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FSTC Board of Directors Biographies

Tom J. Vicknair, Chair of FSTC Board
CTO Payment Strategy Manager and Senior Vice President, JPMorgan Chase

Mr. Vicknair currently serves as Senior Vice President, Chief Technology Officer, and Payment Strategy Manager for JPMorgan Chase's Centralized Transaction Operations division. He is responsible for providing leadership and coordination for payment strategy, and directing industry payment strategy initiatives for the bank.

Mr. Vicknair has more than 25 years of experience in the financial services industry, including 23 years with JPMorgan Chase. He holds a Bachelor of Science degree in mathematics from Lamar University in Beaumont, Texas, and is actively involved in community activities supported by both JPMorgan Chase Bank and his own interests. Mr. Vicknair resides in Houston with his wife and two children.

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Mark SB Tiggas, Vice Chair of FSTC Board
Senior Vice President,Systems Architect, Wells Fargo Services Company

Mark SB Tiggas has more than 20 years experience in distributed computing, including more than 15 years in Internet development. He has been with Wells Fargo Services Company for seven years. During that time, Mr. Tiggas has led the technology for payments related e-commerce initiatives. He also serves as Wells Fargo & Company's representative to industry initiatives, such as the IFX Forum, FSTC, and the W3C.

Mr. Tiggas has been a key player in the International Financial Exchange Forum (IFX), with which he is a member of the board of directors; is active in several working groups, including architecture; and served as a past president. The IFX Forum has been active in the development of an XML vocabulary for the communication of financial information. Initially, this work focused on retail banking and bill presentment, and has of late incorporated corporate payments, foreign exchange, and ATM support.

Prior to joining Wells Fargo, Mr. Tiggas led two systems and development consulting organizations in Minneapolis and St. Paul, Minn., while also participating as an active consultant. During this time, he introduced several businesses, including many Fortune 500 companies, to the Internet and e-commerce. While serving as the chief technician for an information services company, Mr. Tiggas was named twice on the list of Fortune magazine's 50 fastest growing companies, and was the principal architect behind a distributed search and retrieval system used to house and research technical information.

Mr. Tiggas began his career as an industrial engineer for a Fortune 500 company, introducing mini and microcomputers into the manufacturing environment for test, measurement, and reporting.

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Gary Word
Director, Operations and Technology, Citigroup

Gary Word is a Director and Senior Architect within Citigroup's Operations and Technology Office.  He has more than 20 years of information technology experience, of which 13 years have been in the financial services sector.  Most recently, he founded, and for two years chaired, Citigroup's Architecture Council, which has created technology standards and the discipline of enterprise-wide architecture across Citigroup.

He has been involved with the Financial Services Technology Consortium (FSTC) since 1996, when he chaired a working group on network computing.  He has served on the FSTC Executive Council since 2006.

Prior to joining Citigroup in 1994, he was a Staff Scientist with the Superconducting Supercollider in Dallas, with responsibilities for setting software development standards and developing software frameworks.

He earned a Ph.D. in Physics from Vanderbilt University and Bachelors of Arts in Mathematics and Physics from Jacksonville Univeristy.  He currently resides in Princeton Junction, NJ, with his wife and two children.

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Garry Briggs
Senior Vice President Image Infrastructure and Payment Integration Executive Service and Fulfillment Operations – Image and Electronic Payment Services, Bank of America

Garry currently leads the Image Infrastructure and Payment Integration Team, concentrating on the design, delivery and implementation of infrastructure and operating procedures to support Check21-enabled processes for image and electronic payments processes. The team also drives strategies for global payment integration, simplification of the payments industry infrastructure and the exploration of interbank exchange partnerships.

Prior to his current role, Garry led the MBNA and US Trust Transition activities for Service and Fulfillment Operations and selected technology teams from Capital Markets and Wholesale Banking Technology. In addition he manages the Infrastructure and Payments Integration division which had responsibility for design and delivery of image and ACH processes. In 2005 he led the Planning & Engineering Teams of Transaction Services Technology which included Strategy & Architecture, Project Office, Risk Management and Process Improvement Teams.

Garry has spent the last 32 years in the financial services sector the last 28 with Bank of America. There he has held leadership positions in Transaction Services, Wholesale Banking Operations, led a multiple state ACH, Lockbox, ARP operation, Treasury Operations where he managed Wire Transfer, Float, Fed Position & Trading and Correspondent Bank Operations, in addition he led the Trust & Private Banking Operations in legacy Security Pacific.

Garry holds a BA degree in Philosophy. He is well know leader nationally and has been a strong advocate and frequent member of many banking industry associations and consortiums across the past 3 decades. Garry lives in Seattle with his two children and enjoys Life.

