Wayne Rivers is the co-founder and President of The Family Business Institute, Inc.  He has authored two books on the subject of business families: Prescriptions For a Healthy Family Business and You Don’t Have To Die To Win – Success and Succession For Family Businesses. Wayne has appeared on the television programs "The Prudent Advisor" on the Retirement Living Network, "BusinessWeek: WEEKEND," and the CNBC special “American Family Business.”

Wayne has been quoted on the subject of family and closely held businesses by The Wall Street Journal, Fortune, BusinessWeek, Entrepreneur, CFO, Family Business, The New York Times, Washington Post, Crain’s Chicago Business, Crain's New York Business, The San Francisco Business Times, and by other trade, local, regional, and national publications. He has written hundreds of articles for various magazines and trade publications and has produced an acclaimed quarterly newsletter, Family Times, for over ten years. He has done workshops and lectures for Harley-Davidson, CCA Global, ACA International, The Associated General Contractors of America, The American Academy of Estate Planning Attorneys, The Association of Consulting Foresters, National Air Filtration Association, Northwestern Mutual Life, Mutual of New York, Wake Forest University, Virginia Tech, Babson College, UNC Asheville, Methodist College, Florida Automobile Dealers Association, North Carolina Automobile Dealers Association, North Carolina Association of Certified Public Accountants, North Carolina Petroleum Marketers Association, and many others.

Wayne is a member of the Closely Held Business Committee of The Associated General Contractors of America. He has also recently completed The Family Firm Institute Certificate in Family Business Advising Program; this program benefits both family business advisors and their clients by establishing knowledge standards for better serving family-owned enterprises.

Rick Jefcoat has had a long and varied career among several different organizations as a CPA, CFO, management consultant, operations officer, and owner of his own successful company. Rick was most recently owner and CEO of Tactical Products, LLC, in Mississippi. He purchased a distressed manufacturing firm in 2002, and then restructured the business model to reposition it for sale to an emerging defense business. During this period of intense growth, Rick led his management group’s effort to rebuild their business in the aftermath of Hurricane Katrina.

Prior to Tactical Products, Rick worked as the Executive Vice President of Finance and Operations for UPC, Inc., a corporation that manufactured tactical and special application apparel.  During his eight year tenure, annual sales grew from $250,000 to over $18 million whereupon he engineered the sale of the company for 12 times EBITDA.

Rick was a CPA, auditor, consultant, and senior manager with KPMG in their New Orleans, Shreveport, Houston, and Dallas offices. While with KPMG, Rick consulted with well known companies like General Dynamics, Bell Helicopter, Louisiana Bancshares, Sysco Corporation, Louisiana Land & Exploration, Texaco, Tidewater Marine, Federal Home Loan Bank Board, and the Resolution Trust Corporation.  While at KPMG Rick participated in the firm’s professional development practice and instructed fellow professionals in the concepts of change management, operations, activity-based costing, constraints theory, team building, and conflict resolution.

Rick has expertise in many areas including turnaround consulting, strategic planning, best practices, accounting and control systems, information systems, continuous improvement and QA, mergers and acquisitions, retail operations, lean manufacturing, financial planning, and more.

Rick worked himself through school at Lane & Company, Inc., a marine construction firm, where he served as controller. Prior to taking a degree in accounting from the University of New Orleans, he attended Mississippi State University and played college baseball.  Rick and his wife Cary have three children.

Mike Halpern's impressive career has prepared him to deliver value in many functional areas.  He brings progressive thought and innovation to businesses through measures such as:  developing operating procedures, creating performance measures, organizing accounting systems, financial planning and analysis, developing new marketing and sales strategies, and much more.  Mike has proven to excel as a business leader and brings a wealth of knowledge and experience to the Family Business Institute.

Most recently Mike founded a realty company which he turned into a franchise prototype.  Before starting his company, he led several high profile value creation projects for Capital One Financial Corp., where he developed new strategies to improve direct marketing efficiency for the company resulting in $30 million of annual benefits.  As the founder and president of Employment Solutions, Inc., Mike grew the company and increased its profitability whereupon he sold it to a regional company.  He also has experience with Fortune 500 companies such as PepsiCo, Inc. in a host of areas, has served as General Manager for several closely-held companies, and worked for Mercer Management Consulting as a senior corporate strategy consultant.

Mike holds an MBA in finance from New York University's Stern School of Business.