Thomas J. Murphy
Trailhead Advisors
Thomas J. Murphy served as Chairman and Executive Director of the Dormitory Authority of the State of New York from 1995 to 2002. Under Mr. Murphy’s leadership, the Dormitory Authority was the largest issuer of tax-exempt debt for higher education and healthcare in the United States and managed a municipal bond portfolio with an asset value of more than $29 billion.
During his tenure at the Authority, Chairman Murphy led the merger of three healthcare financing authorities to provide a single issuer for all healthcare public finance in New York State and developed a credit tracking and surveillance monitoring program for a healthcare bond portfolio of $9.0 billion. Mr. Murphy was responsible for monitoring over 80 percent of all long-term hospital debt in New York State. He is a frequent panelist on issues relating to healthcare public finance and competitive market analysis and is a Member of the Board of the Primary Care Development Corporation, which finances access to primary care for medically undeserved communities in New York City and State.
The Authority served as the construction project management agency for the City University of New York, the New York City Health and Hospitals Corporation, the Metropolitan New York area court system, as well as many other State and City agencies and departments. During Mr. Murphy’s tenure, the Authority managed more than 850 projects valued at $4.4 billion and expended over $900 million on Authority-managed construction projects in 2001; nearly three times higher than the level when Mr. Murphy assumed the position of Executive Director and Chief Administrative Officer in 1998.
Prior to his appointment at the Dormitory Authority, Mr. Murphy was a partner in Decision Strategies Group, a corporate strategic planning and communications-consulting firm with clients including General Electric, IBM, New York State Realtors Association and Niagara Mohawk Power Corporation. He is a former partner and Senior Vice President of the Policy Economics Group, which developed tax micro-simulation models and provided federal and state tax revenue forecasting services to Washington trade associations, corporate clients and federal and state agencies, including the U.S. Treasury, the Business Roundtable, the Securities Industry Association, the Small Business Administration, Johnson & Johnson and the American Insurance Association. In 1986, Mr. Murphy co-managed the sale of the firm to KPMG.
He also served in the New York State Assembly as Director of Operations, Director of Research and Program Development and Budget Analyst for the Ways and Means Committee. Preceding that, he served as a consultant to the Office of Planning in Higher Education in the New York State Department of Education.
He attended the graduate School of Public Affairs at the State University of New York at Albany, and earned a degree in economics from Siena College. Mr. Murphy is a 1998 recipient of the Ellis Island Medal of Honor and received the Municipal Forum of New York’s Distinguished Career Achievement Award in Public Finance in 2001.
