The Equipment Leasing & Finance Foundation announced the officers of its board of trustees who will serve in 2017. Board officers serving are William Verhelle, Member of Harvard Partners as chair; Scott Thacker, CEO of Ivory Consulting as vice chairman; Ralph Petta, president and CEO of the Equipment Leasing and Finance Association as president; Richard Doherty, president of PNC Equipment Finance as treasurer and Paul Stilp, VP of Finance and Administration for the ELFA as secretary. The officer elections were held during the board of trustees’ annual meeting.

The new members appointed to the ELFF board of trustees include Jeffrey Berg, executive vice president – country manager for DLL; Katie Emmel, chief operating officer of International Decision Systems and Eric Hanson, senior managing director of Macquarie Capital Advisors.

Richard Gumbrecht is immediate past chairman and Larry Smilie, managing director of Capital Markets for Banc of America Leasing, will serve as liaison to thefFoundation from ELFA’s board of directors.

“The foundation’s trustees represent a wealth of expertise, talent and experience in the equipment finance industry,” Petta said. “We are privileged to benefit from their commitment and the time they contribute to the foundation.”

Other 2017 trustees are:

•  Vincent Belcastro, managing director/group head of Corporate Equipment Finance for Santander Bank Equipment Finance
• Steven Byrnes, principal of Capgemini
• Jeffry Elliott, chief administrative officer, Huntington Equipment Finance
• Randy Haug, executive vice president and vice chairman of LeaseTeam
• James Johnson, professor of finance at Northern Illinois University
• Bonnie Michael, vice president, legal and general counsel for Volvo Financial Services
• Kelli Nienaber, executive director of the Equipment Leasing & Finance Foundation
• Gordon Scott, vice president of CDK Financing Solutions

In addition to the officer appointments, the ELFF honored James Schallheim, Ph.D., professor of finance at University of Utah with the Steven R. LeBarron Award for Principled Research during the foundation’s annual research planning meeting, which was held along with the annual board meeting. The award is presented annually to the research committee member who demonstrates insight, fortitude and dedication.