Bankrate Inc.

Edward J. DiMaria joined Bankrate in April 2006. Prior to joining Bankrate, Mr. DiMaria has held Senior Vice President and Chief Financial Officer positions at Official Payments Corporation and Best Friends Pet Care, Inc. He also has a broad M&A and project management background, consulting with companies such as Jostens Intermediate Holdings, Inc., where he spearheaded an acquisition completed by KKR, as well as Financial Interactive, Inc., Navisite, Inc., and CorVu Corporation.

Robert J. DeFranco joined Bankrate in March of 1999. He served as the Company's Chief Financial Officer from October 2000 thru March 2006. From 1986 to 1999, he held various positions in corporate accounting and finance for companies including Ryder System, Inc., Southeast Banking Corporation, SunTrust Banks, Inc. and Ocwen Financial Corporation. His experience includes all aspects of corporate accounting and finance and internal and external financial reporting - including SEC reporting, mergers and acquisitions (analysis, integration and accounting), corporate re-engineering, budgeting and forecasting. A Certified Public Accountant and a member of the American Institute of Certified Public Accountants, Mr. DeFranco was part of the commercial audit division of Arthur Andersen & Co., Miami, Fl., from 1978 to 1986.

Michael Ricciardelli was appointed Senior Vice President, Consumer Marketing after joining Bankrate in September 2006. Prior to joining Bankrate, he was Vice President - Marketing & Media Sales at Apartments.com/Classified Ventures where he managed all marketing functions and online advertising sales efforts. From 1999 to 2003, he was Co-Founder & Vice President of Strategic Development for Insurance.com - venture funded by Fidelity Capital and sold in 2003 to Comparison Market. Earlier in his career, Mr. Ricciardelli also held positions in strategy consulting and business development at Fidelity Investments, and financial analysis at Salomon Brothers.

Steven L. Horowitz has served as Senior Vice President, Product and Business Development since May 2005. Steve joined Bankrate as Vice President and Publisher in October of 2004. Prior to that, he spent two years (2002 to 2004) at America Online (Time Warner), most recently as Vice President eCommerce Classifieds. From 1998 to 2002, he held Director and Senior Manager positions with Yahoo! and GeoCities, Inc. (a community/web publishing destination acquired by Yahoo! in 1999) specializing in business and sales strategy for their classifieds and local properties. Additionally, Steve served as Associate Director of Internet Marketing for BMG Music Club at BMG Direct, Bertelsmann (1998), Director of Internet Venues at a start-up entertainment website (1996 to 1997) and Online Publicist for Turner Entertainment Group at Turner Broadcasting Systems, Inc. (1995 to 1996).

Barbara Mlotek Whelehan has more than 20 years' experience as a journalist, focusing for the last ten years on all aspects of personal finance. As the senior editor of Mutual Funds Magazine from 1995 to 2002, she interviewed hundreds of fund managers and industry analysts as well as dozens of top-level executives at mutual fund firms across the country. She also received a certificate of specialization in financial planning after completing the CFP-board registered program at Nova Southeastern University in South Florida, where she resides. Whelehan has won numerous writing awards over the years in national, regional and statewide contests. The boomer was born in Chicago and graduated from the University of Illinois in Urbana-Champaign with a bachelor's degree in English and a master's degree in journalism.

Dr. Don Taylor, in addition to answering our readers' questions about personal finance, is an assistant professor of business administration at Penn State Brandywine in Media, Pa. He teaches courses in financial services for the university. Previously, Don was an associate professor of finance at The American College in Bryn Mawr, Pa., where he taught course work in financial planning and investments. He is co-author of the textbook "Financial Planning: Process and Environment," now in its second edition. He has professional experience as a treasurer, consultant, financial planner and debt analyst. Don holds a doctorate in finance and has earned both master's and bachelor's degrees in finance. A Chartered Financial Analyst, he also is a Certified Financial Planner certificant, a Chartered Financial Consultant, and a Chartered Adviser for Senior Living. He is a member of the CFA Institute, the Academy of Financial Services, the Financial Planning Association and the Financial Management Association. He is on the review board of the Journal of Financial Planning and the Journal of Financial Service Professionals.

