Ed Labry
President
First Data Commercial Services

   As President of First Data Commercial Services, Ed Labry oversees the business segment that includes the company’s Merchant Domestic, TeleCheck and Prepaid units. Organizing the Commercial Services unit around the customer, Ed has brought additional focus to the independent sales service organizations, national retailers and financial institutions. Prior to this appointment, Ed was President of First Data Prepaid Services, responsible for managing growth of existing prepaid products, developing new products and capabilities, and leading marketing and sales through existing distribution channels and direct sales for key customers.
   Ed served as President of Concord EFS, Inc., a high-growth processing company, acquired by First Data in 2004. He began his career at Concord as a salesman in Concord’s trucking division in 1984 and assumed responsibility for all sales and marketing in that unit in 1987. He was appointed Chief Marketing Officer for all Concord companies in 1990 and added the title of Senior Vice President the following year. In 1994, he was named President of Concord.
   Ed made his name in the payments industry by repeatedly recognizing emerging opportunities ahead of the industry and leading sales initiatives to build a strong position. In the late 1980s, he led the company into the payment processing business, helping Concord make the strategic shift from single product sales to recurring revenues. In the early 1990s, when most processors were focused on credit card payments, Ed saw the opportunity to begin expanding into processing on-line debit card transactions, which today is the fastest-growing payment type. He was the driving force behind Concord’s focus on the supermarket and gas station segments, two industries moving rapidly to electronic payments. And in the late 1990’s, Ed helped Concord move beyond payment services for retailers into network services for financial institutions, engineering three strategic acquisitions that propelled Concord to the forefront of the ATM and debit card industry.
   Ed is also an active member in his community. He currently serves on the boards of the Dixon Gallery and Gardens, Hutchison School, and Cumberland University. Ed holds a B.S. degree from Cumberland University, which granted him the “Award of the Phoenix” for Outstanding Service in 2002 and an honorary doctorate in 2003.

Mark Friedman
President and CEO
Peppercoin

   As Peppercoin President & CEO, Mark Friedman forges strong ties with financial institutions and merchants to drive adoption of transformative small payments technology. Mark is a frequent industry speaker, and continually strives to initiate productive discussions regarding the evolution of card-based small payments. The feedback from Mark’s talks is consistently glowing because he is so knowledgeable and insightful about this emerging area. At Peppercoin, Mark has encouraged the entire organization to provide leadership and expertise. Mark has been cited in numerous publications including the Wall Street Journal.
   Mark is a champion of capturing the cash-to-card opportunity and is an advocate of working with the card associations and banks to make this transition beneficial to all. He is truly a pioneer on the leading edge of the payments industry and has really invested in educating the entire industry about small payments.
   Prior to Peppercoin, Mark held executive positions at leading technology companies, including Lucent, Kenan Systems, Dragon Systems, Epoch Systems/EMC, Lotus Development and IBM. He is a graduate of the Wharton School of the University of Pennsylvania and the M.I.T. Sloan School of Management.

Annmarie Hart
President and CEO
MagTek, Inc.

   As President and CEO of MagTek, Inc., Annmarie “Mimi” Hart has been a pioneer and a driving force within the Electronic Payments & Technology Industry for over 30 years. Mimi began her career with MagTek as a sales representative in 1975. She subsequently founded Express Card Systems, Inc. which was known as MagTek Express. Before taking the reigns as MagTek’s President and CEO, Mimi served as an advisor to the MagTek’s executive management team for planning and strategic direction of the company, and she was elected to MagTek’s Board of Directors in 1999.
   In her leadership role as President and CEO, Mimi has developed the strategic direction for the business and sustains a profitable enterprise. In addition to her commitment to MagTek’s growth, her activities on behalf of MagTek have included product development and participation in the ANSI and ISO Communities, which formulated the standards for PIN and magnetic stripe card usage.
   It is Mimi’s strategic vision that marks this 2006 nominee as an industry leader – not only in the payments arena, but also in the Banking/Financial institutions as well as ATM and security.
   Mimi’s impeccable moral code of ethics and her dedication to MagTek are exemplified through her strong work ethic and natural ability to lead by example. Furthermore, her professional strengths are nicely complemented by her admirable personal character, highlighted by her humility and affable personality.
   Most recently, Mimi received the 2006 annual “Technology Innovation Award” from the Electronic Transactions Association (ETA).
   

