Our People

 Brian M. Smith

Managing Partner

Mr. Smith brings to LCG extensive experience in corporate finance, most notably in the areas of commercial credit, underwriting, and due diligence. Mr. Smith was most recently a Vice President of Textron Financial Corporation. There he managed the structuring, underwriting, and due diligence processes for several operating divisions, including the Finance Company Services and Telecom and Energy Lending. The former, specialized in making loans to financial services firms and finance companies. There Mr. Smith completed numerous complex loans to a variety of finance businesses including asset-based lenders, factors, consumer lenders, retail lenders, and a myriad of other niche finance companies.

Mr. Smith was also appointed by executive management to lead portfolio and operations reviews of other divisions including Cessna Finance Company and TFCs resort, floor plan, and golf finance divisions. Prior, Mr. Smith was a principal and COO of Health Capital in New York; a company that specializes in providing financing to health care businesses nationwide. Early in his career he held various management positions with MediFin and Professional Factors in Tampa, Florida provided factoring, asset-based lending, and mezzanine financing. Mr. Smith was formerly the President of Association of Medical Finance Professionals and is a member of The University of Tampa’s Board of Counselors.

Mr. Smith holds Bachelors Degrees in Finance and Economics from the University of Tampa and has completed numerous industry-specific training programs. He is married with two children.

Paul I. Epstein

Managing Partner

Mr. Epstein is the Managing Partner and co-founder of LCG and is responsible for the day to day operations as well as sales and marketing.

Mr. Epstein has been instrumental in leading LCG to double digit growth for four straight years while implementing strict quality control measures. Prior to LCG, Mr. Epstein was most recently Executive Vice President of CitiFactors Financial Group, Inc. in Orlando, Florida where he was involved in developing CitiFactors into one of the leading niche commercial finance companies in the Southeast United States. He managed or was responsible for nearly all aspects of the business including the due diligence, client audits, account management, and operations. In addition to operational responsibilities, Mr. Epstein played a major role in the design and implementation of a sales and marketing plan. During Mr. Epstein’s tenure, sales increased over five hundred percent and CitiFactors was placed in the top 100 Fastest Growing Companies in Florida per a University of Florida study. While sales increased, Mr. Epstein was able to maintain credit losses to negligible levels. He trained account executives and operations personnel in both credit policies and fraud detection.

Previously, Mr. Epstein was the Credit Manager at Professional Factor’s, Inc. and Healthcare Financial Services, Inc. in Tampa, Florida where he was responsible for credit policies, and asset recovery. Mr. Epstein earned his Bachelor’s in Finance from the University of Tampa.

Jeremy Pawelkiewicz

Vice President

Prior to joining LCG Capital, Mr. Pawelkiewicz was with the Private Client Group at SunTrust Bank where he managed relationships with the bank’s highest net worth clients. In that capacity, he spearheaded a variety of financial projects for his clients including business capitalizations, asset management, and general advisory services. While he spent the majority of his career with SunTrust Bank, he gained extensive experience in retail and logistics management when he spent several years as a regional manager for the Pepsi Bottling Company.

Mr. Pawelkiewicz earned his B.A. and MBA in Finance from The University of Tampa.

Michael J. Szwejkowski, Jr.

Vice President

Prior to joining LCG, Mr. Szwejkowski was with T. Rowe Price Investment Services, Inc., serving in both an operations management capacity and as a Compliance Manager in their Personal Services Group. Mr. Szwejkowski was responsible for monitoring employee and company compliance relative to company policy, SEC regulations, and other applicable securities laws. He oversaw a division that managed the compliance on over 800 accounts of high net worth clients located throughout the United States. Prior to his tenure at T. Rowe Price, Mr. Szwejkowski gained extensive credit knowledge as credit manager for Washington Mutual Finance, a division of Washington Mutual Bank. Duties included loan origination, credit evaluation and asset recovery. Mr. Szwejkowski holds a degree in Business Management from the University of Tampa as well as NASD Series, 6, 63, and 7 Securities licenses.

Clint Mitchell

Vice President

Mr. Mitchell brings more than 12 years of corporate finance experience to LCG, having worked at private equity backed finance companies, startup specialty lenders, and large diversified finance companies. For the past seven years, Mr. Mitchell has focused on providing senior and junior capital for specialty finance companies, investment funds, and niche alternative lenders.
Most recently, Mr. Mitchell was Vice President at CIT Group, in its Financial Services Group. He has also held roles in business development, credit underwriting, portfolio management, and loan workout for First Capital, Textron Financial, and DMAC. Mr. Mitchell graduated with an economics degree from DePauw University, where he was an Honors Fellow for Management and Entrepreneurship. He is actively involved in local and national chapters of the ACG and the CFA.

Michael Parker

Marketing Director

Michael Parker has recently joined LCG as its Marketing Director. Mr. Parker has over 25 years of commercial finance experience with both bank-affiliated and privately-held commercial finance companies including Bank of America, U.S. Bank, Heller Financial and First Capital Corporation. Mr. Parker has held senior management positions responsible for business origination, credit underwriting, portfolio management and loan workouts at both the corporate and regional levels. At these institutions Mr. Parker completed hundreds of loans and financings to a wide-range of middle market and lower middle market manufacturing, distribution and service companies. Most recently, Mr. Parker was Regional President and Executive Vice President with Presidential Financial Corporation where he led a team that provided asset-based loans to a variety of entrepreneurial businesses in the Southeastern U.S. Prior to his commercial finance career, Mr. Parker spent five years in various accounting positions in the healthcare and packaging industries.

Mr. Parker is a graduate of DePaul University and the CFA Wharton Institute at the University of Pennsylvania. He is actively involved in the Commercial Finance Association currently serving on its Membership Committee. He is also a past President of the CFA’s Southwest Chapter and is currently a Board Member of the Florida Chapter. Mr. Parker is also a member of the Turnaround Management Association and The Finance Forum. During his career he has written numerous articles for industry trade publications as well as speaking at various events and workshops. Mr. Parker resides in Tampa, FL.

Bernard "Bernie" P. Gill

Regional Director

Mr. Gill brings to LCG more than 20 years of experience in commercial finance and lender finance. Prior to joining LCG, Mr. Gill was the President and founder of ABL Consultants, Inc., which provided advisory and field examination services to a variety of banks and commercial finance firms. The company’s area of expertise was in proving consultative and field exam services to larger institutional lenders that finance other smaller finance companies. While in that capacity, Mr. Gill evaluated transactions with finance companies ranging from smaller $1 million facilities to larger, more sophisticated $200+ million loans. Mr. Gill and ABL Consultants also provided best practices and capital advisory services to smaller niche lenders and middle market companies.

Prior to founding ABL Consultants, Mr. Gill served in a variety of positions with a number of very well known financial institutions. He was V.P. of Business Development and V.P. / Regional Audit Manager for Foothill Capital Corporation (a division of Wells Fargo Bank) and was a V.P. of Business Development for Guaranty Business Credit. In his business development roles, Mr. Gill evaluated loans to hundreds of companies and successfully originated loans well in excess of $250 million. Mr. Gill also worked for Bank Boston, NationsCredit Commercial Funding, and Shawmut Bank and was a staff accountant for Murphy & Company CPAs early in his career.

Mr. Gill has a Bachelors in Accountancy from Bentley College in Massachusetts.