Dennis Gilardi is the Founder of Gilardi & Co. The company was founded in 1984 with a commitment to providing personalized, accurate, cost effective and worry-free service. As the need for settlement administration services grew, so did Mr. Gilardi’s firm—always striving to refine our approach to executing the four primary components of class action Due Process: Notification, Processing, Distribution and Reporting.

Before establishing Gilardi, Mr. Gilardi spent fifteen years in public accounting, primarily in consulting and financial auditing in the healthcare and real estate industries. With more than 30 years of experience in the class action administration industry, Mr. Gilardi is a widely recognized class/mass action Due Process expert, and a Court-accepted Expert Witness. In addition, he has long been active in his community, serving on the Boards of a number of organizations, including a more than twenty-year relationship with Hospice of Marin. Mr. Gilardi earned his undergraduate degree from Saint Mary’s College and his M.B.A. from Santa Clara University.

Peter Crudo is the Chief Executive Officer of Gilardi & Co. In his capacity as CEO, Mr. Crudo oversees all aspects of Gilardi & Co.'s strategy and operations. Prior to joining Gilardi, Mr. Crudo practiced law for several years in a private firm; he has also served as counsel and senior executive in different private and public companies. In addition to his corporate experience, Mr. Crudo served as a member of the Jesuit International Volunteers in Saipan for three years. While in that program, he taught high school, tutored prison inmates and taught English as a second language to immigrant workers.

Mr. Crudo holds a B.A. from the University of California at Berkeley, a J.D./M.B.A. from the University of Hawaii at Manoa, and an LL.M (with high honors) in International Financial Law from the University of London. Mr. Crudo has also studied at the National University of Singapore. He is a board member of the Okizu Foundation, which serves children with cancer, and is active in numerous other organizations and charities within the Bay Area.

Lara McDermott is the Director of Securities of Gilardi & Co. In her tenure at Gilardi, Ms. McDermott has personally overseen more than 200 settlement administrations and these cases have included some of the largest and most complex in history (i.e., Enron, Qwest, Xerox) Prior to joining Gilardi, Ms. McDermott was a Vice President within the Operational Risk Management Division of Algorithmics, a wholly owned subsidiary of Fitch Ratings. Ms. McDermott has designed and implemented numerous operational risk management programs for leading international financial institutions—integrating software applications, data services and significantly diverse operating procedures.

Ms. McDermott’s professional experience began as a banking auditor in San Francisco. She continued to demonstrate leadership and practical experience as a senior auditor for PriceWaterhouseCoopers with overseas assignments in Singapore and Hong Kong. During this period, Ms. McDermott gained significant practical experience working with the International Accounting Standards as well as the U.S. Generally Accepted Accounting Principles. Ms. McDermott graduated from the University of California, Santa Barbara with a B.A. in Business Economics and Psychology, and holds a Masters of Applied Finance from Macquarie University, Australia as well as a California C.P.A. License.

Daniel Burke is the General Counsel and Director of Consumer Affairs at Gilardi & Co. In this capacity, Mr. Burke advises Gilardi on legal issues and corporate governance matters. Additionally, Mr. Burke manages the Consumer department at Gilardi. In his capacity, Mr. Burke has personally overseen several hundred cases of all types and varieties.

Prior to his arrival at Gilardi, Mr. Burke served as a Deputy District Attorney in Alameda County for 14 years. He has tried more than 100 cases to verdict, including in excess of 40 jury trials. Before working as a prosecutor, Mr. Burke served as an extern for California Appellate Court Justice Timothy Reardon. He has lectured at numerous venues including California Judicial College and seminars held by the California District Attorney’s Association. Mr. Burke received his B.S. in Marketing from Santa Clara University and his J.D. from Golden Gate University. He is a member of the California State Bar.

Michael Joaquin is the Director of Notice and Legal Affairs. Mr. Joaquin manages Gilardi’s securities notification programs as well as Gilardi’s electronic filing program for large, institutional claim filers. Mr. Joaquin was an attorney in private practice before coming to Gilardi, focusing on representing companies in complex civil litigation, including anti-trust and securities class-actions.

Mr. Joaquin received his B.A with University and Cowell College honors from the University of California at Santa Cruz. He received his J.D from the University of California at Berkeley School of Law, where he was a member of the California Law Review.

Kim Wagner is the Director of Information Technology. Mr. Wagner has been leading the Information Technology group at Gilardi & Co. for almost ten years. He is the architect of our scalable networking environment and ensures that we remain technologically flexible to meet the demands of our clients.

During his tenure with Gilardi, Mr. Wagner has managed our proprietary securities case software application, and led the development and implementation of our internally produced non-securities case (consumer fraud, antitrust, predatory lending, employment, etc.) software application. In addition, he has guided our firm through the evolution and use of Optical Character Recognition (“OCR”) technology, leading to ever more efficient and accurate capturing of claimant information.

Robert Goldman came to Gilardi & Co. in 1998, after a 35-year career in law enforcement. He directs our fraud detection and prevention protocols, and has actively assisted various government agencies in the investigation and apprehension of individuals submitting fraudulent claims. Mr. Goldman has utilized the skills and expertise he gathered in his 27 years as an FBI Special Agent to help our firm secure and equitably distribute billions of dollars in settlement assets.

During his law enforcement career before joining Gilardi, Mr. Goldman completed a number of FBI Academy post-graduate courses in financial crimes investigation, medical insurance fraud, criminal psychological profiling and interviewing techniques. In addition, he has provided fraud consultant services for more than a decade. He earned his J.D. and undergraduate degrees from Ohio Northern University.

Bruce Cozzi joined Gilardi & Co in 1992, and has since established himself as one of the leading experts in Qualified Settlement Fund distribution and taxation issues. With direct oversight of our Distribution team, Mr. Cozzi manages our industry leading procedures for the control, disbursement and reconciliation of the more than 300 bank accounts we are responsible for at any given time.

Before coming to Gilardi, Mr. Cozzi was a principal at another professional services firm. During his eleven year tenure with that organization, he managed all accounting/finance needs and oversaw the performance of over thirty Project Managers servicing roughly 400 active projects.