Management

Earl’s professional background spans 40 years and includes general and financial management, general business and forensic consulting, auditing, and tax consulting. Corporate positions have included serving as an accountant, assistant treasurer, controller, general manager, chief operating officer, and chief financial officer. Over the years, he has enjoyed the experience of working with diverse industries, such as newspaper publishing, public utilities, Fortune 500 technology, software development, litigation support, and an analytical laboratory. However, working with growing ventures, to assist in navigating the financial and management choices so important to the ultimate success of companies is what Earl finds most gratifying. Working with ePIC as CFO to secure a trust company license and participate in setting up an industry impacting way to help people from all backgrounds has been particularly rewarding. Spending time with his family (especially the grandchildren) is a favorite activity, but also enjoys learning and reading a variety of subjects. Education: Bachelor’s in accounting and an MBA from Arizona State University.

People who have worked with Elaine Young have told her that not only does she have a mastery of the systems and processes, but she also has the rare attribute of being able to explain how these systems work.

As Director of Operations and Chief Operating Officer of ePIC Services Company, Young will be managing the daily operations and developing the company’s processes and procedures.

Young’s experience is built on more than 30 years of serving the financial services industry with significant expertise in Personal Trust and Corporate Trust Operations. An accomplished trainer, documentation professional and client liaison, she has built an excellent reputation for building strong customer relationships.

“Working in IT, customer training, risk and compliance, and systems integration within the trust and banking industries for decades has given me a deep understanding of how best to bring all these facets together to benefit our clients,” she says.

The depth of her understanding is amplified by her education. Young is both a Certified Securities Operations Professional (CSOP) and a Certified Trust Operations Professional (CTOP) and a graduate of Cannon Financial Institute’s Trust School I, II and III.

She feels decades of hard work and her voracious appetite for learning have led her to exactly where she is supposed to be. “My dream job is having the opportunity to bring in the systems, do the integration, manage the roll out and onboarding clients,” she says. “Working with ePIC Services provides me an amazing opportunity to build a successful operation from the ground up. This is the perfect fit.”

Away from the office her other passions are cooking for family and friends, traveling and landscape photography.

Attorney Joanne Eby has such an innate ability to comprehend complex new financial services laws and regulations that even law firms consult with her to help them decode new legal directives.

“When I read something that is newly released, I know in the first few sentences if it will be relevant for our clients,” says Eby, Managing Partner of Nth Degree Financial Solutions LLC. “My passion is understanding the laws, rules, regulations, and regulatory guidance for the asset and wealth management world so our clients can count on me to advise them. I like being the person someone is going to call to help them understand complex concepts.”

Born and raised in a small town outside Toronto, Canada, reading and learning have always played a key role in Eby’s life. By the end of grade school, she was reading Shakespeare. Driven to learn, every day she saved the milk money her father gave her, drinking water instead, and banked $2,000 to help pay her way through the University of Western Ontario.

“My parents were Dutch immigrants who emigrated after World War II,” Eby says. “We learned self-reliance by watching their work ethic and by having to work ourselves for the good of our large family.”

While earning her MBA at York University, she discovered she had a gift for writing. Later hired as a technical writer by a financial services software company, her role expanded to client support because of her unique ability to explain and simplify complex systems to clients.

At the Bank of Montreal (known in the U.S. as BMO Harris Bank) she worked in a division that provided custody of financial products for major global financial institutions. “By then I understood how registered investment advisors, broker-dealers, trust companies and custodians worked because of my work at the financial services software company.”

She met her husband and business partner, Matthew Eby, when he came to audit the bank’s global custody division. And while it might not sound like the plot of a romantic comedy, it was the beginning of their personal and professional partnership, with Joanne eventually joining Matthew at Nth Degree in 2005.

Before then, she and her then-teenage son, Ben, took the steps necessary to become U.S. citizens. With Matthew encouraging her to “sharpen her saw,” she was accepted to Chicago’s John Marshall Law School and discovered how much she loved laws and regulations. “I genuinely like reading new laws and regulations from the SEC, banking, and other financial regulators,” Eby says.

