Title: Executive Director
Firm: UBS Financial Services Inc.
Age: 39
Chris Bergstrom, a 16-year public finance veteran, has concentrated much of his career on airport and aviation-related financings.
His accomplishments include working with Maine’s Portland International Jetport in 2019 to bring the first designated green-bond offering for a U.S. airport, a $58.5 million deal.
“Airports represent one of the more continually savvy corners of the municipal marketplace, and the type of infrastructure the public often thinks about,” Bergstrom said in a phone interview from Sweden, where he was visiting family.
As a transportation specialist who has senior managed more than $14 billion of municipal bonds, Bergstrom’s troubleshooting has included working closely with clients to get them through crises, including the recent COVID-19 pandemic and the global financial crisis a decade ago.
“The duration was so unknown,” Bergstrom said of the pandemic. “How much liquidity is there and is there enough to cover debt service and operations? As a society, we were wandering a bit in the dark, wondering what was going to come out the other side.”
The Portland green deal refunded the city’s callable Series 2010 bonds, which it issued to fund construction of the airport’s terminal renovation and expansion project. Work finished in 2012 and the U.S. Green Buildings Council at the time certified it as LEED gold. The terminal building was only the second in the U.S. to receive such certification.
Bergstrom lives in Larchmont, New York, with his spouse and two children, where he belongs to a Parent Teacher Association and coaches youth baseball and soccer.
