Staff Bios

Diane Buzzeo CEO Ability Commerce

Diane Buzzeo has been a pioneer and innovator in the direct marketing industry for more than 25 years. Buzzeo started her fledgling direct mail service business, a musical instrument mail-order catalog, with less than $100, a typewriter, some spray mount and a light table. Encouraged by the initial response to the first catalog, and armed with a $1,350 loan, she purchased one of the first Apple computers created specifically for desktop publishing. The catalog’s second edition was created with the help of the Apple "Lisa," and that year's mailings topped 30,000 pieces. That direct mail service has since evolved into a multichannel sales powerhouse, American Musical Supply (an Internet Retailer Top 500 site). Buzzeo's start-up effort was one of the most tenacious and aggressive start-up efforts in the then-young direct marketing industry. She founded Ability Commerce and its sister company, Marketing Concepts, in 1986, leveraging her insight and expertise to create growth for many other clients, and to translate her catalog-industry knowledge into ecommerce success stories.

Buzzeo is dedicated to her communities, her employees, business growth and educating her clients about ways to use the services they need for maximum success and profitability. Over the years Buzzeo has been honored for her professional and volunteer work. Buzzeo is the recipient of numerous awards including the Employer of the Year Award from the Minnesota Business and Professional Women (BPW), the Excellence in Business Award from the Southwest Minnesota Initiative Fund and the 2005 Minnesota Woman Business Owner of the Year from the U.S. Small Business Administration.

Debbie Longo Vice President Ability Commerce

Debbie Longo has spent 28 years increasing value and responsibility in the direct-marketing software industry. Previous positions include Director of Client Services for BSA, Inc. (a division of Acxiom Corporation), and Vice-President of Client Services for Ecometry Corporation (now known as Escalate Retail). In these roles, Longo has worked with some of the top direct-marketing companies in the industry, such as PC Mall, Coldwater Creek, Nordstrom, QVC, Brookstone, Casual Male, and many others.

Longo's depth of experience with direct-retail software and order management systems ensures her dedication to usability and stability when developing products and services for Ability Commerce.

Patrick Reineke Director of Technology

Patrick Reineke's 2009 appointment as Director of Technology has allowed Ability Commerce to provide world-class infrastructure support for its next-generation ecommerce software tools and state-of-the-art hosting services. He currently oversees programming and IT departments.

Patrick comes to Ability Commerce with over 25 years of IT experience, specializing in software development, application and information architecture. He has served in increasingly important roles with global corporations such as Blue Cross/Blue Shield and American Express Financial Advisors. Most recently, he has served as Vice-President of IT for American Express's Global Business Integration Services and Interactive Applications divisions. In that capacity, he evolved and managed vision, strategy and infrastructure to support large-scale global interactive channel activities.

Patrick possesses degrees in both International Business and Computer Programming/Operations. His education, in conjunction with his superior experience, allows him to lead transformational growth and change for Ability Commerce and for our clients, through the development of aligned business and IT strategies. He has been directly responsible for developing the infrastructure and policies comprising our world-class hosting facilities and services, ensuring its security, cost efficiency and unbeatable service level reliability.

Theresa Giovarelli Senior Manager of Product Development

As Senior Manager of Product Development since 2003, Theresa Giovarelli has been instrumental in the success of our ecommerce software products, including Ability SmartSite, Ability Amazon Interface and Ability Financials.

A graduate of Florida Atlantic University, Theresa came to Ability Commerce with impressive credentials as an expert in order management system testing and custom integrations for enterprise-level ecommerce and catalog companies. She has over eleven years' experience working for Ecometry Corporation (Escalate Retail), where she began on the front lines of customer service and advanced to a key role as their Director of Quality Assurance. She also served as executive project manager on a number of large-scale customer projects. Including her extensive Ecometry integration experience here at Ability Commerce, Theresa contributes over eighteen years' Ecometry and direct marketing experience to our development staff.

In addition to the guidance she provides in ensuring high-quality development and timely release cycles for our software products, Theresa also lends her expertise to our custom programming staff, ensuring that all projects are successfully quality tested, fully documented, and delivered on time.

Charla Kunkel Web Development Manager

Web Development Manager Charla Kunkel, with Ability Commerce since 2004, is the principal architect behind our flagship ecommerce software tool, Ability SmartSite.

Charla attended Trinity University in San Antonio, Texas, where she received a BA in Physics and a BS in Computer Science. After graduating, she relocated to South Florida and joined the small staff of computer programmers at High-Tech Software.

Her responsibilities ranged from programming, QA, support and implementation, to networking, architecture and design. High-Tech Software successfully created voice-response and Internet banking systems for hundreds of community banks across the US. Charla's expertise was critical to the growth and eventual successful sale of the company to Harland Financials.

