DANDAN ZOU
SENIOR PARTNER
Dandan Zou is the founder and CEO of Mainstay Global, a marketing consulting firm specializing in foreign direct investment in the U.S., and Texas Investment Regional Center, a USCIS designated EB-5 regional center in Austin, Texas. She serves as the Chair of the Invest in Texas Initiative (IITI), a statewide non-profit trade organization which promotes the Texas Investment landscape internationally, and is an active member of the Association to Invest in the USA (IIUSA), the national EB-5 Regional Center trade association. She also serves on the board of the Greater Austin Chinese Chamber of Commerce.
Mrs. Zou has extensive experience in international investment consulting, business and project management (certified PMP), as well as direct involvement in real estate investment. Originally from China, she is fluent in English, Mandarin and Cantonese. Mrs. Zou is frequently invited to be a speaker and panelist both domestically and in China on issues related to the EB-5 program.
She is very active in the Austin Chinese community and is always looking for opportunities to give back by organizing events and volunteering for local charities.
RICHARD W. ALLOCCA
DIRECTOR OF OPERATIONS
Richard W. Allocca has wide business and international experience in a variety of fields, ranging from real estate to technology, from international business development to government relations, and different aspects of finance.
Mr. Allocca graduated from Yale with a BA in behavioral science, and served as an officer in the US Air Force. While at Strategic Air Command HQS, he took the initiative to develop a computer program to replace a pencil and paper information gathering function, using the primitive computers of the past, which was very advanced at the time. Later, Richard was an officer in the Foreign Service, serving in three different US Embassies for a total of 9 years, developing lifelong relationships with international movers and shakers. Still later, he joined a small group developing international business projects in iron and steel, oil and gas, LNG, and wireless telecom, where he combined creativity in business with entrepreneurial spirit.
In developing his own abilities, Richard took courses in real estate, including in the development and financing of the self storage business. Mr. Allocca also gave back to cross-cultural communities; he has helped and mentored entrepreneurs and government and business leaders, including successful executives in their respective fields. Mr. Allocca has known and served as an advisor to Dandan Zou for over twenty years.
H. RONALD KLASKO
IMMIGRATION ATTORNEY PARTNER, KLASKO, RULON, STOCK & SELTZER, LLP
H. Ronald Klasko (Ron) is recognized by businesses, universities, hospitals, scholars, investors and other lawyers as one of the country’s leading immigration lawyers. A founding member of Klasko, Rulon, Stock & Seltzer, LLP and its Managing Partner, he has practiced immigration law exclusively over three decades.
Under his leadership, the firm was chosen with five other firms by Chambers Global in 2006, 2007, 2008 and 2009 as the top U.S. business, hospital and university immigration law firm. Ron, himself, was named as the world’s most respected corporate immigration lawyer (The International Who’s Who of Business Lawyers 2007 and 2008) and one of the country’s top immigration lawyers by clients and other immigration lawyers who said he is “revered for coming up with unique arguments that can save a client” (Chambers Global).
A former National President of the American Immigration Lawyers Association (AILA), Ron served as General Counsel of that organization for three Presidents and has been a member of its Board of Governors since 1980. He has served as National Chair of AILA’s U.S. Department of Labor Liaison Committee and Business Immigration Committee, and he served as National Chair of that organization’s INS General Counsel Liaison Committee, Department of Labor Liaison Committee, and the National Task Forces on Labor Certifications, H-1 visas, L-1 visas and Employer Sanctions. He presently serves as Chair of the EB-5 Committee.
RONALD R. FIELDSTONE
SECURITY ATTORNEY, PARTNER OF ARNSTEIN & LEHR LLP
Fieldstone R. Fieldstone is a member of the Real Property, Probate and Trust and the Tax Law Sections of The Florida Bar. Mr. Fieldstone has published numerous articles and has been a lecturer in the fields of real estate, corporate, tax law and franchise law for the past 39 years. He currently practices primarily in the areas of corporate/securities and taxation law. He graduated from the Wharton School, University of Pennsylvania in 1971 and received joint MBA/JD degrees from Wharton School and University of Pennsylvania Law School in 1974.
Since 2009 Mr. Fieldstone has actively been involved in serving as corporate/securities counsel for multifaceted industries involving EB-5 immigrant visa investor offerings (“EB-5”). Mr. Fieldstone’s corporate/securities work includes the preparation of private placement memorandas and related documents. Mr. Fieldstone actively lectures and publishes in the EB-5 corporate/securities fields and serves on the Best Practices Committee of the IIUSA.
Mr. Fieldstone was a principal in a Blockbuster Video franchise that operated 25 stores in eight states from 1987 until October, 1995, when the business was sold to the franchisor. He is a principal of a multi-state lithotripsy company and was also a principal of Barnie’s Coffee and Tea, Inc., the owner of the Barnie’s operating system with approximately 80 corporate units and 20 franchised units from 2001 until 2004.
Mr. Fieldstone has extensive real estate holdings in the state of Florida and served as a managing partner of Landmark Residential from 1999 until 2008, which has served as the sponsor and manager of approximately 20,000 multi-family units in the states of Florida, Alabama, Georgia, Texas and North Carolina that were liquidated over a period of 12 years for in excess of one billion dollars.
DR. MICHAEL EVANS
ECONOMIST
Michael Evans has been providing economic forecasting and consulting to clients since 1981. Previously, Michael K. Evans was founder and president of Chase Econometric Associates, Inc.
In recent years, Evans, Carroll has specialized in providing the underlying economic analysis for EB-5 programs, determining the number of total permanent new jobs that will be created by new projects funded by foreign investors in EB-5 regional centers. We have become the leading firm offering this type of analysis.
Evans, Carroll uses the IMPLAN and RIMS II regional input/output models to calculate the employment or output multipliers for each project, but that is only one of many steps in preparing the overall report. The estimates of the direct new jobs created must be carefully calculated and can differ depending on local economic conditions, existing businesses in the area, and --in multi-dimensional projects -- the mix of retail shopping, restaurants, offices, hotels, and other commercial buildings.
Evans, Carroll has also provided economic analysis for a large variety of other types of businesses, including but not limited to dairy farms, aquaculture, oil and gas drilling, alternative energy sources, research and development facilities, shipbuilding, inland ports, movie production, community centers, sports stadiums, and many other business opportunities.