Joe Kaplan
CEO
Innovative Merchant Solutions

   Never accepting the status quo, first and foremost, Joe continues to push the envelope and challenge the norm in the industry. To accomplish this, Joe has made it his mission to become involved with various industry associations and committees, totaling somewhere between 15 and 20 over the years.
   Joe’s unconventional approach to his work has led to the merger between Innovative Merchant Solutions (IMS) and Intuit, Inc. This business move created an entirely new dynamic for bankcard acquiring by introducing a partner from outside the industry. Now IMS is the only bankcard processing service that is seamlessly integrated with the QuickBooks products.
   This strategic alliance has created many opportunities to revolutionize the non-cash payment industry by creating a one-stop financial services network for IMS customers.
   Joe has listened to the ideas of both his customers and his peers to drive the change he seeks. Using this information and combining it with his passion for providing quality customer service, Joe’s standards have redefined service within the bankcard industry. The new standards that he has set have become a benchmark for other acquirers over the years.
   As an 11-year member of the ETA, Joe has worked through numerous committees, an association name change as well as a change in management. He currently serves as the Treasurer and will be the President Elect to this association.
   Helping to make an impression on the industry with his innovative ideas and enthusiasm for change, Joe has also served on advisory committees for both CrossCheck and Verifone. His concern for standards and security within the industry is memorialized through his grass roots efforts to foster such organizations as the MAC council.
   But the cornerstone philosophies that he used when he founded IMS, are still used by Joe in the new organization. Customers are still treated to annual birthday calls, all calls are answered by live operators within 3 seconds and hold times are still under 30 seconds. IMS employees still make 3-5 outbound calls to random customers to say hello, but now they also meet 5 of their fellow employees each week to ensure that that family atmosphere is perpetuated despite the rapid growth. Joe wants to guarantee that employees can still walk down the hall and not only greet, but recognize and know, their fellow employees. Happy employees mean happy customers.
   Known by almost anyone in the industry, Joe Kaplan is an individual who takes the bankcard acquiring industry to heart. He lobbies for important issues with Visa and MasterCard, and has created change with processors such as FDC through continuous efforts to seek improvement. These changes have benefited many others throughout the years.
   Joe is a “no holds barred” guy when it comes to accomplishing his goals to the betterment of the industry.

Randy Sagar
Senior Vice President of Independent Sales
BA Merchant Services

   Randy Sagar currently serves as Senior Vice President of Independent Sales for BA Merchant Services. Randy was promoted to this position in 2004 when Bank of America purchased NPC. Randy oversees a network of over 100 Independent Sales Offices and an additional 1200 plus independent agents. He is responsible for all aspects of the indirect sales effort, affiliate sales programs and recruitment for the independent sales channel.
    Randy Sagar is a 12 year industry veteran who has come up through the ranks and understands the problems faced by ISO’s and agents. Throughout his career he has distinguished himself by always producing outstanding results. When tapped by Bank of America to take on the challenge of creating “the only large bank to have a successful ISO program,” Randy welcomed the challange and rose to it with all of his usual enthusiam. Two years later he has once again delivered the outstanding results for which he is known.
    Randy’s strength and the strength of his program are derived from the fact that he truly is able to represent the best interests of multiple parties at the same time. By actively and creatively helping organziations achieve their goals he produces the desired results that Bank of America is expecting from his organization.
    Randy Sagar is a forward looking industry executive and is not afraid to take a risk if he believes in the people and the ISO organization he is working with. Randy is unique in that you can always depend upon him to tell you the truth, no matter the circumstances. He makes each of his people believe that they are his number one priority and by doing so, his people, ISO’s, agents and employees, produce their very best efforts for him.