Charla transitioned to Ability Commerce as a programmer, but her experience and expertise quickly merited promotions, first to project manager, and ultimately to her current position as manager of the web development and data team. She has been instrumental in guiding the creation and ongoing development of the Ability SmartSite development tool, as well as the associated browser-based content management tools.

Beatriz Gomez Ecommerce Product Research/Development and SEO Analysis

Beatriz Gomez has been leading search engine optimization and web usability initiatives at Ability Commerce since 2001. Her expertise has been instrumental in both the development of the Ability SmartSite product, and successful implementation and use of the product on behalf of our multichannel clients.

Prior to joining Ability Commerce, Beatriz consulted on numerous pay-per-click and usability projects, providing reporting and analysis, as well as optimization recommendations for keyword bid management and cost-per click analysis.

Since joining us, she has applied her extensive knowledge to search engine optimization. Her recommendations consistently achieve nearly instantaneous conversion lifts for our clients using our Ability SmartSite platform. Her responsibilities include keyword phrase analysis and taxonomy research, resolving HTML code and content issues as web standards evolve, and recommending strategies for optimal navigation and link architecture.

In addition to providing taxonomy and keyword phrase research to clients, Beatriz's research skills and insights are critical to our development team, as we work to build increasingly better web usability and optimized site architecture into each new version of Ability SmartSite. She works closely with the development team to identify and implement white-hat strategies for increasing site traffic through organic search listing. She continually monitors the search engine performance of our clients using the Ability SmartSite product to ensure that strong optimization remains part of individual client strategies as well as of the product platform itself.

Alan Carpenter Custom Programming, Software Product Development

Alan Carpenter began his career with Ability Commerce in 2003, where he contributes his nearly three decades’ of software development experience to our team. As an independent consultant and at BSA, Alan spent the bulk of his career prior to joining our team specializing in mail order/ecommerce order management systems. His depth of experience working as a developer and consultant on both Ecometry and its predecessor, Prophit Mail Order System, allows Ability Commerce to understand enterprise order management integrations in a way that very few other companies can claim.

Alan also has a degree in Computer Science; his past experience includes serving as a developer for Bell Communications Research (the research and development arm for the seven regional Bell companies).

Currently, Alan's skills are used in the development of our Ability Amazon Interface, Ecometry-enhancing programs such as EDI Processing and the many other software tools we provide to make product and order maintenance easier for our clients. He also provides custom programming to meet specific client needs.

Although generally immersed in technical tasks, Alan is a firm believer in our corporate philosophy of creating products that are easy to support and easy to use. To ensure that his products stay in tune with this principle, he frequently provides direct technical support, or helps train our experienced support staff in the optimal use of the products he develops. Clients appreciate the approachable "plain English" manner with which Alan helps clients get the most out of Ability Commerce products and programs.

Connie Chappell Documentation

After ten years in the direct-marketing industry at Fingerhut Corporation and as an independent writing and editorial consultant, Connie Chappell came to Ability Commerce in 2002, where she has leveraged her industry knowledge to create growth for our web marketing clients, including Internet Retailer Top 500 sites like American Musical Supply. She has a bachelor's degree in English, and specializes in creating simple-to-understand technical documentation as well as technically oriented marketing materials.

Connie currently directs the production of the Ability SmartSite Online Help system, comprehensive release notes and other documentation to maximize the usefulness and self-support capabilities of Ability Commerce's ecommerce software tools. Her knowledge of ecommerce marketing enables our technical support materials to truly "speak the language" of ecommerce marketers, so that our products can be understood and used to their fullest potential not by "technical" staff, but by the marketing decision makers who use our tools daily. In addition to her duties as technical writer for our software products, Connie currently applies her writing, marketing and project management skills to manage print and web marketing initiatives for Ability Commerce, and serves as a product development liaison with the web development group to ensure that client sites utilize the latest trends and technology.

David Faidley Manager of Finance and Accounting

David Faidley joined Ability Commerce with over 20 years of experience as a financial operations expert.

David began his accounting career with General Mills and Pillsbury, where he prepared management reporting for Pillsbury's largest and most profitable division. He quickly transitioned to leadership roles for highly successful software and technology companies, acting as Controller and/or CFO for highly successful software and technology companies such as System Software Associates, DataServ, and Carlton Financial Corp.

Most recently, David served as VP and Controller for Architectural Enhancements, LLC, where he was the primary individual responsible for analysis and interpretation of financial information, as well as implementation of effective cost accounting procedures and policies.

David has both CPA and CMA certifications, and has successfully managed complex corporate accounting conversions and ERP integrations on systems such as Quickbooks, Peachtree, and Microsoft Dynamics GP. He has played a critical role in the business success of Fortune 500 companies, and has also helped smaller private companies grow and succeed by aiding with the re-engineering and optimization of their financial operations.