Technical Infrastructure Overview
Management Team & Board of Advisors
Appendix A: Financial Assumptions & Statements
Appendix B: Management Team & Board of Advisors
The Founders and Management Team
Anthony Ray, President
Mr. Ray is responsible for coordination of company growth and strategy, communications, and intellectual property.
Mr. Ray's experience includes consulting to established and emerging growth companies in the technology, services, and financial sectors with the Center for Applied Strategy (CAST), a West Coast-based management consulting firm specializing in marketing, information technology, and operations strategy and as a senior consultant for KPMG Consulting. Mr. Ray developed information technology strategies to improve operations and enhance customer service, designed marketing strategies and competition assessments in support of product development, market penetration, and acquisition strategies, and enhanced business operations with reengineering and organizational effectiveness strategies. Mr. Ray is pursuing a M.B.A. and a Juris Doctor joint-degree from the University of Missouri at Kansas City. He received a B.A. in economics from Columbia University.
Barton Fitz, Director of Marketing and Sales
Mr. Fitz is responsible for marketing and sales, customer acquisition, and relationship development.
Mr. Fitz's experience includes marketing and sales for the commercial banking and consumer goods industries. While working with the Middle Valley National Bank in Missouri, Mr. Fitz was responsible for the creation of multiple product launch campaigns and institution-wide sales programs. In addition, he designed and developed the bank's Internet site, which included online account access and applications. For IBM, Mr. Fitz developed a strategy and an integrated national marketing plan to penetrate target channels and developed a co-marketing strategy to enhance brand equity positions of the firm and its independent distributors. Mr. Fitz has a B.S. degree in finance from New York University and is pursuing an M.B.A. degree at the University of Missouri at Kansas City.
Robert Romano, Cpa, Director of Finance
Mr. Romano is responsible for finance, accounting, and client profitability measurements.
Mr. Romano has over six years of accounting and finance experience with Ernst & Young and Shell Oil. His work included the preparation of an S-1 initial public offering filing as well as a second public stock offering. His experience also included comfort letter, 10K, 10Q, and 8K audit services for well-recognized clients in the insurance, financial services, and manufacturing industries. Lastly, Mr. Romano performed numerous employee benefit plan audits and in doing so gained familiarity with ERISA regulations. Mr. Romano's operational and financial control experience included import/export, manufacturing, and information systems operations. He was extensively involved with the SAP Human Resource and Payroll system implementation. Mr. Romano completed with highest honors his B.S. degree in accountancy at the University of Michigan and is pursuing his M.B.A. at the University of Missouri at Kansas City.
Rachel Summers, Director of Strategic Operations
Ms. Summers is responsible for operations and logistics.
Ms. Summers's experience includes designing, implementing, and managing operations and financial processes and controls for a top-tier financial institution as well as emerging-growth companies. In this capacity, Ms. Summers developed operations and financial processes for global inter-company reconciliation at Credit Suisse Financial Products including transaction level tracking and reconciling and the standardization, timely, and efficient operation of complex procedures. She established and automated financial and operations procedures to manage 100 percent growth at the European headquarters for Weiden & Kennedy, Inc. Ms. Summers developed short-and long-term strategic plans for product and market expansion of Internet start-up, GoPDA.com, through complete solutions for vertical markets and business-to-business opportunities. Ms. Summers received a B.B.A. in finance from the University of Missouri at Kansas City, where she is currently pursuing an M.B.A.
Justin Roberts, Director of Technology
Mr. Roberts is responsible for building E-Return's technical infrastructure, including the development of all new applications, and customer technical implementation and support.
Mr. Roberts brings over 6 years of technical and management experience. He has directed software development teams of up to 10 people in the custom design and development of applications to track, relocate, and redistribute fixed assets for the transportation industry. Mr. Roberts's experience includes the application of Java-based XML integrator technologies in developing web-based applications including the various components and communication protocols that these solutions require and the use of Microsoft's ASP technology to access SQL Server databases. Mr. Roberts has experience managing both full-time and part-time developers to ensure completion of all deliverables under tight time constraints. Mr. Roberts received a B.S. degree in mathematics and operations research from the University of Illinois at Urbana and is pursuing an M.B.A. at the University of Missouri at Kansas City.