George Saenz is a certified public accountant living in Miami. With more than 15 years of experience in income, corporate and estate taxes, George brings a real-life perspective to tax problems. He's a member of the Florida and American Institutes of CPAs and the Greater Miami Chamber of Commerce. George earned a bachelor's degree in accounting from the University of Florida, and continued graduate studies at Florida International University, where he is a member of the university's advisory board for its Executive Masters of Science in Taxation program. George also is a licensed life insurance agent and a Series 6 Registered Representative.

Jay MacDonald has managed to combine a successful and diverse career as a writer and editor with a gypsy life largely spent down roads less traveled. A professional journalist from age 16, Jay has worked at the national level in three disciplines. As an award-winning feature writer and editor for United Press International in Chicago and Seattle, his work widely appeared in many North American newspapers. As an account executive with Hill & Knowlton Public Relations in Atlanta, his primary account was Arby's. As a communications officer for Honeywell Commercial Aviation Systems in Phoenix, he was awarded the Gold Quill Award -- the "Oscar" of business writing -- from the International Association of Business Communicators for his work directing media relations, trade shows, marketing materials and video production for the business and commuter jet division. Jay also has worked as a boat sitter aboard a 110-foot yacht in Seattle; harvested Christmas trees in Vermont; served as executive chef aboard a cruise ship in Fort Lauderdale, Fla.; and repaired and rented bicycles in Key West, Fla. Jay graduated with honors in journalism from the University of Colorado. He and his wife, Kate, live in Austin, Texas, with their two golden retrievers. They move frequently.

Justin Harelik has been working with English- and Spanish-speaking clients in the personal finance industry for close to a decade. He has worked as a bankruptcy attorney, credit manager, debt negotiator and student loan adviser. He has applied his financial and legal skills to managing the estates of high net-worth individuals, and to helping improve the financial well-being of hundreds of people living below the poverty line. Currently he is a practicing attorney in Los Angeles. Harelik earned his undergraduate degree from the University of Wisconsin-Madison and his law degree from the Loyola Law School in Los Angeles. He spent a year studying in South America, and speaks fluent Spanish. He is a native of Los Angeles, where he lives with his wife, Felicia. He is also a volunteer Big Brother for the Los Angeles Division of Big Brothers/Big Sisters.

Leslie McFadden has covered credit cards, credit scoring and other topics for the past three and a half years at Bankrate, and regularly contributes to the Plastic Rap blog. She has been interviewed as a credit card expert by many media outlets, including Fox Business News, NBC and PBS Nightly Business Report. Leslie graduated from the University of Florida with dual bachelor degrees in English and psychology, along with a minor in sociology. Prior to joining Bankrate, she interned at a publishing company in Gainesville, Fla. She dabbles in fiction writing.

Steve McLinden has written on virtually all aspects of the real estate world for the past 15 years. His writings have appeared in newspapers around the country on the Scripps-Howard and Knight-Ridder business wire services. A resident of Arlington, Texas, McLinden spent seven years covering real estate for the Fort Worth Star-Telegram, winning multiple writing awards. At present, he is a correspondent for National Real Estate Investor, Shopping Centers Today and REO magazine. He has also written for Urban Land and Tierra Grande, a quarterly published by the Texas A & M University Real Estate Center, plus covered real estate beats for business journals in the Dallas-Fort Worth area. McLinden is a native of Peoria, Ill., and a graduate of Bergan High School. He earned a bachelor's degree in communications from Western Illinois University.

