About Us : Management Bios

Craig Weinewuth,President
Craig most recently was the VP/GM for American Express Business Finance with responsibilities for Commercial Vehicle, Construction & Industrial Equipment, IT/Office Products Segments. These responsibilities represented over 80% of the originations for all of American Express Business Finance in 2004. Craig has been in the commercial finance and leasing industry for sixteen years, holding a wide range of positions ranging from in-house counsel, sales and executive management with two Fortune 100 companies to principal and co-founder of Capital Alliance Financial Services, a start-up commercial vehicle/equipment finance company which was ultimately acquired by American Express. Craig holds a B.A. degree from the University of Wisconsin, Madison in Accounting and Finance and a Law Degree from DePaul University, Chicago, IL.

Email: CraigWeinewuth@MeriCapCredit.com
Phone: (630) 706-8301

James B. Freund,Executive Vice President - Sales and Marketing
Jim has been in the leasing/financial services industry for 17 years in various capacities with Fortune 100 companies ranging from Legal to National Account Development to Business Unit leader. Most recently, Jim held the position of Director, Construction and Industrial Equipment ("C&I) for American Express Business Finance, where he was responsible for building and leading the de novo business segment that generated $85MM in its first year of operation. Jim started his commercial finance career in 1988 with Transamerica Commercial Finance Corp. (now known as GE Distribution Finance) as legal counsel for the company's Commercial Vehicle/Equipment Division. Jim enjoyed experiences in both the legal and business disciplines until he left in 1997 to become a principal and co-founder of Capital Alliance Financial Services, LLC, a de novo commercial vehicle/equipment finance company, which was ultimately sold to American Express in 2001. Jim holds degrees from Marquette University (B.S. degree in business finance), The John Marshall Law School (Juris Doctor, Chicago, IL) and Loyola University Graduate School of Business (MBA, Chicago, IL).

Email: JimFreund@MeriCapCredit.com
Phone: (630) 706-8302

Joel Cappon,Executive Vice President - Chief Financial Officer
Joel possesses almost 13 years in the financial services industry, 8 of which are specific to the leasing industry.  Joel previously held the position of Controller of American Express Business Finance from July 2001 to February 2005.   Prior to this position, Joel held various positions at CNH (Case New Holland) including positions in Internal Audit, Interim Controller of Case Credit Australia, Senior Financial Analyst and Manager of worldwide accounting operations for the financial services group.  Prior to CNH, Joel worked as a consultant for Loder, Drew & Associates, Inc., Vice President of Internal Audit for Bank of Elmwood and as a Senior Auditor with KPMG Peat Marwick LLP.  Joel holds a B.B.A in Accounting from University of Wisconsin-Whitewater and is a CPA in the State of Wisconsin.

Email: JoelCappon@MeriCapCredit.com
Phone: (630) 706-8310

David Pederson,Executive Vice President - Chief Information Officer
David has been working in information technology for the leasing industry for over twenty years. He joined American Express Business Finance as CIO through its acquisition of SierraCities.com, where he had held the position of Executive Vice President and CIO since 1998. Prior to its sale to SierraCities.com in 1998, David founded and was President of Nexsoft, a software business targeting the leasing industry, where his company designed, developed and marketed two software solutions: CreditWARE and LeaseWARE. From 1985 to 1993, David was Vice President - Technologies for Fleet Capital, a division of Fleet Bank. He led a technology organization that supported Fleet’s small ticket commercial leasing business. David has also consulted on technology solutions for the leasing industry for such clients as Colorado National Leasing, Barnet Bank and AT&T Capital, among others. David holds a B.S. in Computer Science from Minnesota State University.

Email: DavidPederson@MeriCapCredit.com
Phone: (630) 706-8393

Rose Reynolds,Vice President - Operations
Rose has been in the commercial finance industry for over twenty-five years primarily with Fortune 100 companies such as American Express and Transamerica. Most recently, Rose was the Director of Operations for American Express Business Finance where her responsibilities included: preparing, implementing and managing the Company's policies and procedures as related to the front-end processing of commercial finance/leasing contracts. Other responsibilities included serving as corporate secretary responsible for all licensing and qualification of a commercial finance organization with over 25 subsidiaries in the U.S. and Europe; the management and supervision of a ten plus legal department support staff and budgeting and administration of a 20 plus legal department. Rose received her B.A. degree from DePaul University, Chicago, IL.

Email: RoseReynolds@MeriCapCredit.com
Phone: (630) 706-8330

Mark M. Rosinski, Vice President - Commercial Vehicles
Mark has over 16 years experience lending capital throughout the transportation industry in both retail and wholesale environments. He brings a diverse background to MeriCap Credit, having held various leadership roles in Risk, Operations, and Sales departments. He has worked for Transamerica Commercial Finance, Ford Motor Credit/Primus and recently Key Equipment Finance/American Express Business Finance. Before joining MeriCap, he was the Program Division Manager for Key where he led both sales and operations of a $175MM portfolio that had $60MM of new originations in 2004. He has been working with the MeriCap Credit management team since 1998. Mark graduated from the University of Iowa with a BS concentrating in Finance.

Email: MarkRosinski@MeriCapCredit.com
Phone: (630) 706-8370

Lewis Faas, Vice President - Commercial Vehicle Credit
Prior to joining MeriCap Credit, Lew had 29 years experience with Commercial Vehicle lending. Lew's previous experience was with CitiCapital Commercial Corporation (formerly Associates). The last four years with CitiCapital, Lew managed the dealer credit staff for the company's Transportation Finance Group. The dealer credit staff managed the credit relationships with the dealers for which CitiCapital provided floor plan funding, as well as providing financing for the dealers' lease and rental fleets. In prior positions with CitiCapital, Lew had managed teams of analysts responsible for underwriting loan and lease transactions with mid to large size trucking companies. He had also held positions where he was responsible for underwriting commercial real estate loans and revolving lines of credit for dealerships in the trucking industry. Lew obtained his bachelor's degree in Finance from the University of Iowa.

Email: LewFaas@MeriCapCredit.com
Phone: (630) 706-8321

Chuck Naglevitch, Vice President - Construction and Industrial Credit
Chuck has worked in the finance industry, specializing in construction equipment, since 1992. Prior to joining MeriCap Credit, he held various positions with Komatsu Financial ranging from the extension and collection of retail credit, preparation of monthly reporting packages, to establishing lease-end procedures and residual value policies. Most recently, Chuck served on Komatsu Financial's credit and pricing committees where he reviewed and approved the credit and pricing for larger ticket transactions and established various policies relating to those disciplines. Chuck holds a B.S. degree in Finance from Illinois State University, an M.B.A. from DePaul University, and is a C.F.A. charter holder.

Email: ChuckNaglevitch@MeriCapCredit.com
Phone: (630) 706-8325