Matthew P. Lawlor
Chairman and CEO
Online Resources Corporation

   Matt Lawlor is a true pioneer in the Internet financial services industry. His vision has helped to shape the face of online banking today, and under his leadership Online Resources has consistently had one of the strongest track records of innovation and growth in its field. He recognized very early on that the future of electronic payments would increasingly mirror consumers’ “on-demand” needs for real-time transactions, and built a patented real-time payments gateway that is the heart of Online Resources’ services. Ten years later, the industry is abuzz with talk of real-time payments of all sorts, from account funding, to prepaid telephony and stored value card purchasing and reloading—and Online Resources’ technology is in place to meet those needs.
   In the past year, Matt has been the architect of two key acquisitions, Integrated Data Systems and Princeton eCom (the acquisition of Princeton eCom is anticipated to close July 2006), that will help the company leapfrog years of business development and that promise to transform the company into a major force in web-based payments.
   Under his leadership, the company’s three divisions—banking, card and credit services, and e-Commerce—have continued their commitment to organic growth by developing innovative products and services that also promise to shape the future of the Internet financial services industry—including the industry’s only security solution for both internet banking and bill payment applications, and an award-winning web collections service.

Polly A. Bauer
President and CEO
First Payment Solutions

   Polly’s 35 year career in the payments industry has established her as a recognized authority in credit card not present payment operations and a tireless advocate for direct response merchants.
   Ms. Bauer’s passion for the card payments industry payments began with the launch of the first “Bank-AmeriCard” in 1972, the predecessor to Visa U.S.A. Most notably, she developed and led payments operations for Home Shopping Network pioneering credit card fraud detection and prevention practices that form the foundation of risk management protocol today. Ms. Bauer continues to counsel, guide and influence the payments industry as a sought after speaker, advisor and trainer. She serves on the Board of Directors of the Direct Response Forum, Inc., U.S.A; the Direct Response Forum, Europe; Integrity Card Services; Post International Ltd.; Wellness Works; and Personal Protection Services International. She has also served as a member of several panels and advisory committees for MasterCard, Visa, American Express and Discover Card.
   In 1990 her visionary approach to the ever changing, ever challenging payments industry prompted her to join with several other Fortune 500 direct marketing companies to form the Direct Response Forum to provide education and networking for merchants, acquirers, card companies and service providers in a non-competitive, non-sales environment. The DRF provides a venue for productive dialog among all the key constituents in the payments value chain that continues to influence changes in protocol for payment not present players struggling to operate in an infrastructure crafted for card present transactions.
   Ms. Bauer has been an active authority in every sector of the payments industry and continues to venture into the unknown opportunities still ahead.

Sam Chanin
CEO
Business Payment Systems

   Besides being an extremely motivated and intelligent person, Sam has a gift for marketing programs. In the last 6 months he has developed a new approach to the merchant cash advance business. In May 2006, this new entity funded over $3 million to processing merchants.
   Creating the company with this type of volume is impressive and not many people would have the ability to do so. But, it is who he has employed in this new entity that is even more remarkable. Sam, with a dedication to his community, has hired and taught about 30 young people from his community that were in need of developing work habits and desirous of obtaining a job. He has instilled into them the sense of worth, has taught them goal setting and helped them develop respect for themselves. Based on this initial success, there are plans to develop similar operations, using the same pool of potential workers.

Kris Winckler
Senior Vice President
ECHO

   Kris Winckler is truly a humble, yet brilliant addition to the payments community.
   Kris has the vision of an entrepreneur and was instrumental in the creation of Magic Software Development, a company specializing in check verification, conversion and ACH software. As President of Magic Software Development in the 1990s, Kris garnered the respect of many within the check processing and check collection industry.
   Kris’ ability to instruct others on both a high level and a very technical level has benefited many people, both internally at ECHO, as well as major retail merchants and the largest banks in the US.
   Kris’ vision regarding check risk management and the handling of administrative returns have given ECHO a great advantage in the check marketplace and have improved the efficiency of the processing for merchants and check writers alike. Additionally, Kris was instrumental in the introduction of the Visa POS check product that is a partnership between ECHO and Visa USA.
   Kris joined ECHO in April, 1999, as Vice President of ECHO’s XPRESSCHEX subsidiary. In December 2003, he was promoted to Senior Vice President of Product and Strategic Planning. Kris has a Master of Business Administration from Anderson School of Business at the University of New Mexico. Prior to joining ECHO, he was a consultant at Andersen Consulting. Kris has been an active member of the Electronic Check Council of NACHA since 1998. Mr. Winckler is an Accredited ACH Professional (AAP) and Certified Treasury Professional (CTP).
   

