Leawood, Kan., USA - September 29, 2010, Leawood, Kan., USA - Empire Energy Corporation International announced that four new directors have joined the company's board of directors.
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David Villarreal Jr. will replace CEO Malcolm Bendall as chairman and Mr. Bendall will retain his role as chief executive officer. James Leach, William Keating and John Essmyer will also join company's board of directors.
Mr. Villarreal has spent his career building and successfully managing companies primarily in the financial services industry as well maintaining significant long term organized labor and political relationships.
Mr. Villarreal is the current President and Chief Executive Officer of Grand Monarch Holdings Incorporated and has been the Chairman of the Board of American Union Financial Services, Inc. since he founded it in April 2004.
Previously, from 2000 to 2005, Mr. Villarreal served as the Chief Operating Officer of American Residential Funding, from 1992 to 2000 he was President of L.S. Inland Ventures, and between 1998 and 2000, he was President and CEO of Solomon Trust Foundation.
Mr. Villarreal also served as Human Resources Director and National Director for the Immigration Reform and Control Act of 1986 for a subsidiary of W.R. Grace & Co. during his tenure from 1980 through 1988 for which he received a Congressional Office Distinction of Service Award.
From 1976 to 1980 Mr. Villarreal served as Administrative Assistant to former Los Angeles Mayor Tom Bradley with responsibility for all organized labor relations and employees of the City of Los Angeles.
Prior to recruitment into his Mayoral office responsibilities Mr. Villarreal was the youngest Field Representative for the Laborers’ International Union of North America from 1973 to 1976 and attended California State University Los Angeles where he studied Business Administration and was a 1978 Trade Union Fellow at Harvard University - Graduate School of Business and John F. Kennedy School of Government.
Mr. Keating maintains a diverse wealth of experience in financial management and business development with unique familiarity of the energy industry.
Mr. Keating commenced his professional career in 1981 as an auditing specialist at Price Waterhouse Coopers. From there, he spent nine years working for Royal Dutch Shell in a corporate accounting role and then later switching to downstream retail management for the oil company.
Mr. Keating then spent two years working at AMCOR Limited in a national sales role followed by another two years in business development at Ernst & Young. Since 2000, he has worked as a management consultant specializing in corporate recovery and business development for various consultancies and companies worldwide.
Mr. Keating received a Bachelors of Business in Accounting in 1983 from Royal Melbourne Institute of Technology (RMIT University), a Post Graduate Diploma in Marketing from Monash University in 1998 and became a member of the Institute of Chartered Accounts in 1984 of which he was a member until 2000.
Mr. Leach currently serves as the Senior Managing Director of National Trust, LCC a subsidiary of the Leach Family Trust, one of New England’s largest real estate developers with over 2.5 million square feet currently under development.
Since Mr. Leach's recognition in 1997 by the Environmental Protection Agency (EPA) as a pioneer in the reuse of Superfund Sites his ongoing work has been adopted by EPA and currently serves as the nationwide model for the Federal agency’s billion-dollar Superfund Program.
Mr. Leach graduated from Nasson College in 1983 with a Bachelors of Science degree.
Mr. Essmyer is an accomplished inventor and entrepreneur with more than thirty years experience in developing, manufacturing, and marketing his own designs for equipment and materials for the health and personal care markets. ■