Thomas Jay Ellis is Managing Director of Pennsylvania Government Affairs for DMGS in its Philadelphia office. Tom also serves as Special Counsel to Duane Morris LLP in its Corporate Practice Group, concentrating in municipal finance. Tom previously spent 24 years with Ballard Spahr LLP as a partner in its Public Finance Group. He has worked on a variety of tax-exempt financings, primarily with Pennsylvania local government and authority issuers, as well as colleges and universities. Tom was unanimously elected chairman of the Board of Commissioners in Montgomery County, Pa., in 2006. He held that position until January 2008 and was vice chairman of the board from 2004 to 2005. In 2008, Tom was the Republican candidate for state treasurer in Pennsylvania. Prior to his election to the Montgomery County Board of Commissioners in 2003, he served on the Cheltenham Township Board of Commissioners from 1990 to 2002. He previously served as a member of the Cheltenham Township Planning Commission and Cheltenham Township Citizens Advisory Committee and on the Board of Directors of the Moss Rehabilitation Hospital. He has also served on the Board of Directors of the Pennsylvania Association of Bond Lawyers and Independence Blue Cross.

The Montgomery County Board of Commissioners appointed Tom to a five-year term on the Board of the Southeastern Pennsylvania Transportation Authority (SEPTA), beginning on September 1, 2001. He was reappointed to a second five-year term in 2006.

Tom is a graduate of the University of Pennsylvania (B.A., summa cum laude, 1982), where he was elected to Phi Beta Kappa, and the University of Pennsylvania School of Law (J.D., cum laude, 1985), where he served as editor of the University of Pennsylvania Law Review and was a member of the Order of the Coif.