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Maggie F. Gray
SVP
Chief Operations Officer
Retail and Channel Technology (R&CT) Group

Leads a diverse group with responsibility for Strategic Planning, Risk, Program Management  (including merger activities), Global Sourcing, Financial Reporting, and Business Office activities.  Since joining Wachovia in 1993, Maggie has held a number of different technology positions supporting various business groups such as, eCommerce, Retirement Services, Brokerage, and Human Resources. 

She obtained a BBA in Business Data Systems from The University of Texas, San Antonio and graduated from the Young Executives Institute, Keenan Flagler Business School, at The University of North Carolina at Chapel Hill.

R&CT is an organization of 800+ technology professionals supporting the Retail Bank, eCommerce, Contact Centers, and the Lending Division of Wachovia Bank.

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David S. Downing, Sr. Vice President-Centralized Operations Group

David Downing has responsibility for the Central Operations Group, a division accountable for operational productivity and efficiency. Overseeing operations as diverse as infrastructure, processing, and technology, he is responsible for transforming First National Bank into a best-in-class organization in terms of effectiveness and efficiency.

David joined First National from JPMorgan Chase, where he led the successful integration and transformation of a Central Operations Group. While there, he increased productivity and growth while eliminating redundant processes and costs. Prior to joining JPMorgan Chase, David spent 6 years with Bank One and 15 years in operations at US Bank.

David and his wife Cindy have a daughter who lives and works in Boston.

 

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George Surdu
Senior Vice President and Chief Technology Officer, Comerica Bank

George Surdu is a Senior Vice President and Chief Technology Officer at Comerica Bank.  In this capacity Mr. Surdu oversees Comerica’s Information Services department. He is responsible for business technology services (applications for wholesale banking, retail banking, transaction processing, commercial loans/credit, trust, corporate, and affiliate services), infrastructure management (mainframe and server operations), information security, architecture and technology planning, telecommunications (Wide Area Network data and voice), and workstation management.

George retired from Ford Motor in 2005.  During his 28 years at Ford, he held numerous senior executive positions, including CIO positions for Ford Parts Distribution Systems and the Office of the General Counsel, head of the Company's global application development services, and global IT infrastructure.  As Strategic Planning Manager for Ford Credit he developed the IT strategy in support of the business as it consolidated operations in North America.  During the mid 1990s, he led the business and IT reengineering efforts for Product Development, and as the year 2000 approached, led the Company's global Year 2000 Program that successfully remediated and certified technology in all cars and trucks back to 1977 (first EEC-1 modules), all plant floor control and robotic systems, all supplier and dealer interfaces, all Ford Land physical infrastructure, all IT infrastructure, and more than 350 million lines of code.  Following the year 2000 effort, he developed and successfully implemented a global simplification and defragmentation strategy that reduced operating costs by more than $300 million annually

George is a graduate of Eastern Michigan University where he obtained a bachelor's degree in Mathematics and Computer Science and a master's degree in Pure and Applied Mathematics.  He has completed course work toward an MBA, and has attended numerous technology, process reengineering, program management, leadership and change management courses over his professional career.  George and his wife of 35 years, Margaret, live in Novi, Michigan.  They have two children, Tracie and Trevor, both graduates of Michigan State University, and two grandchildren.

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Daniel R. Vermeire
Chief Technology Officer, Huntington National Bank

Daniel R. Vermeire is Chief Technology Officer at Huntington National Bank, and is responsible for enterprise architecture, managing a team of architects that provide leadership in the evaluation and design of new technology solutions and capabilities.

During his 16-year career with Huntington, Mr. Vermeire has held various technology roles, including Vice President of Strategic Technologies and Manager of Applied Technologies. He also managed several large enterprise projects and worked as an application systems developer. Mr. Vermeire has performed key technology leadership roles in several major Huntington initiatives, including the inception and launch of e-Bank; deployment of an enterprise-wide, seven-year image archive system; implementation of smart card technologies; and the launch and management of Huntington's initial Internet presence.

Mr. Vermeire has been involved with the Financial Services Technology Consortium (FSTC) since 1994. He has sponsored Huntington National Bank's involvement in several of FSTC's research projects including: Interbank Check Imaging (served as project director during 1996-97 of this inaugural project for the FSTC), e-Check, Network Computing, and the Financial Agent Secured Transactions projects.

Mr. Vermeire earned a Bachelor of Science degree in computer science with minors in mathematics and psychology from Youngstown State University in Youngstown.