Tara Baukus Mello is a full-time automotive writer, who has been published regularly since 1987. With over 3,500 articles published, her work has appeared in such publications as The New York Times, Autoweek, Woman's Day, Parade, Automotive News, Woman's World and Westways, as well as on cNet.com and Edmunds.com. She is also the author of ten nonfiction chapter books for children, seven of which are on automotive topics. A passion for automobiles brought her to Petersen Publishing (now part of SourceInterlink), where she was the editor of the special interest publications in the automotive performance group, producing a new magazine every three weeks. More recently, she was the former news anchor for Motor Trend Radio, writing and recording the show's twice-weekly broadcasts. Originally from Cape Cod, Mass., Tara graduated cum laude from Harvard University. She and her family reside in the Los Angeles area, where she enjoys cruising year-round in the '32 Ford street-rod pickup that she built with her father in 1992.

Bruce Gillespie is an award-winning freelance writer and editor. He got his start in journalism at the age of 15 at the Mid-North Monitor, a weekly community newspaper based in Espanola, Ontario. He went on to pursue a degree in journalism at Carleton University, in Ottawa, where he became the arts editor of the independent campus newspaper, The Charlatan. He transferred to Ryerson University mid-way through his degree and graduated with a Bachelor of Applied Arts in Journalism in 2000. He is currently at work on a Master of Arts in Integrated Studies at Athabasca University. After working as a fact-checker and copyeditor at Canadian Business and then the staff writer at MoneySense, Bruce decided to become a freelancer in 2002, providing him the chance to work on a wider range of stories. His writing has since appeared in a variety of newspapers (National Post, the Nunatsiaq News), books (Time Out Toronto, POP CAN: Popular Culture in Canada) and magazines (Chatelaine, Saturday Night, Financial Post Business, Quill & Quire, Canadian Geographic and ON Nature). Bruce is honoured by the recognition his writing has received. His work on the a??Family Finance: How to Retire Richa?? package for National Post Business earned two honourable mentions at the National Magazine Awards in 2004, while his work on a??A Survival Guide to Family Financea?? package, also in National Post Business, earned him a gold award and an honourable mention at the NMAs in 2003. Brucea??s story a??Presumed Guilty,a?? in MoneySense, won an honourable mention at the NMAs in 2001 as well as the Best Consumer Feature in the Rogers Media Best Of Awards the same year. On the editing side of things, Bruce is the editor of Bankrate.ca, a popular personal finance web site for Canadians. He was also the listings editor for the first edition of the Time Out Toronto travel guide, published in 2003 by Penguin Books Canada, and edited the This & That section of This Magazine between 2004 and 2005. Bruce has also been a contributing editor for the Ryerson Review of Journalism since 2003. When he isna??t working on writing or editing projects, Bruce teaches magazine writing part-time at the Ryerson University School of Journalism. He is also co-editing a collection of essays by men without kids with Lynne Van Luven. Bruce also keeps busy with various volunteer projects, including judging the 24th and 25th Annual Western Magazine Awards. He lives and works near the Lake Erie shore in Simcoe, Ontario, about an hour and a half outside Toronto.

Richard J. Pinola , age 63, has served as a director since 2004. Mr. Pinola has served as a principal of GPS Investment Group since July 2008. Mr. Pinola served as principal of Eric M. Golshalk & Co. from February 2005 through June 2008. From July 1992 until his retirement in February 2005, Mr. Pinola was President and Chief Executive Officer of Right Management Consultants, a career transition and organizational consulting firm and a wholly-owned subsidiary of Manpower Inc. Mr. Pinola also serves as a director of K-Tron International, Nobel Learning Communities, Inc., Kenexa, Inc., and three real estate investment trusts-Corporate Property Associates 15 Inc., Corporate Property Associates 16 Inc., and Corporate Property Associates 17-Global Inc. In addition, he serves on the Board of Trustees of King s College in Wilkes-Barre, Pennsylvania. Mr. Pinola received a Bachelor of Science degree in accounting from King s College.