Martin Mercer, J.D., CPA 7768 South Steele Street Centennial, CO 80122 Phone: (303) 956-2537 Email: mmartinmercer@yahoo.com Leadership Profile Executive Leadership. Strategic Business Planning, Financial Leadership, Legal/Contract Negotiations, Enterprise Transformation, E-Commerce Solutions, Information Management, Business Process Analysis Outstanding senior leadership executive with an excellent track record for driving revenue and operating performance in high technology venues. Proven leader with attorney and CPA background having extensive information technology history. Expertise includes strategic marketing planning, new product development, organizational development, finance and accounting, legal/contract negotiations, e-business, e-commerce, IT integration project development. Change agent with the vision and strength to devise and implement successful strategies and business plans for increasing market share and earnings. In-depth experience includes innovative, visionary leadership, excellent insight into key industry opportunities and challenges, and superior negotiating skills. An exceptional motivator and team builder capable of maximizing personnel performance at all levels. Ideal candidate for president, CEO, CFO, CIO, and COO positions with enterprises seeking a results-proven leader in enterprise-wide situations needing an innovative strategic marketing vision and immediate, sustainable results. Authored and implemented an in-house software application that eliminated outside vendor services, cutting costs by $3 million in the first year, $4 million in the second year, and $6 million in the third year. Professional Experience First Assured Warranty Corporation Greenwood Village, Colorado Information Technology Director 2001 to present Spearheaded all IT functions for this provider of extended service warranties offered through car dealerships and via the Internet. Directed company-wide technology, including server and workstation functionality, website capabilities, email/anti-virus/anti-spam solutions, user application systems, and software development. Coordinated proprietary order entry, claims processing and accounting systems, call center operation, sales and claims queue processes, and efforts toward maintaining a competitive edge in the industry. Initiated a monthly reporting system for operations and claims reserve evaluation. * Utilized cutting-edge technology to rebuild the internal network and Internet "cyber center" to defend against virus and hacker attacks. Maintained a 99.96 percent uptime for the internal network and a 99.93 percent uptime for the Internet cyber center. * Re-engineered proprietary dealer and claims administration applications to optimize dealer contract data entry. * Designed and implemented a new proprietary order entry and claims administration information system in the object model using VB.Net, SQL Server 2000, and OS Server 2000. The system is completely Internet-enabled, utilizing server redundancy and clustering to ensure maximum uptime and unlimited future growth. Page Digital, Inc. Englewood, Colorado Division Directorships 1998 to 2001 Directed the finance, software development, and e-commerce applications development divisions for this webstore solutions provider. Oversaw financial compliance and reporting including cash receipts, cash disbursements, accounts payable, accounts receivable, payroll, and GL. Led a team of 35 programmers in building order entry, accounting, warehousing, inventory control, and manufacturing software solutions. Led the team that developed the business-to-consumer and business-to-business e-commerce webstores, including the development team that built and implemented the Synaro e-commerce webstore system dynamically producing catalogue, shopping cart, and order status functionality using Java and HTML. * Designed and implemented a webstore online order and inventory system in six weeks, on time and within budget. Built version 2 of the webstore using Java and HTML as native languages in eight weeks. * Instituted weekly software development and status update meetings, increasing the development team's productivity by more than 50 percent. This significantly improved timely deliveries of go-live modifications and reduced turnaround time for existing customer software development projects. * Built a budget and forecasting system to track and forecast the timing and sources of future revenue and to manage the expenditure of ongoing operating expenses and development costs. MDC Holdings, Inc. Denver, Colorado Applications Programming Director 1993 to 1997 Managed the senior programmers and business analysts providing programming support services for the ninth largest U.S. homebuilder. Served as project manager for a company-wide integrated, computerized point of sale/sales presentation/inventory/prospect follow-up system. Developed a database that quantified critical information regarding homes built in the Denver metropolitan area and established that there was a statistically significant relationship between expansive soils and basement complaints, allowing company attorneys to negotiate a favorable settlement in a class-action litigation. * Designed a sales force office automation solution that contributed $29 million in annual renewable gross revenue and $6.5 million annually to the company's bottom line. * Within a two-year period, successfully completed more than 350 project requests and reduced the 200 backlogged inherited project requests to fewer than 30. * Re-engineered the RPG tax-capitalized interest program with favorable and aggressive fully disclosed assumptions that justified a tax deduction of accelerated capitalized interest, causing the IRS to allow $49 million out of the $50 million in deductions it had previously denied. Paul Chamberlain International Beverly Hills, California Vice President, Financial Fraud Investigation 1990 to 1993 Directed and coordinated