David Walker -- President and CEO
ECCHO

Mr. Walker has more than 18 years experience in data processing and 25 years in banking.  He has worked with ECCHO since 1989 and currently serves as its President and CEO.  Mr. Walker has worked with almost every aspect of the development and passage of the Check 21 Act since early 2000.

Prior to ECCHO, Mr. Walker held a senior management position with First RepublicBank, a predecessor bank of Bank of America, where he managed domestic and international wire transfer, ACH, cash concentration, information reporting for all of the bank’s Texas locations.  Responsibilities also included IT for wire transfer and balance reporting, Fed Funds Trading and Fed/Due From Position management.  Mr. Walker also served as the Bank’s Daylight Overdraft Coordinator and managed all Daylight Overdraft processes.

Mr. Walker also spent 7 years with Electronic Data Systems, Inc. in various positions including Southeast Regional Operational Manager with responsibility for nine locations across the southeast.

Mr. Walker is a graduate of the Southwestern Graduate School of Banking and earned a BA in Economics from the University of Texas of Austin.

Viveca Ware -- Director, Payments Policy
ICBA

Viveca Ware joined ICBA in 1989. Before joining ICBA, Viveca spent nine years with a Southwestern Virginia community bank in a number of progressive management positions. She is a graduate of Virginia Tech, the NACHA Payments Institute and the Virginia Bankers School of Management. 

Tim Mills is a Senior Expert with Global Concepts, a subsidiary of McKinsey & Company. His expertise includes payments economics, operational performance measurement and consumer payments behavior. He has managed Global Concepts’ research and benchmarking practices and is the author of numerous articles and publications on payments related topics. Tim has been with Global Concepts since 1999.

Bob Meara -- Senior Analyst
Celent

Bob Meara is a senior analyst in Celent's banking group. Mr. Meara’s research focuses on check processing with emphasis on branch capture, remote deposit capture, and deposit automation, as well as check conversion, image exchange, and image replacement document (IRD) solutions.

Before joining Celent, Mr. Meara was the director of product marketing at Alogent. In this role, he positioned and launched a series of Check 21 payments solutions. 

Prior to Alogent, Mr. Meara was a senior consultant at Stonebridge Technologies, where he developed e-marketing, CRM, and Internet branding strategies for clients.  He has also held positions in marketing and brand management at Telemate.net Software, BellSouth, Hayes Corporation, and Procter & Gamble.

Mr. Meara earned a B.S. in Applied Physics and Electrical Engineering from Case Western Reserve University.

Terry Lyons -- Vice President, Manager, Financial Services
Fifth Third Processing Solutions

Terry has been with the bank for 23 years.  He began his career with Fifth Third Bank in Trust Administration and Trust Operations.  He later moved to the EFT Group, where he directed EFT New & existing EFT sales for the Midwest.  He is currently responsible for Correspondent Banking and is a Director for the Financial Institutions Group. Terry sits on the Payments Council for the Bancorp and is responsible for developing payment strategies including Image Processing.

Terry’s education includes a Bachelor’s Degree in Business Administration and Psychology from Thomas More College and an MBA from Xavier University.  He received his banking degree from the University of Louisville.

Terry has been married to his wife Lisa for 26 years and they have three sons, Sean, Branden & Kyle and one daughter, Megan.  Terry and his family reside in Cincinnati.

Allen L. Nielsen -- Executive Vice President and CFO
Bankers' Bank Northeast

Allen Nielsen has over 25 years of diverse banking experience with 20 years in senior and executive management.  His responsibilities have focused on all aspects of strategic and operational planning and implementation, financial management and control, operations, product development, sales, and regulatory compliance.

Mr. Nielsen spent his career with Glastonbury Bank & Trust Company, a $300 million, ten-branch commercial bank in Connecticut where he became Executive Vice President and Chief Operating Officer.  Mr. Nielsen's background and responsibilities included asset-liability management, budgets, financial reporting, accounting and investments.  In addition, he analyzed acquisition opportunities, new ventures and capital issues, directed data processing, cash management, security, risk management and insurance activities.

In 1998 Mr. Nielsen became the Chief Financial Officer of the newly formed Bankers' Bank Northeast.  As a de nova institution, he focused on the financial planning, pro forma projections, and regulatory filings associated with the formation of the Bank.  In addition, he developed and managed the direct solicitation for raising the Bank's initial capital.

Mr. Nielsen is a faculty member at the New England College of Finance where he teaches management and general banking courses.  He is also a guest lecturer at the University of Connecticut School of Business Administration.

Mr. Nielsen graduated from the University of Connecticut with a Bachelor of Art Degree in Political Science and Psychology.  He completed his MBA in Financial Management and Control at the University of Connecticut with honors from Beta Gamma Sigma - National Honor Society for Business Majors.

Cliff McCauley -- Executive Vice President
Frost Bank

Cliff McCauley is Executive Vice President of Frost Bank in San Antonio, Texas and manages the Correspondent Banking line of business.  He began his banking career with Frost in 1981 and has been involved with Correspondent Banking since 1983.

Frost has a Financial Institutions sales and service staff of 14 serving over 250 respondent banks with correspondent offices and processing capacity in four Texas cities.

Mr. McCauley has also been involved in the commercial lending area and been responsible for Treasury Management Sales at Frost.  He has been involved in various industry and civic groups and currently serves as Chairman of the Board of the Independent Bankers Association of Texas, the South Texas Higher Education Authority, and the Texas Tech School of Community Bank Management.

Mr. McCauley received his Bachelors and Masters degrees from Texas A&M University.  He is a native Texan and lives in San Antonio.

Jim Williams -- Senior Vice President and Cashier
Bankers' Bank of the West

His banking career began in 1970 in a $12 million community bank in Southern Colorado as a bookkeeper and teller.  He graduated from the Colorado Graduate School of Banking and spent the majority of his 19 year tenure with this bank as the senior operations officer.

In 1989, he began his tenure as a Senior Vice President and Cashier of the Bankers' Bank of the West in Denver, CO.  When he joined the bank it had 9 employees and total assets of $18 million and a $50 million Fed Funds pool.  The bank is now over $350 million in total assets, 44 officers and employees and a $750 million Fed Funds pool.

He has held several memberships in banking organizations, was Chairman of the Colorado NCR Users Group and served a two-year term as an elected director of the National Clearing House and the Denver Clearing House Associations.

Jim is a Vietnam veteran having served as a Navy Corpsman with the First Medical Battalion, Third Marine Amphibious Force in South Vietnam in 1968 and 1969.

His immediate mission in life is to survive the banking industry for another year.  He plans on retiring from the Bankers' Bank of the West in December 2008.

Eric Goering -- President and CEO
LendingTools.com

Eric Goering, President and CEO of LendingTools.com, Inc., is a tireless advocate of the equalizing power of technology for community banks and small businesses.  Eric frequently serves as a guest speaker for many associations on these topics nationwide.  Eric began his career at The Citizens State Bank in Moundridge, KS, in 1997 with the responsibilities of corporate counsel and business development.  Eric holds an undergraduate degree in Entrepreneurship from Wichita State University, a Masters of Business Administration and Juris Doctrine from the University of Kansas and is a member of the Kansas Bar Association.