About Us

John Burnett is an Associate Editor at Bankers Online, having joined after over 35 years of banking experience (over 25 of them in Compliance and Operations). He is one of the earliest members of the Bankers Online community. John is a graduate of the ABA National Compliance School, and served on its faculty for several years. He graduated with honors with from the Stonier Graduate School of Banking and is a graduate of the BAI and the Massachusetts Banker Association Schools of Banking. John is a former member and chair of the Massachusetts Bankers Association’s Legal and Regulatory Compliance Committee. He is an advisory board member for Bankers Hotline, and is a speaker and participant in many of BOL Conferences’ events and training webinars. 

Randy Carey spent 25 years in the banking industry in a wide range of positions, including AVP/Senior Compliance Officer, Vice President of Compliance and Community Reinvestment Act Activities and Vice President and Director of Internal Audit. Over the last ten years, Randy has provided professional compliance consulting and internal audit services to a wide range of financial institutions. These services encompass all aspects of consumer compliance within both the deposit and lending arenas and independent audits for Bank Secrecy Act compliance. Randy is a graduate of the ABA National Compliance School, Truth-in-Lending School, and Graduate Compliance School. He has served as an instructor for the American Institute of Banking, Oregon Bankers Compliance School, Texas Bankers Association Compliance School, and the BankersOnline BSA Top Gun Conference.

Patricia Cashman, CRCM, is a partner in Cashman Compliance Solutions, LLC. She is responsible for consumer compliance reviews, Bank Secrecy Act (BSA) and anti-money laundering reviews, and compliance and BSA training. Patricia began her banking career in 1969. She has been the senior operations officer for three Dallas-Ft. Worth area community banks, an assistant examiner for the Texas Department of Banking and managed the compliance/internal audit division of TIB – The Independent BankersBank, one of the largest bankers’ banks in the country. Additionally, Patricia has spoken as a webcast/teleconference presenter for the American Bankers Association (ABA), Bankers OnLine (BOL) and the Center for Financial Training (CFT) and taught a variety of compliance subjects for the Texas Bankers Association (TBA) and ABA at their respective Compliance Schools. She also serves as a BOL GURU and has been a speaker/trainer for numerous banks and compliance organizations.

Brian J. Crow is a Compliance Associate at Thomas Compliance Associates, Inc. in Chicago, IL. Brian brings 20 years of prior banking experience to the consulting field. He was most recently Assistant Vice President and BSA Administrator for a suburban Chicago bank, where his responsibilities included preparing the bank’s annual BSA risk assessment and audit documentation. Earlier as Operations Officer at the same bank, Brian monitored AML activity, aided in the implementation of the bank’s AML software, and designed the bank’s authentication blocking program that helped to reduce debit card fraud losses by 95 percent. Mr. Crow has been, and continues to be, an education consultant for the Glia Group BOL Learning Connect program, conducting webinars that have covered VISA/MasterCard chargebacks, debit card compliance and fraud prevention for hundreds of banks. It was in this role that Mr. Crow was recognized as a Bankers Online Guru in 2011. Like many of us, Mr. Crow began his banking career as a teller, working his way up to head teller and then branch management responsibilities. He earned a B.A. degree in Theology from Concordia University, River Forest, Illinois. Because of his education background, Brian has been given the unofficial title of “Security Evangelist.”

Jack Holzknecht is the founder Compliance Resource, LLC. He has been delivering the word on lending compliance for 39 years. In 34 years as a trainer over 125,000 bankers (and many examiners) have participated in Jack’s live seminars and webinars. Jack’s career began as a federal bank examiner. He later headed the product and education divisions of a regional consulting company. There he developed loan and deposit form systems and software. He also developed and presented training programs to bankers in 43 states. Jack has been an instructor at compliance schools presented by several state bankers associations. He developed and delivered compliance training for the FDIC and OTS for ten years. He is a Certified Regulatory Compliance Manager and a member of the National Speakers Association. He is also a “BOL Guru.”

Mary Beth Guard currently serves as CEO of Glia Group, Inc. Mary Beth has had a long and distinguished career, graduating from law school in 1980, then going on to serve as general counsel for the Oklahoma State Banking Department, general counsel for the Oklahoma Bankers Association, and EVP of Specialized Services for Thomson Financial Publishing prior to co-founding Glia Group, Inc. and BankersOnline.com.  Mary Beth is on the advisory board for Bankers’ Hotline. She has presented training programs for virtually every major national financial industry association as well as more than a dozen state bankers associations and a host of other organizations. In addition, Mary Beth has written more than one thousand banking-related articles and is a BOL Guru.

Sam D. Ott is an attorney who specializes in banking and is of counsel with Phillips McFall McCaffrey McVay & Murrah, P.C. Prior to entering into private practice, Sam was Executive Vice President of Glia Group, Inc., the originator of BankersOnline.com. He was previously General Counsel and Secretary of the Board of BancFirst Corporation and BancFirst. Before his association with BancFirst, Sam served as Assistant General Counsel for The First National Bank and Trust Company of Oklahoma City and General Counsel for both First Interstate Bank of Oklahoma and Boatmen’s Bank of Oklahoma.

