Director, Center for Public Management
Executive Director, Great Lakes Environmental Center
College Fellow
Maxine Goodman Levin College of Urban Affairs

k.e.obrien@csuohio.edu

Kevin O’Brien is the Executive Director of the Great Lakes Environmental Finance Center and the Center for Public Management in the Maxine Goodman Levin College of Urban Affairs at Cleveland State University. For over 30 years, Kevin has worked in the fields of public and environmental finance, public management and economic development. With the Levin College of Urban Affairs for the past 24 years, Kevin has undertaken a wide variety of government and school finance, management improvement, fiscal and economic impact analysis, privatization, infrastructure planning and finance, economic development, and environmental finance assignments with local, state and federal government and not-for-profit clients. In 1993, he was appointed by the Ohio General Assembly to direct the Ohio Task Force on Regional Competitiveness and Cooperation, a state legislative Commission designed to explore models to encourage regional economic Competitiveness in the global economy. He recently served as a member of the Cuyahoga County Transition Advisory Finance and Administration Workgroup and chair of the Tax Collection Subcommittee. He was author of the Report of the Findings of the Tax Collection Subcommittee Report. Prior to joining CSU, Kevin worked in the public finance industry on Wall Street and as a finance and development aide to the Mayor of New York City. He also worked various positions in public policy organizations, pubic interest, and state and federal government policy in Washington, D.C, Concord, N.H., Boston, Ma., and New York City. Kevin began his career working as a lobbyist on energy and environmental issues with consumer advocate Ralph Nader.

Kevin has served as a board member of the National Brownfields Association, the Ohio League of Conservation Voters, Greater Cleveland Community Shares, the Greater Cleveland Citizens League and the Greater Cleveland Citizens League Research Institute, as an editorial board member of Brownfields News Magazine, and a member of the government affairs committee of the United Way of Greater Cleveland. He serves as the President of the North Coast Ohio Chapter of the U.S. Lacrosse Foundation, the President of the North Coast Youth Lacrosse Association, and the Vice President of the Ohio Middle School Lacrosse Association. He serves on the U.S. EPA Environmental Finance Advisory Board (EFAB). He holds a Masters degree in Development Finance and Urban Planning from Columbia University.

Areas of Expertise:

• Best Practices and Benchmarking Studies
• Capital Improvement Planning
• City Management
• Debt Financing
• Economic Development Finance
• Economic Development Strategy
• Environmental Finance
• Fiscal Impact Analysis
• GASB Statement No. 34 Infrastructure Reporting
• Infrastructure Finance
• Job Classification Studies
• Local Government Tax Strategy
• Municipal Government Operations
• Municipal Services Consolidations
• Performance/Operations Reviews
• Primary and Secondary Education Finance
• Program Evaluations and Assessments
• Public Bond/Credit Rating Analysis and Process
• Public Finance
• Public Policy Development and Analysis
• Regional Economic Competitiveness
• Stadium Finance
• Survey Design and Development