About the AuthorsGerri Detweiler
Gerri is considered one of the country’s top credit specialists. She serves as Credit Advisor for Credit.com, a free website offering a wealth of tools to help consumers improve their financial lives. In addition to co-authoring Debt Collection Answers, she is the co-author of Reduce Debt, Reduce Stress (Good Advice Press, 2009), The Ultimate Credit Handbook (in print since 1993 and named one of the top five personal finance books of the year by Money magazine), and co-author of both Invest In Yourself: Six Secrets to a Rich Life and Slash Your Debt, Save Money & Secure Your Future. Gerri has been interviewed in thousands of radio, television, and print news stories, including USA Today, The Wall Street Journal, The New York Times, Dateline NBC, The Today Show and many others. She has testified before Congress several times and worked on reform of the national credit reporting laws. She has served as executive director of the non-profit consumer advocacy group Bankcard Holders of America and as policy director of The National Council of Individual Investors. She has also developed consumer education programs for MasterCard, Bank of America and others. She has served on credit reporting agency Experian’s Consumer Advisory Council and on the board of the National Council for Consumer Education. Mary Reed
Mary Reed is a personal finance writer who writes about consumer money and legal issues in her own name and also ghost writes books and magazine articles on those topics for clients. To date, she has written or ghostwritten 18 books. In addition, Mary has written for Good Housekeeping, Home Office Computing Magazine, and Small Business Computing Magazine, The Wall Street Journal’s National Business and Employment Weekly, and for Hispanic Business. Mary also owns MR•PR, a public relations and marketing firm that specializes in providing services to financial planners, consumer law attorneys, bankruptcy attorneys, and authors. Her services include branding, marketing plan development, web site copy, blogs, planning and implementing national public relations campaigns, press kit development, and events planning. Her clients have been guests on such national programs as Power Lunch (CNBC), Good Morning America (ABC), Marketplace Morning (American Public Radio), and Morning Edition (NPR) and on numerous local radio and TV programs. In addition, she has obtained print attention for her clients in The New York Times, The Wall Street Journal, USA Today, Newsweek, Redbook, Kiplinger’s Personal Finance Magazine, Inc. Magazine, Money, and Entrepreneur, as well as from many local and statewide publications. Prior to establishing MR•PR, Mary was vice president of marketing for a national market research firm, director of marketing for a women’s health organization, and public relations manager for Texas Monthly Magazine and Texas Monthly Press. She also worked as a legislative aide for an Austin, Texas city council member and as a management consultant for Booz Allen Hamilton in Washington, D.C. and for Abt Associates in Cambridge, MA. Mary has a Masters in Business from Boston University and a Bachelor of Arts degree from Trinity University in Washington, D.C. Robert Brennan
Attorney Robert Brennan grew up steeped in the legal tradition: his uncle was former U.S. Supreme Court Justice William J. Brennan, Jr. (deceased), and his father, Frank Brennan, was chief in-house counsel for several major U.S. corporations during his long career.Robert Brennan began his career in civil litigation in 1988, and opened his own general practice firm, The Law Offices of Robert F. Brennan in 1991. The firm specializes in litigating cases related to violations of consumer protection laws, including unfair and abusive debt collection, lemon law, automotive dealer fraud, wrongful credit damage, personal injury, and consumer protection class actions. An experienced and aggressive trial lawyer with an excellent win record, Brennan has a wide range of successful litigation experience, including medical malpractice, consumer fraud (including consumer warranty and "lemon law" issues), personal injury, and business litigation. He is also a nationally recognized speaker on consumer protection and consumer fraud issues, and has published numerous articles on those and other litigation issues. Brennan is a member of the State Bar of California, the Los Angeles County Bar Association, the Hollywood Bar Association, the San Fernando Valley Bar Association, the Irish-American Bar Association, the California Association of Consumer Attorneys, the Consumer Attorney's Association of Los Angeles, and the National Association of Consumer Advocates, for which he was a founding member
|
