Philip Dotts

Phil Dotts is the President of Public FA, Inc., an independent financial advisor to public, non-profit, and corporate debt issuers. Phil formed PFA in 2000 after spending twenty-five years in corporate and public finance work including stints with major bank holding companies in North Carolina and Alabama and as a partner in a regional investment banking firm. Since its formation, PFA has consistently been one of the leading Financial Advisors in Alabama and in the Southeast. Public FA has clients in over thirty states that include state and local governments, counties, utility boards, universities, airport authorities, and housing authorities in addition to several corporate clients.

Phil has had extensive experience in most areas of public and corporate finance. He has managed taxable and tax-exempt financings for public issuers of all kinds including housing, healthcare, public utilities, higher education, airports, municipalities, and public school systems, as well as for numerous industrial projects. PFA also provides on-going financial advisory and consulting services for a number of governmental clients in addition to its transactional work.

Phil has had direct experience in multi-family development and the development of commercial/industrial properties. Through a related entity he has been a principal in partnerships that have developed over fifteen hundred units of housing in a four-state area, including both market rate and affordable housing transactions. In 2006, he was involved in the first acquisition and simultaneous restructuring of a historic, Section 8 elderly project in Alabama, utilizing low income housing tax credits and historic tax credits. He has also had experience as an investor partner and principal in the development of over twenty commercial and industrial projects.

Phil serves on the Boards of First Commercial Bank and the ExChange Bank of Alabama and was formerly on the Advisory Board of the Federal Home Loan Bank of Atlanta and the Fannie Mae Advisory Board for Alabama. Phil served on the Board of Commissioners of the Huntsville Housing Authority for seven years, during which time he served as Chairman for three years. He also is a founding board member and serves as Chairman of the Board of Neighborhood Concepts, Inc., a non-profit (501c-3) developer of housing and other community oriented projects.

Phil is the immediate past Chair of the Business Council of Alabama and continues to serve on the BCA Executive Committee and on the Board of Progress Pac. He also serves on the Governing Board of A+ College Ready, as well as on the Boards of the A+ Education Foundation, Leadership Alabama, the Huntsville Downtown Redevelopment Authority and The Episcopal Foundation of the Diocese of Alabama.

In 2009, Phil was appointed by Governor Riley to the Alabama Commission on Higher Education and was confirmed by the Alabama State Senate in early 2010.

Phil is a 1972 graduate of Davidson College with a degree in economics and a 1980 graduate of the School of Banking of the South at Louisiana State University. He also was the recipient of a National Science Foundation research grant to study economics at the University of Minnesota. Phil is a Certified Independent Public Financial Advisor (CIPFA), one of only two to hold that designation in the State of Alabama, and one of only one hundred and sixteen in the United States.

Phil has been happily married to Kathleen Wells Dotts, an Honors English teacher at Huntsville High School, for 38 years. They have two daughters, Elizabeth Dotts Fleming and Sarah Dotts Barley. He enjoys golf more than anything, particularly when he plays well. His co-workers often pray for his happiness on the golf course. Art, fine wine, reading, travel, weekends in Sewanee, and following Philadelphia sport teams are among his other passions.