Board of Advisors
Profile of William Fanchon
Mr. Fanchon is a full-time faculty member employed as a Senior Lecturer in the Department of Finance at the University of Missouri at Kansas City. Mr. Fanchon has been a voting faculty member since 1980 and instructed over 8,000 students. He has taught multiple sections of the undergraduate small business finance class, multiple sections of the graduate corporate finance classes for small business as well as sections of the graduate Entrepreneurial Process class and graduate Entrepreneurial Harvest class. Mr. Fanchon is associate director of the Center for Small and Middle-Sized Companies which coordinates the Community Minority Business Advancement Program, a 45-hour, 15-session business fundamental courses to minority businessmen and businesswomen in St. Louis, Independence, Springfield, and Kansas City each year. Mr. Fanchon is a regular lecturer in UT's Management Development Programs and Executive Education Programs and has lectured in custom programs at Shell Oil, IBM, Halliburton, M.D. Anderson, Fisher Rosemount, Banco do Brazil, Wayne Dresser, and Dell Computer. He teaches in Executive Education public programs such as Management Institute and Management Challenge programs as well as topical programs such as finance and accounting for nonfinancial managers. He has participated in seminars with the University of Missouri's Executive Program for Agricultural Producers, Small Business Administration, Cen-Tex Certified Development Companies, and Businesses Invest in Growth. He has also traveled to Mexico to lecture in the ITESM Monterey Tech executive education programs as well as the ITESM Ph.D. program. Mr. Fanchon has also served as faculty advisor to the University of Missouri Finance Association and has received numerous teaching awards.
William Fanchon is founder and president of CFO Services, Inc., a Kansas City-based small business financial consulting firm. CFO Services provides an array of business consulting services to owner/managers of private, closely held, and family small and middle-sized businesses. Services include merger and acquisition advisory services, financial and credit analysis, business valuations, loan procurement, SBA loan packaging, loan restructuring, feasibility studies, business planning and strategic planning. Mr. Fanchon has served as an expert witness in divorce cases, dissenting shareholder suits, bankruptcy cases, and business litigation cases. CFO Services has a client list of over 650 small and middle-sized businesses ranging from annual revenues of $100,000 to over $100 million that cross all industry lines including retail, wholesale, manufacturing, construction, high tech, low tech, and service.
William Fanchon has been assisting small business owners in Kansas City since 1977. He incorporated his sole proprietorship, FMC Associates, to form CFO Services, Inc. in 1989. In addition to his consulting practice, Mr. Fanchon is co-owner and vice-president of Hill Country Printing, Inc. Mr. Fanchon serves as an advisory director of a Kansas City independent bank, a recycling company, and a manufacturing company. He also holds a Kansas City real estate salespersons' license.
William Fanchon received his B.B.A. and M.B.A. from the University of Missouri at Kansas City and majored in finance.
Profile of Jason Williams
Mr. Williams brings over 18 years of retail management experience, both merchandising and operations, to E-Return. Currently, Mr. Williams oversees MGM's $30MM annual retail sales operations for all MGM locations. In addition, Mr. Williams's previous experience includes responsibilities as the divisional merchandise manager and general manager for Bullocks department store (a division of R. H. Macy Corporation). Prior to that role, Mr. Williams was the general manager for the Nevada Merchandise Division of the Marriott Corporation. This position entailed management responsibility for 27 stores in the greater Las Vegas area.
Mr. Williams completed his bachelor's degree in business administration at the University of California at Berkeley.
Profile of Abdul Ruiz
Dr. Ruiz is currently an assistant professor in the Management Science and Information Systems Department at the University of Missouri at Kansas City. He is currently teaching Digital Economy and Commerce at the graduate level. His previous teaching experience includes Management Information Systems at the undergraduate level at Indiana State University and Telecommunications for Managers at the graduate level at Columbia College at Chicago.
Dr. Ruiz's research and areas of interest include the economics of information systems and electronic commerce. In particular, his work focuses on the economic characteristics of information goods and how firms producing these goods decide to compete and/or exist efficiently in the market place. Dr. Ruiz provides E-Return with valuable insight into the complexities of business to business exchanges.
Dr. Ruiz received his Ph.D. in MIS from Indiana State University with a specialization in telecommunications, economics of information systems, electronic commerce, and database management.
Appendix C: Consumer Survey Results
Appendix D: a Note on E-Return's Technical Infrastructure
Appendix E: the Status of E-Return's Intellectual Property
Appendix F: E-Return's Fee and Commission Schedule
