About Us

Charles Gabriel, Managing Director
Chuck is a thirty-year veteran of political forecasting for institutional investors and President of Capital Alpha Partners, the independent Washington research firm he co-founded in late 2007. In addition to election risk and overall policy-related investment strategy, he specializes in trends and developments impacting the mortgage, specialty finance and education sectors.

From 1995-2007, Chuck worked for Prudential Financial, ultimately serving as senior vice president and head of Prudential Equity Group (PEG) Washington Research. He joined Prudential in February 1995, twelve years after entering the field as a partner in The Washington Forum, a division of the former Drexel Burnham Lambert. He was cited on the Institutional Investor All American Team for the category of Washington research every year between 1994 and 2006 (ranked I.I. number one among hedge funds in 2004 and 2005) and has been a frequent guest on business-related television shows.

Before entering the field, he worked as a legislative assistant to Rep. Clarence J. Brown of Ohio. Chuck is a graduate of George Washington University, and has four daughters (Darcy, Hillary, Courtney, and Charlie) and a son (Matthew). He was born in Landstuhl, Germany on March 22, 1955 and is the son of former Air Force General Charles A. Gabriel, a member of President Ronald Reagan’s Joint Chiefs of Staff from 1982-1986.

James Lucier, Managing Director
James Lucier is a Managing Director at Capital Alpha Partners, LLC, where he leads the energy & environmental practice. Lucier provides predictive, insightful analysis of trends in Washington energy and climate policy for an array of clients including asset managers, private equity investors, commodity traders, and investment bankers. His fields of expertise are domestic U.S. energy production, alternative energy, energy infrastructure and electric power, especially as they are impacted by regulation, litigation, and the U.S. political cycle.

Before co-founding Capital Alpha Partners in 2007, Lucier was a Senior Vice President at Prudential Equity Group, where for nine years he was a member of Prudential’s well-known Washington strategy group (repeatedly ranked #1 by Institutional Investor Magazine) and of equity research teams covering oil & gas, power & utilities, and industrials.

Kim Monk, Managing Director
Kim brings over seventeen years of Washington-based experience working in the healthcare policy arena to her coverage of political developments impacting the healthcare industry. Prior to forming Capital Alpha Partners, Kim was the Senior Healthcare Analyst with Prudential Equity Group’s Washington Research Group. At Prudential, Kim focused on the regulatory and legislative issues related to managed care, healthcare services, pharmaceuticals, medical devices, and biotechnology.

Kim joined Prudential in July 2005 from Capitol Hill, where she spent seven years as a senior advisor, most recently with the Senate Budget Committee. Most of her years on the Hill were with the Senate Committee on Health, Education, Labor, and Pensions (“HELP”), which oversees the FDA, health insurance, the NIH, and public health. While on the Hill, Kim worked on major healthcare legislation and advised members on issues ranging from coverage for the uninsured, patient rights, Medicare reform and prescription drugs, patient safety, medical malpractice reform, and medical records privacy.

Prior to that, Kim was a health policy analyst for the Washington Business Group on Health, where she was responsible for providing in-depth analysis for large employer purchasers on issues such as Medicare and HIPAA. Kim started her career with Mercer Human Resource Consulting, where she spent six years advising large employers on issues such as quality and cost management, benefit plan design, disease management, and retiree health issues. Kim has a Master’s Degree in Health Services Management and Policy from George Washington University.

Byron Callan, Director
Byron covers defense, aerospace and industrial issues.  He came to Capital Alpha in December 2010, after three years on the buy-side, most recently as a Portfolio Manager at Lion’s Path Capital. Previously he was an analyst and co-founder of Perella Weinberg Partners’ Aerospace Defense Security investment fund from 2007-2010.

Byron was a Senior Vice President at Prudential Equity Group, LLC from September 2005-2007. He was responsible for equity research of the aerospace/defense sector. From 1993-September 2005, he was First Vice President at Merrill Lynch where he also covered the aerospace/defense stocks and was Global Coordinator for this sector. He covered electronic warfare and engineering stocks as an equity analyst at Prudential Securities from 1984-1993.

Byron’s research has been recognized by Institutional Investor magazine, where he was ranked for a total of 15 years. Recently, Byron was recognized in Defense News’s “100 Most Influential People in U.S. Defense,” which described him as “the leading independent financial analyst covering the sector.” In 2005, his research was cited by Alpha magazine. He testified before Congress in 2000 and appeared on “Wall Street Week with Louis Rukeyser” on three different occasions. Byron participated in strategic crisis exercises at the Army War College in 2004 and 2005 and a DoD-sponsored industrial base war game on tactical military aviation in 2008.  He contributed to an Institute for Defense Analysis study on defense contract profit policy that was published in October 2008 and has had book reviews published in the Journal of Military History.

Byron has an MBA from Columbia University and a BA with Special Honors from George Washington University. He is married to the former Allison Burrow of New Orleans and they have three children. He and his family reside in Connecticut.