financial and computer fraud investigations for this firm dedicated to investigations involving white-collar crime and financial institution losses. The company is comprised primarily of former FBI special agents and handles the kidnap and extortion crisis response team for Lloyd's of London insureds. Performed security surveys, provided litigation services, prepared investigative reports and criminal referrals for submission to the FBI, analyzed complex real estate transactions where fraud or malfeasance was suspected, performed statistical analyses for fraud, and managed the NBA draft background investigation program. * Performed statistical analyses on automotive loan pools to establish that the loan default rate was dramatically shorter for loans accepted from specific suspicious automobile dealers vs. the general population of automobile dealers in the loan pools as a whole. This information pointed federal investigators to specific loan officers and automobile dealerships, resulting in criminal referrals. * Successfully defended a company owner/partner against allegations of mismanagement by his business partners resulting in the bankruptcy of his franchised 50-store retail chain. Discovered evidence of long-term embezzlement on the part of the suing partners and secured countersuit settlement for client. Employment Prior to 1990 Served in director and manager positions for financial institutions, including Coopers & Lybrand. Spearheaded the client services functions of a software development company providing corporate tax software to Fortune 500 companies. Oversaw the technical support hotline staff and developed and coordinated the development of regional user groups nationwide. Provided MIS services for a "Big 12" CPA firm. Created a business plan for the new MAS emerging business group at Coopers & Lybrand. Directed day-to-day operations, engagement profitability, ongoing marketing programs, and staff development. Significant accomplishments included: * Significantly enhanced the existing practice by applying forecasting and systems analyses using a variety of computerized projection and modeling programs. * Authored award-winning computer-based applications used by more than 90 company tax offices throughout the United States, eliminating the need to use FASTAX to print syndicated partnership tax returns. This resulted in $3 million in increased net income in the first tax year. Net income jumped to $4 million in the second year and to $6 million in the third year. Corporate Legal Expertise Managed, directed, and coordinated financial and computer fraud investigations. Performed security surveys, provided litigation services to attorneys in financial litigation matters, represented clients, and directed background investigations. Law-related activities included: * Preparation of pleadings, responses, interrogatories, and exhibits; preparing for depositions and direct/cross examinations. Prepared pre-trial documents including petitions, requests for documents, affidavits, notices of deposition, settlement letters, stipulations, and correspondence to clients/opposing counsel. Attended depositions, settlement conferences, OSC hearings, contempt proceedings, trials, and sentencing hearings. In-court trial activities included opening statements, introduction of evidence, direct/cross examination of witnesses, and closing arguments. * Evidential substantiation of facts in an IRS audit involving $50 million in previously denied deductions. * Analyses of complex real estate transactions where fraud or malfeasance was suspected. * Liaised with local law enforcement and the FBI on cases where prosecutable criminal offenses were likely to have occurred. Prepared investigative reports and criminal referrals for submission to the FBI. * Researched records to locate hidden assets of former officers and directors of S&Ls. Teaching History Served as an instructor for Santa Monica Community College, El Camino College, and the Becker CPA Review Course from 1982 to present. Taught many varied courses in the categories of accounting, business law, and computer science, including accounting theory, fixed assets, inventory, cost accounting, leases, earnings-per-share, bond amortization, consolidations, fund accounting, taxes, financial statement analysis, auditing, debt financing, types of equity, contracts, torts, sales, insurance, negotiable instruments, property, secured transactions, bankruptcy, regulatory and employment law, and word processing, spreadsheet, and database applications. Education/Licensing * Juris Doctorate: McGeorge School of Law, University of the Pacific, Sacramento, California, 1981. * Bachelor of Arts, Accounting (Economics): University of California, Los Angeles, 1978. * Certified Public Accountant: Licensed in Colorado, 1982 to present. * Attorney: Colorado State Bar Certified and Licensed, 1981 to present. Technical Environments Computer Hardware: Intel, AS/400, RS6000 Platforms. Application/Web Servers: WebSphere, WebLogic, Apache. Operating Systems: Windows (All), Unix (AIX), OS400, MS-DOS Networking/Backup: 10/100 Mb Ethernet LAN, Novell LAN using 4 & 16 Mb Token Ring, Windows For Workgroups version 3.11, NovaNet, Dell PowerVault 128T(LTO) Languages: RPG, Basic, Java, HTML, Visual Basic 6, VB.Net, SQL Server 2000 Security/System Monitoring: CheckPoint Firewall-1, Norton AntiVirus Enterprise Edition, Brightmail Anti-Spam, Saint Security, SiteScope Applications: MAS 90, Great Plains, Solomon, Peachtree, QuickBooks and Open Systems. Payroll: ADP, Ceridian Source 500, and PayChex. Tax Preparation: Corptax, TMS and TurboTax. Billing Systems: Timeslips and BSA. Databases: SQL Server, DB2, Oracle. Proprietary Homebuilding system; Synaro Software, and The APEX Order Entry and Claims Administration Information System. Publications The CPA Journal, March 1988, pp. 68-69 titled, "The Bernoulli Box: A Low Cost Alternative to Sharing Data in Limited Environments."