This mastery attracts financial institutions who need guidance on ensuring that their activities are compliant and audit-proof. “A lot of the consulting we have done in the last 10 years has been for financial institutions that call us when something goes awry,” she says. “We are able to illuminate and explain the risks and help them on the path to compliance.”

Eby’s contribution to ePIC Services Company will be to develop the compliance policies and procedures to ensure the infrastructure is built the right way. “My goal is to provide the finest compliance oversight possible to help ePIC establish their processes, infrastructure and compliance culture correctly, even if that approach requires a greater initial investment in time and resources,” she says.

Eby still reads laws and regulations for fun. While others might read legal texts to fall asleep, Eby avoids reading legal cases at night because learning about real people and real situations is so engrossing, it keeps her awake.

An experienced educator, she continues to teach on various topics, including annual training for the Bank Secrecy Act: “I love teaching bank financial examiners and auditors who, at end of the day, come up and say I made the concepts come alive and jump off the page.”

When not engrossed in compliance and the law, Eby and her husband like to enjoy the outdoors together. She says she will always be an opsimath—someone who begins, or continues, to learn late in life. “When a new law or regulation comes out, I crave it,” she says. “I love being able to synthesize it into information others can understand and to focus on the portion of the law a client needs to better perform in the business they are in.”

Otis Jacobs serves as the Chief Marketing Officer for ePIC Services Co., the affiliated services & technologies. Having spent nearly two decades in the financial services industry, Otis cut his teeth working for some of the top Broker Dealers in the country helping financial advisors run efficient practices, market effectively and GROW! Otis has a long track record of developing engaging and thoughtful marketing strategies coupled with top sales and recruiting accolades such as Inc. 500’s Fastest Growing Private Company.

Otis’ focus is on the dynamic marketing and engagement of ePIC Services Co. as well as the financial services professionals that choose to work with the organization. Using his artistic background, engagement ability and relentless drive, Otis strives every day to aid in the progression of the organization and the utilization of the technologies across the country.

Holly Halweg has spent her career focused on Customer Service, working for several national insurance companies including MassMutual, Blue Cross/Blue Shield of TX and United Healthcare. Starting as a claims examiner for group medical insurance plans, she held positions as a Claims and Customer Service Manager, Account Manager, and Financial Underwriter, where her primary role has always been to help people find answers to their questions and resolve customer concerns.

Married to a financial advisor, she has also seen the needs of individuals and families planning for retirement and having concerns regarding taxes and estate planning. Holly and her husband are the parents of a child with special needs, since discovering their son had a significant speech delay at the age of 27 months. During the next several years she spent time doing volunteer work at her son’s preschool that was founded based on the needs of children with physical and developmental issues, especially children on the autism spectrum.

After spending time with the families of so many children with a vast array of special concerns, she learned how important it is to have a plan for the future. Working with financial advisors and their clients, as the On boarding Specialist for ePIC Services Company, Holly has combined her passion for helping people and finding solutions, with the need for everyone to have a plan for the future of their family and passing on their family legacy.

Holly grew up in the small town of Hastings-on-Hudson NY until her family relocated to Houston Texas. She attended the University of TX in Austin, and started her career in the group medical insurance industry. After getting married, she moved to the San Francisco Bay area in California. Her family is now residing in Boise Idaho.

Greg started his financial services career in 1987 as a floor broker at the Chicago Board of Trade and Chicago Mercantile Exchange.

He’s a former speaker and trainer for hundreds of companies throughout the country, working with advisors from Primerica Financial Services, New York Life, and Prudential to name a few.

He now specializes in Estate Planning and Business Development for ePIC Services Company. He was a member of the 1984 Rose Bowl team for University of Illinois Fighting Illini. As an athlete, Greg spends his free time staying fit, enjoying the outdoors, and traveling.