Stephanie Hawkinson
Stephanie Hawkinson joined Ponterre Group in 2011 after honing her non-profit redevelopment skills during an eleven-year tenure with the City of Saint Paul as a Senior Project Manager in the Department of Planning and Economic Development. Although she juggled multiple projects in that capacity, her main focus was providing Federal financing for affordable housing projects and shepherding them through the public approval process.
She has worked with multiple financing sources, including Low Income Housing Tax Credits, tax-exempt revenue bonds, HOME and Community Development Block Grant funds. Her experience ranges from small single-family houses to large, multi-million dollar apartment complexes.
Stephanie reviewed project proposals seeking either grant or loan financing, assisted non-profit groups with the creation of budgets, evaluated budgets, underwrote projects for credit worthiness and followed projects through to completion. To this end she worked effectively with a diverse range of people from small non-profit groups serving minority populations to large non-profits working on multi-million dollar projects to investment bankers, elected government officials and bond attorneys.
Prior to her public sector work, Ms. Hawkinson was the Executive Director of a fledgling non-profit in Green Bay, Wisconsin that was charged with transforming an unsafe, substandard business district into a thriving commercial destination. In this role Stephanie instituted budgeting practices to assure accountability, employed high-level organizational skills to set the non-profit on a path to meeting its goals, and developed a loyal following by many volunteers who made the goals attainable.
Stephanie has proven success with fostering relationships between developers, funding communities, residents, and existing businesses, evidenced by achieving national recognition for the business district project.
Stephanie graduated cum laude from Duke University and earned a dual Masters Degrees in Social Work and Public Affairs from the University of Minnesota.
