Laura Lashley is a principal and co-founder of Development Dynamics (D2). She works with municipalities, private real estate developers, bankers, and underwriters on projects using tax increment financing, transportation development districts (TDD), community improvement districts (CID), neighborhood improvement districts (NID), Chapter 100 industrial revenue, Chapter 353 and BUILD Missouri revenue bonds. Her primary focus has been to provide tax expertise to clients in the telecommunications, food, pharmaceutical, retail, development, and other high-technology industries.
Laura’s analytical skills help quantify the results ending in financing or refinancing public and private projects including expressways, corporate headquarters, manufacturing facilities, and entertainment/retail facilities. She has been involved in the issuance of a variety of publicly offered municipal bonds, including general obligation, special tax revenue bonds, and tax increment revenue bonds.
In addition to her more than 20 years of consulting experience, Laura has served communities in Missouri as finance director and in Oregon as a treasury officer, and as an analyst for the Commonwealth of Kentucky. She served on the Government Finance Officers Association’s prestigious Debt Committee for three years and was the key leader in utilizing Missouri’s first transportation corporation for road improvements. Laura has been instrumental in several municipal financial structures for infrastructure improvements and also has served as a debt financing, budget, and incentives trainer at several municipal seminars.
Prior to co-founding D2, Laura was a senior manager in the state and local tax group of KPMG LLP, where she was responsible for building the Midwest business incentives group as the Midwest Practice Leader. She earned her B.S. in accounting and her M.P.A. from the University of Kentucky. Laura has served on several boards and committees including as a board member for the Missouri Economic Development Council, finance committee for her daughter’s school, and development committee at her church.