I owned and operated Bischoff Construction Inc., completing residential and light commercial projects for over 15 years. During that period of time I experienced several downturns in the economy, periods of time in which project funding became hard to obtain.
In response to these difficult periods I focused a lot of attention on learning the various options available to fund projects. As I learned more I moved from construction into consultancy, helping other builders and developer obtain the funding they needed to complete their projects.
Many of the projects I worked on included the use of tax credits. A few of the projects I worked on are listed below:
Obtained a $750,000 Low-Income Housing Tax Credit ("LIHTC") allocation for client for a project, which was the first in the state of Indiana to combine the LIHTC and Historic Tax Credit
Obtained a $5,000,000 LIHTC allocation for client's residential housing project.
Completed development package that enabled client to obtain $750,000 loan package for retail facility.
Completed development package that enabled client to obtain $550,000 funding package for commercial facility.
During this period I also served as director of development for a convenience store franchisor. In addition to arranging financing for new store development, I developed a multivariate formula for estimating convenience store sales, which I incorporated into the market studies I completed for all new stores.
Even after concluding my work with the Convenient Food Mart franchisor, I conducted convenience store market studies for a number of clients including:
Fast Max
Convenient Food Marts
Metro Mart
Small Business Information Center (ISU)
It was fifteen years ago that a former business client, a lawyer, approached me and asked if I could help his firm and another on a class action law suit involving construction. My job was to estimate damage and cost to repair and testify in court.
That was the first time I had done any work in the legal arena. After the defense attorney completed his examination of me he requested a recess, walked out in the hall and agreed to settle the plaiintiffs' claim for $6,000,000.
Following that success I was asked to work on other cases. One day an attorney took me to the scene of a traffic accident. I told the attorney I didn't know anything about traffic accidents but I would look into it. That began the many years of study of traffic accident investigation documented in my curriculum vitae.
To date I have completed 1200 traffic accident investigations/reconstructions and provided expert testimony in numerous local and Indianapolis courts.
Periodically, I still assist businesses by conducting research, compiling market studies and assisting clients with complex tax credit funding mechanisms.
My last two Terre Haute projects of this nature included a business plan for Terre Haute Brewing Company and the unsuccessful effort to restore the Terre Haute House.
The work I do requires a wide range of skills--the ability to compile and understand large amounts of complex information, to use that information to arrive at a best fit solution for a given problem and to communicate the results of my analysis in a clear and concise manner.