Jamie Clarke - Opening Keynote

A dedicated adventurer, Jamie Clarke is a three-time Canadian Junior Cross-Country ski champion and 20-year veteran of mountain climbing. After pursuing his goal for 18 years and making two attempts to reach the summit, Clarke became the 9th Canadian to summit Mount Everest.

In 1991, he was part of an Everest team that was forced to turn back 3,000 feet from the summit during one of the mountain's deadly storms. In 1994, his team of ten climbers made a courageous effort to reach the summit, only to have to turn back less than 500 feet from the top. In a true demonstration of teamwork, they performed a high-altitude rescue to save the life of their lead climber. In 1997, through sheer determination, Clarke finally reached the summit, and along with his re-engineered team of five climbers, he performed two more high-altitude rescues.

Recharging audience enthusiasm and morale, Clarke relates the importance of overcoming the fear of rejection as a major factor in the process of reaching your goals. He suggests that we must face and conquer the internal battle of self-awareness so that we may then become a supportive member of any team that faces challenges together. He further demonstrates how the life lessons he learned during his Mt. Everest expeditions may be directly applied to every organization's challenges.

Mike Rayburn - Closing Keynote

Featured in Newsweek, USA Today, Billboard, Gig, and on the nationally acclaimed and syndicated Bob and Tom radio show, Mike Rayburn is an award-winning speaker and entertainer. Known as the Worlds’ Funniest Guitar Virtuoso, he uses his astounding guitar creations, uproarious songs and presentation skills to encourage, challenge and inspire his audiences to step beyond their perceived limitations. Rayburn draws from a wealth of life experiences as an adventurer, comedian, published songwriter, author, philanthropist, and father, to deliver a presentation that is completely energizing and entertaining.

Christine Barry - Aite Group LLC

Christine Barry, serves as a Research Director at Aite Group LLC. Ms. Barry is an acknowledged banking industry expert with more than a decade of experience in financial services products and technologies. She has worked with a broad range of US and international clients analyzing industry trends and identifying market opportunities, product gaps and potential partners to help them achieve their strategic IT goals.

Rockwell F. Clancy II - J.D. Power and Associates

Rockwell Clancy is the Executive Director of Financial Services at J.D. Power and Associates. He is responsible for overseeing the firm's syndicated research, proprietary tracking programs, solutions consulting and performance improvement in the banking, mortgage and brokerage practices. Clancy's career spans more than 25 years in the financial services industry, including as a banker, industry trade association executive and consultant.

Mary Cunningham - USA Federal Credit Union

Mary Cunningham is President and CEO of USA Federal Credit Union, headquartered in San Diego, California. USA Federal Credit Union serves all branches of the military with specific emphasis on the Navy in and around the San Diego area. The credit union has 22 branches including 12 in Japan and Korea, with assets over $700 million and serves 59,000 members with a staff of 235. Cunningham has been involved as President for several credit unions before joining USA Federal Credit Union.

Frank Diekmann - The Credit Union Journal

Frank Diekmann is the publisher and editor-in-chief of The Credit Union Journal and has covered credit union stories all over the U.S. and from Sydney to Prague. In 1997, Diekmann co-founded The Credit Union Journal, which reaches more than 8,500 credit union executives every week in the U.S., Canada and Australia. In 1990, Diekmann created the first credit union newsweekly in founding Credit Union Times. Prior to that, he covered the banking industry for five years, and prior to that worked as a sports writer in Cincinnati.

Chip Filson - Callahan and Associates

Charles W. "Chip" Filson is an active leader in the credit union indutry and a nationally recognized author, speaker, and consultant for the credit union movement. As president of Callahan and Associates, Filson counsels many of the nations largest credit unions. Filson's expertise is drawn from a quarter century of government, financial institution, and business experience. He served as Supervisor of the Illinois Credit Union Division before moving to hold concurrent positions at the National Credit Union Administration (NCUA) as President.

Craig Focardi - TowerGroup

Craig is a research area director for TowerGroup's Consumer Lending, Global Payments, and Wholesale Banking research services, which cover a wide range of business, process, strategic, and technical topics relating to origination, servicing, securitization, and risk management. Craig has 22 years experience in a variety of finance, product development, and business development roles for mortgage technology vendors, lenders, and risk management firms.

Paul Gentile - Credit Union Times

Paul Gentile is the editor-in-chief of Credit Union Times. He is a well-known figure in the credit union industry and has written hundreds of stories on all aspects of the industry since joining the publication. He also writes a weekly column offering his opinion on topical credit union issues. He has helped build Credit Union Times' impeccable reputation as a "news" publication that reports all stories straight down the middle.

Ruth Razook - RLR Management Consulting, Inc.

Ruth L. Razook is CEO of RLR Management Consulting, Inc. (RLR). In 1988, Ruth founded RLR to serve community banks, primarily in the southern California region. RLR is now a nationwide consulting firm focused on providing high quality consulting assistance to financial institutions in the areas of corporate strategy, organizational analysis, operations and project management, information technology and payments.

Terence Roche - Cornerstone Advisors

Terence Roche brings to his position as principal at the Cornerstone Advisors more than 25 years of experience in banking and consulting. Prior to founding Cornerstone, Roche was a managing director at M ONE, Inc., where he built the firm's highly successful vendor selection practice. Before M ONE , Roche served as Senior Vice President of Systems and Technology at Bay View Federal Bank in San Francisco. He is also a regular contributor to the well-known GonzoBanker newsletter.

Terence J. Roth - Federal Reserve Bank of Cleveland

Terence Roth is a vice president in the Federal Reserve System's Retail Payment Office at the Federal Reserve Bank of Cleveland. He is responsible for national check-product development and check-product management. Roth joined the Cleveland Bank's Check Department in 1973. Before assuming his current role, he served in a variety of positions including night check collection manager, product development manager, assistant vice president of the Marketing Department, assistant vice president and sales manager. Roth was named vice president and the bank's quality officer in 1996.