What is
your background and what brought you to COCC?
I began my career in 1984 in public accounting, and joined
Touche Ross & Co. in 1986 as a senior accountant. I continued to
work for Deloitte & Touche following their merger in 1989. COCC
recruited me as Chief Financial Officer in 1991, which exposed
me to this great organization, its clients, and its potential.
In 2001, following an extensive search, I was named President
and CEO. In total, I’ve been with COCC for 15 years, which is
quite typical of our employees.
What
kind of company was COCC when you became President in 2001?
COCC was a mature company with an experienced and dedicated
Board of Directors, talented management, great clients, terrific
employees, and a deep heritage of customer service. My
predecessor, Mark Pumiglia, who successfully led our company
over his 35 years of service, created a culture of customer
service excellence that puts the customer first. That culture
still thrives today. Few people realize that our company has one
of the longest records of service in the financial data
processing business. We processed transactions for our first
clients in 1967, before most of our competitors existed! When I
became President in 2001, COCC had just completed a terrific Y2K
performance that won kudos throughout the industry. More
significantly, we started converting clients to our next
generation client/server processing platform. This enormous
effort brought our entire company together in a very meaningful
way. Today, we are a company of 330 people who all have the same
commitment, passion, and client focus. I feel extremely
fortunate to have been given the opportunity to lead COCC
forward.
What
accomplishments since 2001 give you the greatest satisfaction
today?
More than the state-of-the-art technology we have installed and
the growth we have experienced, I am most proud of our service
report card grades over the past 14 quarters. During that time,
our clients have given us the highest grades in our 39 year
history — well into the “excellent” range. That tells me a lot
about the work we do and the promises we keep every day. Right
behind our report cards is completing the conversion effort,
which remains unprecedented in our industry. No other financial
data processor has converted its entire client base to a next
generation platform with virtually no runoff. Our clients
praised the thoroughness of our efforts and helped fuel the
impressive growth coming on the heels of that conversion.
Following our conversions from 2001 – 2003, we increased the
overall number of our clients from 94 to 141, with more to come.
That is testimony to the quality and consistency of the service
we provide.
What
have you done over the past five years to help COCC achieve this
level of success?
I have helped COCC succeed by capitalizing on our existing
strengths. We took advantage of our 10 year relationship
with Open Solutions, Inc. of Glastonbury, Connecticut to deliver
the leading core technology in the industry. No other
data processor has a more advanced core system, and
no
one is doing more with Open Solutions, Inc. to keep that system
ahead of the competition. I helped bring our two organizations
closer together to create the next leap forward for financial
data processing — the soon-to-be-released .Net version of our
core processing software. |
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We also added experienced staff in key areas of the company to
deliver the superior service that our clients expect and
deserve. We expanded the communication channels between our
clients and staff, plus we increased our development, security,
and operations capacity to keep us ahead of the growing service
demand. Most visibly, we expanded our sales and marketing group
to position the company for growth and to promote our strengths
and advantages to the industry. The results have put us in a
leadership position in several areas — check image processing,
Internet security, and service automation. When potential
clients look closely at COCC, they are impressed with every
aspect of our organization.
What
makes COCC special in today’s market for financial data
processing services?
COCC offers the best technology, the strongest suite of
services, and the most dedicated service staff — all supported
by a cooperative ownership structure that maintains the highest
level of quality in the industry. It’s an unbeatable
combination. Because we use the latest open architecture
processing environment, an institution’s conversion to COCC is
the last conversion they will ever need to make. Our competition
continues to apply band-aids to their 20 and 30 year old legacy
technologies. Eventually, they will have to upgrade and convert
their clients to a new system. We have already taken that
important step. As a client-owned cooperative, COCC serves its
clients in a different way. We use a regional approach to ensure
that we can reach our clients quickly from our data center in
Connecticut. The regional approach also focuses our operations
and development efforts on finding opportunities to increase
client efficiencies. Finally, we have exceptionally low turnover
among our staff, which translates to strong experience
throughout the company, and a long standing culture of being the
best! That’s our service philosophy. That’s why COCC is special
in today’s market for financial data processing services.
What
are your plans going forward?
Certainly revenue growth is in COCC’s future, but it’s
controlled growth at an annual rate of 5-10 percent. As a
service business, we cannot afford to grow so quickly that we
lose the qualities that make us successful. That’s why client
feedback through our quarterly report card system and frequent
contact with our clients is so important. Our efforts with Open
Solutions, Inc. to deliver the industry’s only .Net technology
solution are another important part of our future. This new
technology, to be rolled out in 2007, gives our clients new
functionality and efficiencies, while giving COCC an enormous
advantage in the industry. .Net really is a tremendous leap
forward for COCC and our clients. New security products under
the Sentry Services umbrella and further progress in imaging and
payments technology will round out our product efforts. Behind
the scenes, there are constant enhancements to our technology
infrastructure. It’s a job that never ends. Most importantly, we
are investing in our people. More than products and technology,
we find that people create our success and I am proud of each
and every one of my officers, managers and employees. We are
generating leadership and enthusiasm through our company’s “Core
Values” which encourage security, passion, teamwork, and
results. I am convinced that this initiative is the cornerstone
of our future success. |
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