The October meeting of AFSA's Board of Directors in San Francisco will include two new faces: Brent Rippentrop of John Deere Credit, and Suneet Paul of Dell Financial Services. Rippentrop, the Vice President of Marketing for John Deere Credit, is joining the Board in place of former member Jon Volkert. Due to an increase in responsibilities and travel schedules at John Deere, Volkert decided to relinquish his board seat.

Rippentrop was appointed as the Vice President for Marketing in June 2003. He is responsible for the market development and marketing pricing functions for the equipment finance divisions in the U.S. and Canada as well as the marketing services activities for John Deere Credit. He started his career with John Deere in 1979 and held positions of increasing scope and responsibility in the finance division and sales finance group before joining the business development department of John Deere Credit as a senior analyst from 1989-90. Since then, he has continued to gain broad managerial and business experience with positions at Deere & Company in finance, research, planning and business development and as manager, rental and remarketing services in the construction and forestry division. John Deere Credit has been an AFSA member since 1988.

AFSA would like to welcome Mr. Suneet Paul, is Vice President and General Manager for the Transaction Group of Dell Financial Services. Dell Financial Services joined AFSA last year. Paul is responsible for providing leasing and financing solutions to consumers and small and medium businesses. His responsibilities as general manager include managing the overall P/L of the business; evaluating, developing and implementing leasing and financing offerings that includes web based initiatives; managing the sales, marketing and operational processes of the business and integration with the Dell teams. He is also leading Dell Financial Services efforts to drive global outsourcing of certain functions. Prior to Dell, Mr. Paul worked for Apple Computer, Inc. in northern California where he served as director, worldwide financial services for over 5 years.