Professional Team
Dandan (Danna) Zou
President and CEO
As a tri-lingual executive fluent in English, Chinese, and Cantonese, Mrs. Dandan Zou is hands-on and result-oriented with a strong business acumen. She has extensive experience in international investment consulting, international business management, project management (certified PMP), and real estate investment.
Dandan has a strong technical background which has helped shape her into a detail-oriented, data-driven, and persistent decision maker.
Dandan is passionate about her work and giving back to the community. As one of the most active leaders in the Austin Chinese community, she utilizes her talents to serve others with passion and enthusiasm. She holds board member positions in the Greater Austin Chinese Chamber of Commerce (GACCC) as well as the GACCC's International Investment Committee.
Mrs. Zou is experienced in business development, marketing management, and strategic planning. Through the Texas Investment Regional Center, she helps match growth projects in central Texas with EB-5 capital while promoting these projects to Chinese investors.
Mrs. Dandan Zou also has extensive experience in generating new development deals for real estate development companies that focus on EB-5 compliant hotel, food service, and senior living projects.
Jared Mermis
Managing Director
Jared Mermis has over 16 years of business management, engineering, and sales experience spanning a wide range of industries. A persistent deal maker, he is passionate about all aspects of real estate. Prior to signing on at TexIRC, he managed a single family development for one of Austin's premier production builders and started up a real estate investment company.
Mr. Mermis left a successful 11 year engineering and project management career in 2006 to move to one of the world's greatest cities. Before moving to Austin, he worked as a sales asset manager where he focused on new project pursuits on accounts such as KBR, Parsons, and Bechtel. Prior to that he was a project engineer with General Electric where he oversaw the manufacture of power generation packages used in cruise ships. Jared began his career as an R&D design engineer where he was instrumental in the success of a new oilfield product line.
Mr. Mermis has a Bachelor of Science degree in Mechanical Engineering from Texas A&M University. He enjoys spending time with his wife, a sales director in the digital media industry, and their two daughters.
Michael Evans
Chairman, Evans, Carroll & Associates, Inc.
Michael Evans has been providing economic forecasting and consulting to clients since 1981. Previously, Dr. Evans was founder and president of Chase Econometric Associates, Inc.
In recent years, Evans has specialized in providing the underlying economic analysis for EB-5 programs, determining the number of total permanent new jobs that will be created by new projects funded by foreign investors in EB-5 regional centers. Evans, Carroll & Associates has become the leading firm offering this type of analysis.
Dr. Evans has also provided economic analysis for a large variety of other types of businesses, including but not limited to dairy farms, aquaculture, alternative energy sources, research and development facilities, shipbuilding, inland ports, movie production, community centers, sports stadiums, and many other business opportunities.
Ronald Fieldstone
Partner, Arnstein & Lehr LLP
Mr. Fieldstone is a member of the Real Property, Probate and Trust and the Tax Law Sections of The Florida Bar. He served as a panel member of the American Arbitration Association for 17 years and is a title agent of several title insurance companies. Mr. Fieldstone has published numerous articles and has been a lecturer in the fields of real estate, corporate, tax law and franchise law for the past 37 years. He currently practices primarily in the areas of corporate/securities and taxation law.
Since 2009 Mr. Fieldstone has actively been involved in serving as corporate/securities counsel for multifaceted industries involving real estate funds and specializing more recently on EB-5 immigrant visa investor offerings (“EB-5”). The EB-5 visa is a United States visa created by the Immigration Act of 1992. This visa provides a method of obtaining a green card for foreign nationals who invest money in the United States. Mr. Fieldstone represents a vast number of Regional Centers in EB-5 offerings, involving in excess of 80 matters. Mr. Fieldstone’s corporate/securities work includes the preparation of private placement memorandas and related documents. Mr. Fieldstone actively lectures and publishes in the EB-5 corporate/securities fields.
Mr. Fieldstone was a principal in a Blockbuster Video franchise that operated 25 stores in eight states from 1987 until October, 1995, when the business was sold to the franchisor. He is a principal of a multi-state lithotripsy company and a Miami-based medical diagnostic company. He was also a principal of Barnie’s Coffee and Tea, Inc., the owner of the Barnie’s operating system with approximately 80 corporate units and 20 franchised units.
Mr. Fieldstone has extensive real estate holdings in the state of Florida and serves as a managing partner of Landmark Residential, which has served as the sponsor and manager of approximately 20,000 multi-family units in the states of Florida, Alabama, Georgia, Texas and North Carolina.
Ronald Klasko
Founding Member, Klasko, Rulon, Stock & Seltzer, LLP
H. Ronald Klasko (Ron) is recognized by businesses, universities, hospitals, scholars, investors and other lawyers as one of the country’s leading immigration lawyers. A founding member of Klasko, Rulon, Stock & Seltzer, LLP and its Managing Partner, he has practiced immigration law exclusively over three decades.
Under his leadership, the firm was chosen with five other firms by Chambers Global in 2006, 2007, 2008 and 2009 as the top U.S. business, hospital and university immigration law firm. Ron, himself, was named as the world’s most respected corporate immigration lawyer (The International Who’s Who of Business Lawyers 2007 and 2008) and one of the country’s top immigration lawyers by clients and other immigration lawyers who said he is “revered for coming up with unique arguments that can save a client” (Chambers Global).
A former National President of the American Immigration Lawyers Association (AILA), Ron served as General Counsel of that organization for three Presidents and has been a member of its Board of Governors since 1980. He has served as National Chair of AILA’s U.S. Department of Labor Liaison Committee and Business Immigration Committee, and he served as National Chair of that organization’s INS General Counsel Liaison Committee, Department of Labor Liaison Committee, and the National Task Forces on Labor Certifications, H-1 visas, L-1 visas and Employer Sanctions. He presently serves as Chair of the EB-5 Committee.
At the request of members of Congress and their staffs, Ron has testified before the U.S. House of Representatives Committee on the Judiciary and the U.S. Commission on Immigration Reform. He has been invited to lecture and provide training to staff members and lawyers of the U.S. Department of Labor, U.S. Department of State, INS General Counsel Management Conference, Immigration Judges Association and U.S. Department of Justice. In addition, he has been an Adjunct Professor of Immigration Law at Villanova University Law School and is a frequent lecturer on immigration law subjects.
A member of the prestigious Alliance of Business Immigration Lawyers, Ron is the co-author of the two volume Employers’ Immigration Compliance Guide (Matthew Bender 1985).
For the last 18 years, Ron has been included in the highly regarded Best Lawyers in America(Woodward and White). He is one of only three practicing attorneys ever honored with the AILA Founders Award for his contributions to immigration jurisprudence.
Lauren Cohen
President and Founder, e-Council, Inc.
Lauren Cohen is a licensed attorney both in Canada and the U.S. Throughout her career she sought ways to combine her legal background with her interest in business. Accordingly, e-Council Inc. designs business plans to complement immigration visa applications and works with business owners to develop their business models and strategies. e-Council has enjoyed a stellar success rate in this important area, and has become a well-respected resource by both immigration attorneys and their clients.