James Grant
Editor of Grant's Interest Rate Observer

• Harry Mateer, Barclays Credit Research, U.S. Investment Grade Energy, Pipelines, and Metals & Mining
• Ryan Preclaw, CFA, Barclays Director Credit Strategy, 
• Y. C. Koh, Barclays, Vice President and and Senior Fixed Income Research Analyst covering US High Grade Electric Utilities Sector

Eric Green, Global Head Rates, FX and Commodities Research TD Securities

• High Frequency Economic's Carl Weinberg, Chief Economist
• Jim O'Sullivan, Chief US economist

Eric is Managing Director and Group Credit Officer for the U.S. Public Finance Group of Fitch Ratings. Mr. Friedland oversees the group's rating criteria and credit policy.

Mr. Friedland joined Fitch earlier this year with over 20 years experience working in the municipal bond market. Most recently, Mr. Friedland was the Director of Municipal Research at Belle Haven Investments where he worked in close collaboration with portfolio managers to provide thorough credit opinions and actionable trading recommendations to the market. In addition, he spent 15 years at Financial Security Assurance, a monoline bond insurer, in both the New York and San Francisco offices. Eric has experience with a diverse range of sectors, including water, sewer, electric, airport, toll road, project finance, tax-backed, redevelopment, Mello-Roos, higher education and health care and lease-backed financings.

For over two years prior to joining FSA, Eric was a senior analyst at Moody's Investors Service where he was responsible for municipal ratings in the Far West region. Before that he spent two years at Salomon Brothers, Inc. as a financial analyst in the municipal bond trading department. Eric began his career in the financial services industry as an auditor at Ernst and Whinney in New York.

Mr. Friedland is a former Chairman of the National Federation of Municipal Analysts and will serve as Chair of the national conference to be held in May 2010. He currently serves on the Board of Municipal Analysts Group of New York and will be Program Chair for the 2009-2010 term. Mr. Friedland holds an MBA from Duke University's Fuqua School of Business, an MS from Northeastern University's Graduate School of Accounting and a BA from SUNY Albany. He is a Chartered Financial Analyst (CFA) and a member of the New York Society of Security Analysts.