Mr. Wray is a Member and the past-chair of the firm's Public Finance Practice Area in the Nashville office. His practice has for almost 25 years been primarily devoted to tax-exempt finance, but he also handles real estate and other commercial transactions. Mr. Wray's legal experience in the public finance area includes:
- Serving as bond counsel for many small issue industrial revenue bonds, including financings backed by letters of credit issued by AmSouth Bank, Bank of America, Wachovia Bank and SunTrust Bank
- Representing numerous industries in the negotiation and documentation of property tax abatement transactions
- Serving as bond counsel on solid waste disposal facilities for entities such as Kimberly-Clark Corporation, Eastman Chemical Company and DuPont
- Serving as bond counsel and/or borrower's counsel on numerous financings for 501(c)(3) entities, including hospitals, schools and colleges and service organizations
- Serving as counsel for governmental entities entering into interest rate swap agreements
- Serving as bond counsel for tax increment financings
Mr. Wray graduated in 1966 from Amherst College and in 1969 magna cum laude from Harvard Law School. He joined Bass, Berry & Sims immediately following graduation and has spent his entire career there. He is listed in Best Lawyers® and has been named one of the best lawyers in the state by Business Tennessee magazine since 2004 for public finance law. Mr. Wray has formerly served as president of Alive Hospice, Inc., the largest hospice organization in the state of Tennessee, as president of Samaritans, Inc., an alcohol and drug recovery program, and as Mayor of the City of Oak Hill, Tennessee. He currently serves as a board member of the Tennessee Chapter of The Nature Conservancy. He has on various occasions served as a panelist at the Bond Attorney's Workshop of the National Association of Bond Lawyers.
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