George has over 35 years of experience as a business, finance, marketing and technology manager and entrepreneur. Over the past four years, he has served as the CEO of Athena Feminine Technologies. He is a recognized turnaround specialist and has served as a Chapter 11 Bankruptcy Trustee in the high tech industry. George was selected to be a member of a USAID team that toured Romania to teach the judiciary and administrators how to apply the new laws of reorganization to privatize state-owned ventures.  George spent many years as a marketing and financial consultant to the software industry during which time he developed a number of software products, some of which won “Product of the Year” awards from leading software magazines. George also founded and operated a number of coffee companies, such as Coffee Imports Inc. and Peet’s Coffee and Tea Inc. During that time he developed, imported and introduced over 80 successful consumer products, several of which are now well accepted in the retail markets.  George holds graduate degrees of Master of Arts and Certified Financial Planner.

georges@heartlandfinancialcorp.com

Steven Kerkstra, CPA

Steven is certified public accountant  and a highly experienced corporate financial officer.  Steven has been a Chief Operating  Officer, Chief Financial Officer, VP of Finance, Assistant Controller and Chief Accountant for both public and private companies, in the field of specialty  retailing.  In these capacities, he was  responsible for administering all aspects of operations, finance, budgeting and  cost and inventory controls. Steven’s public company experience includes specialty retailers May Company, WR Grace Home Centers, Strouds and  Three D Departments, Inc, where he was CFO.  Early in his career, he was a Senior Auditor at Arthur Young & Company. Steven has also served as a faculty member at Loyola University  of Chicago and Northern Illinois University. Steven is a graduate of  Loyola University of Chicago.

stevenk@heartlandfinancialcorp.com

Garrett L. Cecchini, MBA, JD.

Garrett is a legal and consulting professional whose career spans 28 successful years of corporate turnarounds, restructurings and corporate finance on a national and international level. Starting out early in his career as a bankruptcy attorney, partner Garrett has participated in some of the largest national and international corporate restructurings. As a Managing Director of Regent Pacific, an international reorganization consulting firm, Garrett's primary experience was in three vertical areas of expertise: technology, retail/consumer products and digital media. The breadth of his experience includes successful top tier engagements by billion dollar companies such as national and regional retailer Home Express and Fords Department Stores, retail/consumer products company Dow-Corning, publicly-traded multinational technology companies such as Daisy Cadnextix, Siliconix, National DataSystems, Storage Solutions, Radius, defense contractors S-Tron and Argent Systems. Currently Garrett is consulting as the Chief Restructuring Officer of Publicly traded ZVUE Networks, ,the 5th largest on line digital entertainment network in the U.S. Garrett has also taught and lectured on Bankruptcy as a guest "expert" at Stanford University Law School and as an adjunct professor at Golden Gate University Law School and co-authored a two volume legal treatise on Bankruptcy and Restructuring for Corporate Counsel, as well as publishing multiple articles on related subjects. His body of legal work and treatise, came to the attention of the U.S State Department in 1997 when he was asked to consult and as a contractor to USAID , head a delegation of U.S. Bankruptcy judges to go to Romania to re-write that country?s Bankruptcy code. After the completion of this project, Garrett was asked to stay on for another year in his consulting role and train the Romanian judges. While in Romania, he registered at the Romanian Bar as a US Legal Consultant and opened one of the first U.S. law firms to open in Eastern Europe and, shortly thereafter, successfully reorganized the largest private poultry producer in the Romania along the lines of the law he co- wrote. From Romania , Garrett's restructuring expertise took him to successful engagements in Slovakia , Croatia and Poland . Garrett has been qualified as an "expert" in multiple federal trials on bankruptcy, insolvency matters and forensic accounting matters related to insolvency. Garrett has a BA, Masters in Developmental Economics, MBA, and JD degrees.