a wide variety of municipal bond credits and financing structures.

At PRAG, Ms. Issa advises on the general obligation bond program of the State of California, one of the largest issuers of debt in the municipal market. She has also served as a municipal advisor on general fund financings for a wide variety of local governments including the cities of Los Angeles, Oakland, Pasadena, San Diego and San Jose, and the counties of Alameda, Los Angeles, Orange, San Diego and San Bernardino. Some of the revenue bond issuers she has advised are the Los Angeles Department of Water and Power and the Los Angeles County Metropolitan Transportation Authority.

Prior to joining PRAG, Ms. Issa senior-managed general obligation bonds, pension obligation bonds, revenue bonds and certificates of participation, appropriation bonds, highway user tax bonds, lottery revenue bonds, higher education revenue bonds, tobacco bonds and cashflow notes including RANs and TANs as well as a wide variety of local government revenue bonds including sales tax, water and wastewater and tax-increment bonds.

Ms. Issa has a B.S. in Economics from the Wharton School of the University of Pennsylvania and an M.B.A. from the University of California at Berkeley.

Jeb Spengler, Managing Director
Certifications/Licenses: Series 50, Municipal Advisor Representative

Mr. Spengler joined PRAG in 2023 after spending the previous 4 years as a global infrastructure credit analyst at Fitch Ratings. Mr. Spengler has been in the public finance industry for a total of 23 years, having spent 19 of them at various investment banking firms since 2000. His experience includes the issuance and structuring of utility revenue bonds (public power, water, sewer, solid waste), GO bonds, RANS, TANS, COPs, POBs, and pooled borrowing programs.

Mr. Spengler holds an M.B.A. from the Foster School of Business at the University of Washington and a B.S. in Business Administration (Finance) and a minor in Economics from the University of Montana.

Jocelyn Mortensen, Senior Managing Director
Certifications/Licenses: Series 50, Municipal Advisor Representative; Series 54, Municipal Advisor Principal and Series 65, Investment Adviser Representative

Ms. Mortensen joined PRAG and established its Oakland, California office in late 2005. Prior to her tenure at PRAG, she worked as an investment banker for 18 years for a number of national investment banking firms and has been involved in the sale of municipal bonds for issuers in 12 states throughout the country.

Ms. Mortensen’s experience includes general obligation and other tax and/or general fund-backed financing programs such as lease revenue financings and pension obligation bonds. She also has experience with a variety of revenue financing vehicles, including surface transportation, airport, and water and sewer enterprise programs. She has assisted several issuers in establishing new credits or reintroducing credits long absent from the capital markets, and has deep experience assisting clients in procuring and negotiating a variety of bank credit facilities supporting both new and existing variable rate and commercial paper programs. Since 2017 some of her advisory clients at PRAG are the cities of Fremont, Los Angeles, Richmond, and San Jose, the City and County of San Francisco, Los Angeles World Airports, Norman Y. Mineta San Jose International Airport, the Los Angeles Wastewater System, and the Oregon Department of Transportation.

Ms. Mortensen holds a B.A. in English and an M.B.A. in Finance from the University of California at Berkeley.