Gary T. Dinkin
Founder
SmartClixx, LLC

   Since founding SmartClixx, LLC in 2001, Gary Dinkin has been a successful entrepreneur, building the company through its early years. Based on the simple premise of providing better and smarter transaction processing without charging transaction fees, SmartClixx has become the leading provider of in-house stored-value card solutions for the Tier 1 retail marketplace. Some SmartClixx retail customers include: The TJX Companies, Saks, Inc., Charming Shoppes, Chico’s FAS, Southwest Airlines and many others.
   With over 20 years of extensive experience exclusively focused on large retailers’ system requirements, Gary has been involved in the pre-sales, sales, implementation, deployment, and post implementation processes for many of the nation’s leading retailers.
   Gary’s skills and knowledge lie in the entrepreneurial stages of a company’s life as well as the business side. Having been there on more than one occasion he knows where the slips and falls are likely to occur. He believes that one of the most important things an entrepreneur can do is take exceptional care of clients and employees. The bottom line is that clients can tell he really is a sincere person, and that he cares deeply about the success of each customer he works with.
   His prior experience in large scale point-of-sale, centralized payment switching, and networking solutions, has been exceptionally useful in the highly competitive stored value card industry. As a leading advocate of centralized processing and retail-centric core application development, Gary is regarded as an industry expert in stored value card systems, and has been quoted in numerous publications including RIS News, Integrated Solutions for Retailers, CardLine, The Nilson Report, and others. His opinions and observations have been solicited by AMR Research and The Wall Street Journal, and he is a sought after speaker at industry events and an acknowledged expert in the industry.
   Prior to founding SmartClixx, Gary was partner and co-owner of DataMax System Solutions, a leading provider of in-store hardware and software technology solutions to the retail industry.
   

J.D. Oder II
CTO and Vice President
Shift4

   For over a dozen years, J.D. has played a vital role in the payments industry within the lodging, retail, food and beverage, auto rental and ecommerce markets. For the last several years, however, he has dedicated himself and his resources to improving the security of the payments industry.
   J.D. has worked closely with the card associations, processors, POS software providers, law enforcement and other third party applications in all areas of credit card security. He has worked with the card associations on the creation and modification of their different security requirements and of their tracking programs for certified applications.
   In September of 2005, J.D. put together the first annual S.A.F.E.
   Transaction Security Summit, where he brought together colleagues form MasterCard, Visa, American Express, Ambiron, Pegasus Software and other leading security firms to talk openly and bluntly with merchants and POS providers about the current state of regulations – what the regulations mean, how they affect merchants and POS systems, what the validation process is like and what applications and solutions are available to help merchants mitigate their security risks and assist them with their certification process. It was the first event of its kind and one that has enabled far more open communication about this critical topic.
   In October of 2005, J.D. released to the public ‘Tokenization’, which takes credit card data completely out of the merchants’ hands and systems, while still enabling incremental authorizations, reporting and book & ship transactions. J.D. purposely released this technology publicly, and without a patent, to encourage his partners and competitors alike to examine this technology and how it could be utilized to make their own systems more secure.
   Additionally, J.D. has been recognized by MasterCard and Visa for his contributions to their security programs, and was nominated for one of ETA’s annual awards for his contributions to the industry as a whole.

Dan Neistadt
President and CEO
Wow! Technologies, Inc.

   Dan Neistadt is the current President and CEO of Wow! Technologies, Inc. He has more than 25 years experience in the payments industry , including serving as Executive Vice President and Manager of the Business Management Group within Key Electronic Services at KeyBank USA. In that capacity, he was responsible for debit cards, merchant services, payroll services, Key’s ATM network, agent bank sales and services and official checks.
   In addition, he was responsible for the development and application of KeyBank’s stored value business systems. Prior to that, Dan served in various roles within KeyBank, including those as Finance and Senior Productivity Officer.
   Dan served as a member of MasterCard’s International Debit Access Committee, as a management committee member of Key Merchant Services, LLC, and Certifichecks, Inc., an Internet gift certificate provider. He currently serves as past president of the Electronic Transaction Association and on the board of directors of two privately held transaction companies. Dan is often interviewed by major industry publications as an expert in his field and often speaks at conferences and seminars.

