Beth Solomon, NADCO
Beth Solomon, President & CEO, NADCO
Beth Solomon is President & CEO of the National Association of Development Companies (NADCO), representing 270 Certified Development Companies which provided $6 billion in financing for nearly 10,000 small businesses in 2012, helping U.S. small businesses create the jobs America needs. She was previously Vice President of Strategic Initiatives & Industry Relations at the International Franchise Association, leading the organization’s efforts on small business lending, veterans and international growth. Ms. Solomon led strategic communications at the National Restaurant Association and the National Association of Manufacturers after working in the entertainment industry at William Morris Endeavor, the Hollywood talent and literary agency. Before joining the staff of U.S. Senate Armed Services Committee Chairman Sam Nunn as a speechwriter, she was a radio journalist in the Voice of America’s East Africa bureau in Nairobi, Kenya, covering Sudan, Somalia and Ethiopia. She then joined the ABC News bureau in Berlin where she reported on the fall of the Berlin Wall and the first free elections in East Europe. Ms. Solomon has a B.A. in History from Yale University.
Craig R. Everett, Pepperdine University
Craig R. Everett is an assistant professor of finance at Pepperdine University’s Graziadio School of Business and Management and the associate director of the Pepperdine Private Capital Markets Project. His teaching and research interests include entrepreneurial finance, private capital markets, business valuation and behavioral corporate finance.
Dr. Everett has over twenty years of industry experience in management consulting (Accenture) and the aerospace & defense industry (Northrop Grumman). He has also been involved with multiple startup ventures. Dr. Everett has been actively engaged in children’s financial literacy initiatives over the years, being both a classroom (K-12) financial literacy volunteer for Junior Achievement and a member of the curriculum advisory board for the National Financial Educators Council.
He holds a PhD in finance from Purdue University, an MBA from George Mason University, and a BA in quantitative economics from Tufts University. Dr. Everett is the author of the best-selling children’s fantasy novel, Toby Gold and the Secret Fortune, which incorporates such financial literacy topics as saving, investing, banking, entrepreneurship, interest rates, return on investment, and net worth.
He is member of the Beta Gamma Sigma Honor Society, Financial Executives International, and the Los Angeles World Affairs Council. Dr. Everett is a certified mergers & acquisitions advisor (CM&AA), and a registered investment advisor (RIA) with the state of California. Dr. Everett has been quoted in national financial media outlets such as The Wall Street Journal and CNBC.
Barbara Morrison, TMC Financing
Barbara Morrison, a Bay Area business and civic leader, is the founder and president of TMC Financing. In the 30+ years since Barbara founded TMC the company has provided over $7.2 billion in SBA commercial real estate financing for more than 4,200 businesses throughout California and Nevada. TMC has been ranked in the top five Certified Development Companies (CDCs) nationwide for over a decade, and today ranks as the #1 SBA lender in Northern California and Las Vegas.
Barbara is also the founder and board president of Working Solutions, an innovative nonprofit organization that helps undeserved micro-entrepreneurs access the capital and hands-on technical assistance they need to start and grow their businesses.
Barbara has earned numerous awards for her leadership and her advocacy for women and small business owners, including: Financial Women’s Association of San Francisco’s 2012 Financial Woman of the Year award; Northern California’s 2011 Real Estate Women of Influence award; San Francisco Commission on the Status of Women’s “Women Who Make a Difference” award; San Francisco Business Times Women in Leadership award; National Association of Development Companies’ Arthur Goodman Achievement and Diversity award; U.S. Small Business Administration’s Women in Business Advocate award.
Rachel Baranick, Small Business Administration
Rachel Baranick is the Deputy District Director of the Santa Ana District Office of the U.S. Small Business Administration with service responsibility for the counties of Orange, Riverside and San Bernardino in Southern California. In fiscal year 2010, the Santa Ana District Office approved 1,341 loans generating $606 million in financial assistance to small businesses. In addition, the Santa Ana District Office awarded 140 8(a) contracts for a total of $119 million.
As Deputy District Director, Ms. Baranick is responsible for the delivery of SBA programs and services to approximately 6 million people in the tri-county area, which covers over 28,000 square miles. Small businesses in the geographic area comprise in excess of 600,000, representing 16% of the total California business population. Ms. Baranick is also responsible for the management and oversight of SBA Resource Partners including three Women’s Business Centers, three SCORE chapters and a Regional Lead Center with a network of three Small Business Development Centers and three satellite locations. The district office and its resource partners provided counseling and training assistance to approximately 25,000 clients in fiscal year 2010.