Joseph Engelhard, Senior Vice President
Joe is a twenty year veteran of public policy issues and has held a wide variety of senior-level positions in the U.S. government. As Deputy Assistant Secretary for Trade & Investment Policy at the U.S. Treasury Department, Joe led the free trade agreement negotiations in the banking and securities sectors and also chaired the inter-agency CFIUS meetings that performed a national security review of any purchase of a U.S. company by foreign governments or corporations. As General Counsel of the Joint Economic Committee and as Senior Counsel at the Domestic and International Monetary Policy Subcommittee of the House Financial Services Committee, he worked on a number of financial reform bills including passage of the Gramm Leach Bliley Act. He also led a number of international financial sector reform initiatives while a senior executive at the Inter-American Development Bank, where he also was a member of the bank’s executive committee. Prior to joining Capital Alpha, Joe represented a trade association for the property and casualty industry where he covered federal and international insurance regulation, rating agency reform and solvency issues.

Richard Linville, Managing Director, Business Development
Rich joined Capital Alpha Partners in 2009 and brings over twenty years of Wall Street experience to his position as Director of Marketing & Client Services. He began his Wall Street career in 1986, with the Kansas City institutional equity sales office of Prudential-Bache Securities. Servicing major Midwestern institutional equity money managers, he ultimately rose to a Managing Director and head of the Kansas City office at Prudential Equity Group, LLC.

Prior to his career on Wall Street and after receiving his MBA from the University of Kansas, Rich was a Senior Marketing Representative at IBM. He resides in Mission Hills, Kansas with his wife Karen and five children.

Tom Butler, Director, Business Development
Tom has been in the capital markets business for more than 23 years, having served 10 years in Institutional Sales in Prudential Equity Group’s New York office before rising to Director of Marketing then Managing Director of the Institutional Equity Sales Group. Tom left PEG to open commercial operations at the corporate access firm Hanley & Associates, LLC in 2005. In this role, he was responsible for capital markets relationships across the Northeast and Midatlantic regions.

Tom earned his BA from Hobart College and MBA, Fuqua School of Business at Duke University. He lives in Summit NJ with his wife, Patty (Maloney) and their three children.

Courtney Oldham, Director, Operations
Courtney, overseeing the firm’s operations, has worked with members of Capital Alpha Partners since 2000. Prior to the firm’s creation, she was an Associate Analyst with Prudential Equity Group, working alongside Chuck Gabriel on legislative, regulatory, and political matters affecting a broad spectrum of sectors.  Courtney’s career began in retail brokerage, with Prudential Securities in Kansas City.

Courtney earned her bachelor’s degree in Economics and Political Science from Vanderbilt University and M.B.A. from George Washington University. She is a past President of the Washington Chapter of the Vanderbilt Alumni Association.

Rob Smith, Associate Director
Rob joined Capital Alpha Partners in 2008 after working for Ceridian Corporation’s government relations office in Washington, DC. In that position, he managed the company’s Capitol Hill presence and provided advice on healthcare, tax and employer benefit plan policy.

Prior to that, Rob served for five years as senior aide to Rep. Rick Boucher in the House of Representatives, where he was responsible for health, tax, and Social Security issues and staffed the Congressman on the Energy and Commerce and Judiciary Committees.

Rob graduated from the University of Virginia with a degree in English Literature.

Loren Smith, Associate Director
Loren arrived at Capital Alpha Partners in 2009. His area of coverage includes transportation, infrastructure, autos, and labor issues, as well as the firm’s Election Risk Report. He is a 15-year veteran of the political scene in Washington, DC and has an extensive rolodex of contacts in both political parties as well as up and down the food chain.

From 2005 to 2009, Loren worked in the executive branch, first as Director of Congressional and Public Affairs for the U.S. Office of Special Counsel, an independent watchdog agency, then as special assistant for public affairs at the U.S. Department of Labor. While at DOL, he was responsible for publicizing the department’s work on union transparency, the Family and Medical Leave Act, compensation for Cold War nuclear workers, OSHA reform, and other general enforcement matters.

From 2001 to 2005, Loren was a legislative aide to Rep. Vito Fossella of New York. There he worked on a variety of policy areas, including taxes, defense, foreign policy, labor, social security, immigration, crime, and campaign finance matters. Prior to that, he worked for several public policy-oriented nonprofit organizations.

Loren holds a degree in Political Science from Boston College. He lives in Falls Church, Virginia with his wife Holly and their five children.

Robert Kaminski, Associate Director
Robert Kaminski manages the firm’s telecom, media, and technology research and also covers issues relating to energy and the environment. He follows legislative developments in the Congress and regulatory dockets at the Federal Communications Commission (FCC) and other agencies affecting the telecommunications service, equipment, cable, satellite, and media sectors. Robert holds both a Master of Science in Public Policy and Management and a bachelor’s degree from Carnegie Mellon University. Previous experience includes technology and tax policy positions at Washington trade associations the National Association of Manufacturers and the former American Electronics Association (now TechAmerica).

Russell Taylor, Associate Director
Russ began working with Capital Alpha Partners in 2010 and helps cover aerospace and defense policy, in addition to financial regulation. Prior to joining Capital Alpha, he interned in the Queens district office of Congressman Anthony Weiner, as well as on a Congressional campaign in New Jersey. Russ graduated cum laude from The College of William and Mary, having majored in Public Policy and minored in Classical Studies.