Fieldman, Rolapp: Sixty years later, still going strong

Fieldman, Rolapp & Associates is celebrating its 60th anniversary as a California municipal finance mainstay while pursuing a strategy to become a regional player across the Western United States.

Founded in 1966 by the late Bill Fieldman, the firm began as a one-man shop focused on land-based bond transactions and water agencies.

Since then, Fieldman has grown into one of California's top independent financial advisory firms. Adam Bauer, president and chief executive officer, leads the employee-owned firm along with principals Jim Fabian and Anna Sarabian.

Along the way, some of the state's most well-known municipal finance professionals have worked there, including the late Tim Schaefer, former deputy state treasurer.

Other well-known alumni of the firm include former partner , who left to become Los Angeles County's assistant treasurer-tax collector. Wiles, who serves on the Municipal Securities Rulemaking Board, retired from the county last year.

Loretta Sanchez worked for the firm before she was elected to the U.S. House of Representatives. Some Fieldman alumni have shifted to banking, including Katie Koster, who now works for First Southwest and Jin Kim, who works for BofA.

Today, under the leadership of Bauer, who took the helm in 2016, the firm has 21 employees and has expanded its footprint into New Mexico, Hawaii, and Arizona.

Fieldman acquired G.L. Hicks Financial in January 2025, a move that significantly bolstered the firm's healthcare district practice and provided a strategic base in Orem, Utah.

The anniversary comes as the firm mourns the passing of Larry Rolapp in April.

Rolapp joined the firm in 1977 and became a name partner in 1980, playing a pivotal role in establishing the firm's dominance in the California land-secured financing market, particularly following the enactment of the Mello-Roos Act in 1982.

Bauer credited Rolapp with building the foundation that allowed the firm to diversify into general obligation deals and continuing disclosure services, which now provide a buffer against market cycles.

"We are looking to develop into more of a regional player," Bauer said, noting significant active projects in Albuquerque and Santa Fe, New Mexico, and a role as financial advisor for the city and county of Honolulu.

It is also closing on a deal in Arizona in late May or June, Bauer said.

"We are going to take what we have done in California and apply it to our regional expansion," he said.

When Bauer was named to lead the firm in 2016, he told The Bond Buyer working in the firm's top slot was something to build a career around and he could see himself staying through retirement.

Like Tom DeMars, the prior CEO who is now a managing principal, Bauer has a succession plan to make sure the firm continues long beyond him.

"I told my team I am going to work at least until 2045 unless they can kick me out," Bauer said.

He said his future plans for the firm include the regional expansion, but not at the expense of being one of the go-to municipal advisors in California.

Fieldman, who died in 1998, likely never imagined what the firm would evolve into today.

The founder specialized in water agency work, and when Rolapp came in, it added land-based transactions and the firm grew with the expansion in the dirt bond sector wrought by specific pieces of legislation.

The so-called Mello-Roos law, enacted in 1982 and named after its legislative sponsors, authorized in California a special property tax levied through community facilities districts to allow local governments to fund infrastructure like schools, parks and roads in new developments. Approved by two-thirds of voters in the district, this tax appears on property tax bills as a special assessment charge set for a 30-year period, enough to pay off bonds issued to finance the infrastructure.

The special assessment district taxes and Mello-Roos resulted in a bond category that Fieldman specializes in.

Since the early days, Fieldman has expanded into a full service municipal advisory firm, serving cities, the state, other agencies and K-12 clients.

When Schaefer joined as a generalist, it broaden the firm's reach further, Bauer said.

Rolapp was a mentor to both DeMars and Bauer.

"Larry hired me in 1988 when I was in between jobs," said DeMars, who was laid off in 1986 after the Black Monday market crash.

Working for Rolapp ended up shaping the trajectory of DeMars' career.

At his former position for a now defunct underwriting firm, DeMars was an associate who wasn't involved in client-facing work. Rolapp took him to client conferences and introduced him, so he could either aid with the work or take it on later as he gained experience.

"Larry put a good structure in place and then relied on those people to put it into play," Bauer said.

Bauer had known Rolapp since he was a child, because his mother, Robin McDonnell, who was executive director of the redevelopment agency of Riverside County; and stepfather, Paul McDonnell, a municipal advisor, had worked with Rolapp.

"I knew I wanted to get into public finance because of Larry and how (ethically) he conducted himself," Baer said.

And then came Wiles, Fabian and Bauer, who specialized in K-12.

"We all came on within a four-year period, which brought a rapid expansion to the firm's talent pool," Bauer said.

They expanded into doing general obligation deals, which Bauer said provided a buffer from boom-and-bust cycles that occur in other sectors. They also added the firm's continuing disclosure practice, further diversifying.

"That has rounded out our client base to create more consistency year-over-year in the numbers," he said.

Fieldman ranked fourth on the league table for California municipal advisors in 2025, credited by LSEG with $4.79 billion of par. It ranked fifth in the Far West region, credited with $4.93 billion.

Though Bauer is focused on growing the footprint regionally into five or six states, he does see the potential for it to grow to a national firm, he said.