Rachel joined the SBA in 1988 as a Business Development Specialist for the Inland Empire. She moved to the loan servicing department in 1992 as a Loan Specialist and became Chief of Liquidation in 1995. She has served as the Deputy District Director since 1997 for the Santa Ana District and most recently as the Acting District Director for the New York City District Office.
Prior to coming to SBA, Rachel worked for the Internal Revenue Service in a professional position where she also coached trainees. She has worked in both the private and public sectors.
Rachel grew up in the Los Angeles area, where her father owned a small business. She graduated from the University of California at Los Angeles with a Bachelor of Science degree in Chemistry and has subsequently completed graduate courses at California State University, Fullerton.
Morgan Johns, Conestoga Bank
Morgan has been Senior Vice President at Conestoga Bank since November 2009. Conestoga Bank is a privately owned community bank with 14 branches located in the Philadelphia area.
Morgan is responsible for developing the SBA Lending production primarily in the Mid-Atlantic region of Pennsylvania and its contiguous states but is also providing franchise financing outside of the Bank’s footprint. He brings over 20 years of commercial lending experience along with over 15 years of SBA lending experience utilizing the SBA’s 7a and 504 programs. Prior to joining Conestoga Bank he served as a consultant to the largest CDC in Pennsylvania. Morgan also previously managed SBA Lending for Sovereign Bank’s Mid-Atlantic region where he took SBA lending production from less than 10 loans annually to one of SBA’s top 25 lenders nationwide.
Bob Coleman, Coleman Report
Bob Coleman, Editor, Coleman Report
Bob Coleman is the Author of “Money Money Everywhere and Not a Drop for Main Street“. Coleman is the Editor of the Coleman Report, a trade newsletter for small business bankers. He is the nationally recognized expert on small business financing. He has appeared on Fox Business News and CNN and has been quoted by all major financial media outlets including the Wall Street Journal, New York Times and Bloomberg. He has spoken at numerous small business banking events across the United States, including international engagements in the U.K. and Germany. Coleman has a B.A. in Medieval History from the University of California Santa Barbara and a M.B.A. in Real Estate Finance from the University of Southern California.
Mike Rozman, BoeFly
Mike Rozman is Co-President and Chief Strategy Officer of BoeFly, LLC.
Mike oversees business development, marketing, and external affairs. He drives best practice information in the credit industry overseeing BoeFly’s educational programs and outreach, and is a frequent speaker at conferences and events focused on small business lending, franchise finance and secondary markets.
Previously, Mike was the President and Co-Founder of Edgeware Analytics, Inc. the parent company to GovGex and Small Business Loan Exchange, the two online marketplaces that served as the founding platforms of BoeFly. Prior to co-founding Edgeware Analytics in 2003, Mike was a Vice President at JPMorgan Chase in their Global Bank.
Mike earned a dual-MBA from Columbia Business School and the London Business School as well as a bachelor’s degree from Boston College
Mary Jo Larson, Franchise Times
Publisher/Vice President, Franchise Times
Mary Jo is vice president of Franchise Times Corp. and publisher of two of the company’s publications: Restaurant Finance Monitor and Franchise Times magazine. As publisher of these titles, she has overall responsibility for the advertising sales and editorial content of the publications.
Mary Jo has been with Franchise Times Corp. since 1990. In addition to her publishing duties, she also heads up the sales and planning efforts for the Restaurant Finance & Development Conference and the Franchise Finance & Growth Conference. She is quoted on the franchise community in general interest, news and business publications, and is a speaker at industry events.
Mary Jo has been active in various organizations related to franchising and restaurants, including working on the Executive Programs committee of the Women’s Foodservice Forum and as a member of the franchise advisory committee of Women Venture, a non-profit organization that helps women realize entrepreneurial goals. Mary Jo is also past president of the board of directors for the Minnesota Magazine & Publishing Association. She holds a B.A. in journalism and mass communications from the University of Minnesota.
Since 1988, the Restaurant Finance Monitor has been circulated to senior executives in the restaurant finance, franchising and real estate industries, with an emphasis on topics such as public offerings, finance sources, analyst stock recommendations and taxes.
In 1998, the Restaurant Finance Monitor purchased Franchise Times magazine. The new Franchise Times premiered in January 1999, and targets the multi-unit franchise executive or owner. Franchise Times has grown to be the definitive source business executives and owners will look to for franchise news and business information. The publication takes a look at both the serious, and fun, side of the franchise sector. The magazine also released the Franchise Times Guide to Selecting, Buying and Owning a Franchise, which was published and distributed by the publishing arm of Barnes & Noble Booksellers.