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John Voss
Vice President and Chief Technology Officer, Marshall and Ilsley Corporation

John Voss is Vice President and Chief Technology Officer of the Marshall and Ilsley Corporation (M&I), a $43 billion bank holding company headquartered in Milwaukee, Wisconsin. Mr. Voss has the overall responsibility for technology strategy development and execution for the financial services enterprises of the Marshall and Ilsley Corporation, which includes M&I Bank.

Prior to joining M&I in February 1999, Mr. Voss spent more than 21 years at Huntington National Bank of Columbus, Ohio. During his career at Huntington, he held a number of technology management positions, including Manager of Systems and Programming, Director of Information Systems, and Chief Technology Officer.

Mr. Voss served as the chair of Huntington’s 1993 United Way campaign. He also held several leadership positions, including chairman of the Texas Instruments Information Engineering Facility Users Group. Mr. Voss served on the FSTC Board of Directors from 1994 through 1998.

Mr. Voss and his wife, Julie, have three children: Erin, Stephanie, and Kevin.

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Leigh Williams
President, BITS

Leigh Williams was appointed President of BITS in April 2007. Previously, Mr. Williams was a Senior Fellow at the Kennedy School of Government at Harvard University, in the Mossavar-Rahmani Center for Business and Government. While at Harvard, his research focused on public and private sector collaboration in the governance of privacy and security. Prior to joining the Kennedy School, Mr. Williams worked for many years at Fidelity Investments in various risk management, security and privacy roles, including Chief Risk Officer and Chief Privacy Officer. His most recent position at Fidelity was Senior Vice President, Public Policy. While with Fidelity Investments, Mr. Williams served the industry in a variety of leadership roles, including many within BITS and the rest of The Financial Services Roundtable.

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Rick Leander
Executive Director of the Strategic Forum
Chief Strategy Officer of The Clearing House

R.C. (Rick) Leander is the Executive Director of the Strategic Forum and Chief Strategy Officer of The Clearing House (TCH), the nation’s oldest and most innovative payments association and processor. His charter is to identify, evaluate and implement new business opportunities and strategic investments to ensure the long term success and viability of The Clearing House.  The Strategic Forum assesses the continuing evolution of the payments business and the implications of these changes on the industry. Its members and other industry leaders work together to preserve the safety, soundness and viability of the payments industry infrastructure.

Before joining The Clearing House, Rick was the Chief Executive Officer of Avantrust, a wholly owned subsidiary of AIG, responsible for developing products to address emerging risk issues for corporations and consumers as well as for developing and managing alternative distribution processes for traditional AIG products.

Prior to joining Avantrust,  he held a number of senior positions at Mellon Financial, Bank of America and Citicorp, where he focused on eBusiness development, customer delivery and transaction banking with posts in North America, Europe and Asia.

He is a graduate of the University of Texas @ Austin and is currently working on a Masters of Science degree in Public Policy and Management at the University of London and on his private pilot’s license and continues to fine tune his tournament poker skills.    He currently resides in North Carolina with his wife, Madison.  

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Marshall E. Tyner, Jr.  (Woody)
Senior Vice President
BB&T Corporation
Wilson, North Carolina

Marshall E. Tyner, Jr. (Woody), AAP, CTP is a Senior Vice President responsible for Payment Systems Strategy at BB&T Corporation. 

Mr. Tyner is responsible for leading the development of BB&T’s payments strategy across organizational lines and serving as a focal point for payments industry issues.  He joined BB&T in 1981 and has held leadership responsibility in all of the Bank’s payment processing areas at various times throughout his career.  Mr. Tyner also served as President of Creative Payment Solutions, a wholly-owned subsidiary of BB&T Corporation that provides wholesale electronic payment services to the financial services industry.

Mr. Tyner is a graduate of the Stonier Graduate School of Banking and holds his M.B.A. from East Carolina University.  He currently serves on The Clearing House Strategic Payments Forum, ABA Payments Systems Committee, and FSTC Payments Committee. Mr. Tyner is a frequent speaker at payment industry conferences and forums.

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James B. Cole
Senior Vice President
Bank of Oklahoma, N.A.

Mr. Cole has been in banking for 26 years with such organizations as Bank One, EDS and JPMorgan Chase.  In his career he has managed virtually every aspect of bank operations and technology.  He is currently a Senior Vice President with Bank of Oklahoma managing Enterprise Support Services which includes, Business Resiliency, Information Security, Procurement, Corporate Real Estate and Business Transformation and Development (training and development for Operations and Technology).

Jim holds a Bachelors of Science from The Ohio State University and a Masters of Business Administration from Xavier University.  He is a board member of the Tulsa Zoo Friends and the Sooner Chapter of the Cystic Fibrosis Society.  Jim and his wife Melissa reside in Tulsa, Oklahoma with their four children.

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