Key Equipment Finance announced that Art Hyman, senior vice president and manager of federal financing, is co-chairing the 35th Annual AGLF (Association for Governmental Leasing and Finance) Fall Conference Nov. 4-6, 2015, in St. Pete Beach, Fla. Key Government Finance is also a sponsor for the conference, which will focus on homeland security, and will also provide panelists for several discussions.

“Homeland security is an approximately $65 billion a year industry across all governments in the U.S., and it is growing pretty rapidly,” said Hyman, who is co-chairing the conference with Maneesh Jhunjhunwala, vice president of risk for De Lage Landen. “We’ve all heard about major corporate and federal agency hacks and their effect on individual identity and security elements. The government is struggling with how to pay for all of the assets needed to stay on the cutting edge of providing all of that security, and creative financing can provide solutions.”

The federal government procures about $200 billion of personal property (non real estate) assets a year, with financing used for less than 1% of those procurements, Hyman said. “That leaves a lot of room for the role of financing to help governments acquire the equipment they need to maintain data security and other critical functions.”

The AGLF Fall Conference will provide educational sessions on lease transactions in the federal space; cyber threats; homeland security; critical infrastructure security; municipal bonds, loans, leases and notes; understanding federal IT procurement; municipal brokers and municipal funding; federal finance; vendor municipal leasing; legal perspectives on federal leasing, and legal issues around securities, tax, federal and state law developments.

“The Fall AGLF conference will focus on the challenges faced by government officials while also educating attendees on the benefits and possibilities of creative financing in the public sector,” Hyman said. “We hope to attract not only regular AGLF members but also new members working in the government financing space.”