Jared Isaacman
United Bank Card

   Jared has accomplished many milestones in 2006, one of which includes making UBC the 19th fastest growing private company in the US.
   Jared successfully launched the first free terminal program, which took the company from 800 applications per month to over 2500/ month,resulting in triple digit growth over the past four years.
   Jared’s contributions included being a guest speaker on ABC News show “Money Matters” and is on the Board of Directors for the Northeast Acquirers Association
   He has donated over $20,000 to the New Jersey Homeless and Battered Families Charity. All of this has been accomplished before the age of 25.
   Jared is truly a remarkable person, who cares about the electronic payments industry. He constantly promotes education for the MLS and has donated countless hours to the National Association of Payment Professionals.
   

Brian Geisel
CEO and Co-Founder
Alogent Corporation

   Alogent Corporation founder Brian Geisel has pioneered the use of server-based technology and innovative business processes to assist the largest financial institutions with check processing issues and deposit automation solutions for more than a decade.
   Brian applies honest work ethics and strict accounting disciplines to successfully manage a multi-million dollar Atlanta-based software company.
   Brian began his career in financial consulting and in development on financial systems for some of the largest banks in the U.S. After getting a few years of experience under his belt, he landed a contract for two of the largest banks in the United Kingdom where he was charged with identifying ways to streamline the way banks process checks. To an industry mired in 1970s mainframes, Brian brought the versatility of open-system servers, workstations and enlightened software through a “back to the future approach” to banking. As a result of his patent-pending business process and technology, customers’ checks are cleared faster and their funds made available sooner, while banks have dramatically reduced the costs of processing those checks.
   Brian’s industry vision and understanding of technology has resulted in developing products that give banks the key to manage these changes profitably.
   For Brian and the multi-billion dollar financial services industry, success is about new processing technologies and strategies: moving paper with far less work and cost, and clearing checks faster than anyone thought possible. By applying the discipline and work ethics, Brian has kept his company’s growth strategy in check.
   

James Marchese
Executive Vice President
IRN Payments, Inc.

   Jim is responsible for managing and overseeing all facets of day-to- day operations at IRN Payment Systems. All departments report to him, including operations, sales, marketing, research, etc.
   Additionally, he pilots all strategic planning for IRN, which includes marketing and sales, new product development and integration, business and financial planning, and operational growth.
   As a leader in the EFT industry, Jim is a long time member of the Electronic Transaction Association and sits on its Emerging Technology Committee.
   A prolific author, Jim has written several articles that have appeared in various national trade publications on topics relating to Electronic Funds Transactions, including pieces on emerging business, technology and marketing trends, smart cards, sales strategies in the industry and the future of electronic payment systems.
   Jim is also a board member of the The Ed Kranepool Organization, a not-for-profit charity that gives resources to children with autism or diabetes. He helped start the West Islip Soccer Club which now has 1,900 participating kids. A longtime activist in the Catholic Youth Organization, he remains deeply involved in Our Lady Of Lourdes family services and their youth sports programs. While his boys were young, Jim participated in many Cub Scout and Boy Scout events and programs.
   Jim also served as one of seven top executives on the ETA Nominating Committee for 2006. The committee's responsibility was to decide the strategic direction and business plan for ETA. What's more, the committee had to review the resumes and qualifications of 32 candidates and select six people to fill positions within ETA (the largest field ever in the history of ETA to apply for the openings).
   The executive committee had a pre-meeting to discuss how they were to conduct 32 interviews and rank each candidate. Jim assisted in phone interviews that were conducted during a 4-day period lasting 3- hours per day.
   After all candidates were ranked, Jim played an instrumental role in conferencing the final candidates one last time for final interviews...ultimately taking a leading role in deciding upon the final six.
   At ETA, Las Vegas, Jim was asked to take part in a special focus group conducted by ETA to discuss the most pressing issues in the industry, as well as what further direction ETA should take regarding future business decisions. Jim was selected as part of this group because of the leadership he exudes within the EFT industry, also because many of his peers respect his honest insight and credibility.

Congratulations to our 2006 Movers and Shakers!