Barry Thomspon, Certified Regulatory Compliance Manager, is the author of 101 Security Tips for the Beginning Security Officer and is known as “The Fraud Educator.” He has worked in the financial services industry for over three decades, holding the positions of security officer, compliance officer, treasurer, senior vice president and executive vice president. He is the only fraud educator in this industry that has worked in senior management positions, which affords him unique insight into financial institutions. During his career, Barry has handled over 900 security cases. He has been involved with investigations and prosecutions on the federal, state, and local levels…and has testified before grand juries, county courts, bankruptcy courts, family courts and the New York State Supreme Court. As a security specialist for America’s Community Bankers (2000-2008), Barry has been involved in all phases of organizing the “national operations, technology and security conference,” including designing and overseeing the conference’s security track, hiring conference speakers, and writing the conference manual. Barry is an in-demand, internationally recognized speaker where he has made fraud, theft and security presentations to groups in Brussels, at the United Nations, and to Japanese bankers in Washington, DC. Recognizing the increasing importance of compliance in the banking industry, he became a certified regulatory compliance manager in 1997. Barry has attended prestigious schools held by the American Bankers Association and America’s Community Bankers. Among them are the national trust school, held at Northwestern University in 1999; the national compliance school, held at the University of Oklahoma in 1997 and Emory University in 2006; and the investment school at Fairfield University in 1993. He has put his knowledge and expertise to use as an instructor for both the Credit Union National Association’s security institute (2000-2008, 2011- Present), and for the Tennessee Bankers Association’s “Southeastern School of Banking” (2005-present). Barry is also a writer who contributes to Bankers’ Hotline, BankersOnline and other industry publications. He is a security and compliance guru for BankersOnline as well as a member of the advisory board for Bankers’ Hotline. As a result of Barry’s knowledge and expertise about financial fraud and identity theft, he has been interviewed by Newsweek, Consumer Reports and other national and regional publications. Barry’s professional and educational background along with his Certified Regulatory Compliance manager designation provides him with a depth of experience that very few in the financial services industry can match. Today, his firm focuses primarily on training at national and state conventions, and in-house to banks and credit unions, on topics from physical security to computer security. This includes in-depth instruction on identity theft, internal fraud, scams and schemes, conducting investigations, and social media and bank robbery. To date, he has trained more than 26,000 financial professionals – and growing.

Andy Zavoina has been in finance and banking for 31 years. Over 20 years were with a holding company with two Central Texas community banks that had $534 million in assets, 89 branches spanning Texas and nearly 500 ATMs. After starting in loan workouts, Mr. Zavoina has been a consumer, commercial and real estate lender and managed those departments as well as being the bank’s first Webmaster. He was responsible for compliance management, auditing, and training for both banks. Mr. Zavoina is a past Chairman of the American Bankers Association’s Compliance Executive Committee. He is a recipient of the American Bankers Association’s Distinguished Service Award for his involvement and accomplishments in the field of regulatory compliance management. He was chairman of the Editorial Advisory Board for the ABA’s Compliance Magazine, an advisor to the Compliance Action newsletter, was a member of the ABA’s Compliance School Board and is a BankersOnline Guru. He also served on the Texas Bankers Association’s Compliance Committee. He is a graduate of the ABA National Commercial Lending School, National Compliance and National Graduate Compliance School and is a Certified Regulatory Compliance Manager with the Institute of Certified Bankers. He has written numerous articles and lectured on compliance, the use of the Internet and technology as a tool as well as compliance in cyberspace to local, state and national associations.

Pauli Loeffler received her Bachelor of Arts degree in English as well as her Juris Doctorate from the University of Oklahoma. Ms. Loeffler entered general practice with the family law firm founded by her grandfather in Bristow, Oklahoma circa 1915. The firm represented the local banks in foreclosures, contracts and collections. Pauli’s practice included title examination, contracts and probate. She was elected to membership in the Tulsa Title and Probate Lawyers Association in 1986. In January 1988, Pauli was named Estate Administrator for the U.S. Bankruptcy Court for the Northern District of Oklahoma. Upon moving to Edmond, she became a staff attorney in the bankruptcy section of the FDIC Oklahoma City Field Office, Department of Liquidation. From June 2004 until January 2011, Pauli served as Assistant General Counsel for the Oklahoma Bankers Association responding to legal and compliance questions of the association’s member banks. She transitioned to the BankersOnline team when the OBA outsourced its legal and compliance department to BOL in January 2011.

Kathleen Blanchard is a principal with Key Compliance Services, a consulting firm specializing in CRA and fair lending analysis and exam preparation as well as bank compliance. She has over 30 years of banking experience at banks ranging in size from $1 billion to some of the world’s largest banks. Kathleen’s experience in financial institutions includes management roles in commercial and consumer lending, private banking, credit policy, regulatory compliance, BSA, fair lending and enterprise risk management. Her extensive experience with commercial and consumer lending, regulations, policies and procedures and enterprise risk management allows her to help banks develop workable processes to meet regulatory requirements. She has established compliance, monitoring, and internal control functions from the ground up and has extensive policy and procedure and credit risk management experience. She holds the CRCM certification and is a graduate of the ABA National Compliance School. Kathleen has extensive experience in BSA, fair lending, enterprise risk and compliance consulting and audits. She conducts training on many topics and has presented at conferences on many banking topics. Kathleen works with many banks in developing and improving CRA and HMDA processes, assists banks with CRA, HMDA and fair lending analysis, and exam preparation. She has written white papers on banking issues and has been published in the ABA Banking Journal and Compliance Week.