Meet The Team

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Learn More About Our Company Executives

Larry Thornton

President and CEO

Larry Thornton is a self-made entrepreneur who has founded two software companies, Software Earnings (SEI) and First Touch Payment Solutions (FTPS), with significant market share in check processing, atm deposit processing, retail payments, merchant services, and check cashing / money center markets. