Our Team

John M. Garzone, Managing Director, has over forty years’ experience in the financial services industry including sixteen years in the tax lien business. Prior to forming Tower Capital in 2010, he served as Managing Director of JP Morgan’s (and Bear Stearns’) tax lien business from 2002 until 2010. Previously, he had spent over sixteen years with Bear Stearns & Co. becoming a Senior Managing Director in 1997. While at Bear Stearns, Mr. Garzone managed their mortgage conduit operations, consumer bankruptcy finance operations, served as Chief Administrative Officer for a mortgage Hedge Fund and founded and oversaw the mortgage finance and tax lien businesses. Prior to joining Bear Stearns, he was Group Vice President / Head of the Debt Securities Group at Chemical Bank from 1989 until 1992, Senior Vice President of Treasury Operations at Thomson McKinnon Securities and President of its Bank and Trust Co. from 1982 to 1988, and a CPA with Coopers & Lybrand from 1977 to 1981. Mr. Garzone holds a BS/BA Degree in Accounting from Seton Hall University.

James J. Purcell, Managing Director, has over twenty-five years of accounting and finance experience in the financial services industry. Prior to forming Tower Capital in 2010 and for the previous twelve years he served as XSPAND’s Chief Financial Officer primarily responsible for managing the company’s accounting financial planning and risk management areas. Prior to joining XSPAND in 1998, Mr. Purcell was Manager of Accounting at CIT Group, Inc., where his responsibilities included securitization accounting, fair market value accounting and static pool analyses. From 1987 to 1997 he served in a variety of accounting roles with The Money Store. He holds a B.S. Degree in Accounting from Fairleigh Dickinson University.

Kurt P. Shadle, Managing Director, has significant professional experience in both the private sector as well as in state and local government. Prior to forming Tower Capital in 2010 and for the previous nine years, he acted as a member of the senior management team at XSPAND, for the last five years acting as its Chief Operating Officer. Prior to joining XSPAND in 2001 and since 1993 he was the managing partner at Evergreen Management Consultants, a management consulting company advising public and private sector entities on operational and cost-saving strategies. He also served as Vice President and General Manager at the New Jersey Sports and Exposition Authority from 1991 to 1993. This position included the administrative oversight of The Meadowlands, one of the nation’s largest sports venues. Previously in 1990 Mr. Shadle was head of NJ’s General Services Administration, the state’s business arm, charged with supervision of the state’s real property acquisition and management, purchasing, construction, leasing and risk management. He also served as Appointments Director to Governor James Florio, as Councilman in Bridgewater, NJ and as Treasurer of the Bridgewater Redevelopment Agency. Mr. Shadle holds an A.B. Degree “with distinction” from Cornell University.

Neil J. Harreveld, Executive Director, has been directly involved in the underwriting and management of tax lien certificate acquisitions since 1997, initially as the Senior Risk Manager for Transamerica Business Credit Corporation’s Municipal Finance division, then as Vice President of American Tax Funding Servicing, LLC and later as Vice President of XSPAND. His responsibilities included managing the disposition and ownership of tax liens and deeds and R.E.O. in 21 states and the District of Columbia. Mr. Harreveld has also structured and negotiated, multi-year, bulk sale transactions for over 26 different taxing jurisdictions. Prior to his tax lien acquisition experience, Mr. Harreveld was employed by some of the nation’s largest Homebuilders, including Centex and Ryland Homes, where he was involved in the land acquisition and marketing efforts in the Florida region. Mr. Harreveld holds a B.S. degree in Microbiology and a B.A. Degree in Economics from the University of Manitoba, Canada.

Donna M. Ernwein, Vice President and Head of Servicing, has spent her entire professional career in the tax lien industry, with over 20 years of experience in tax lien servicing and management. Since 1997, she was a member of XSPAND’s servicing department with increasing levels of responsibility, ending her tenure there as Vice President of Servicing. At XSPAND, Ms. Ernwein was responsible for managing all aspects of lien boarding, tracking and redemption processing and also oversaw all aspects of subsequent tax lien purchases. During the course of her career at XSPAND she was responsible for over $2 billion of tax lien redemption processing with particular emphasis on liens originating in Florida and New Jersey. Prior to her time at XSPAND, she was employed at Capital Asset Research Corporation for two years beginning in 1995. In order to better familiarize herself with the tax lien industry, Ms. Ernwein completed all course work at Rutgers University’s Center for Government Services required by the state of New Jersey to be certified as a licensed local municipal tax collector. She holds an A.A. degree from Morris County Community College.

John P. Davey, Program Manager, has over thirty years of financial service industry experience in New York and London. He has worked as Portfolio Manager for Tower’s NYCTL engagement since 2013. Previously, he worked at Salomon Brothers for over 11 years, initially in Mortgage Backed Securities operations where he inventoried, tracked and allocated mortgage pools against the firm’s trades. He subsequently served as a Vice President responsible for clearing US Government bond and mortgage backed bond trades with Foreign Central Banks and Equity trades with Japanese customers. He has also held senior sales positions at a number of top Wall Street investment banks and later helped found Tradition-Asiel Securities, acting as Managing Director where his position included administrative responsibility and risk oversight for sales and trading. Mr. Davey holds a B.S. in Finance from Syracuse University.