The 2008 MWAA Lifetime Achievement Award
Mike Ponder
Text of Mark Dunn’s Lifetime Achievement Award Presentation
Delivered Thursday, July 26, 2007
Renaissance Cleveland Hotel
The MWAA Lifetime Achievement Award honors the outstanding individual who has made significant contributions throughout a career of service to the merchant bankcard and electronic payments industry. This award is a unique tribute given only to the individual who is worthy of "Hall of Fame" status. In 2003, our inaugural year of the award, the MWAA Conference celebrated the achievements of Bob Carr, founder, CEO and Chairman of Heartland Payment Systems. In 2004 the Lifetime Achievement Award recipient was Paul Green, founder of the Green Sheet and creator of the first registered ISO. In 2005 the MWAA honored John Rante, who created Online Data and is founder and President of BluePay. Last year’s recipient of the Lifetime Achievement Award was Dick Draper, who founded the first terminal equipment distributor in the US and whose sales team made explosive growth in terminal sales from 1983 through the mid-1990’s.
As in every year we accept nominations for the MWAA Lifetime Achievement Award on our web site at https://www.midwestacquirers.com/nomination_form.php. The Board of the Midwest Acquirers Association considered the professional contributions of the nominees that were submitted this year and voted the 2007 Lifetime Achievement Award to Mike Ponder, CEO of Integrity Payment Systems in Des Plaines, Illinois.
Mike Ponder started in bankcard in the late 1980's as a merchant level salesperson. By 1991 he was Vice President of Sales for Harbridge Merchant Services and in 1992 joined the founders of Universal Savings Bank of Milwaukee (USB) to lead the sales effort for that start-up. I happen to have been the senior sales executive for VeriFone covering Universal Savings Bank in 1992. I saw firsthand the innovative sales management approach that Mike created for the USB sales team.
In 1995 Mike Ponder partnered with an ex-governor of South Dakota and opened First Savings Bank's Merchant Division (FSB). He developed FSB to handle all systems internally, except for authorization and capture. FSB was sold in early 2000.
Mike Ponder re-entered the bankcard business founding Integrity Payment Systems in October 2002. He again followed the FSB model and developed the company to handle all functions, including settlement, internally (except authorization and capture).
Throughout his career Mike Ponder has instituted numerous innovations through the companies he has directed. Many of these are standard practice today and some are still unique to Integrity Payment Systems: guaranteed lease approvals, guaranteed application approval based on the merchant's SIC code, same-day approval for merchant applications,
same-day deployment of fully functional equipment,
live customer service,
remote deposit for all types of checks,
to name a few.
Mike continues to be committed to the bankcard industry, bringing innovation, integrity and a heart for the merchant level salesperson.
It is my honor to present the MWAA Lifetime Achievement Award for 2007 to Mike Ponder.
MWAA 2008 Lifetime Achievement Award Nomination Form
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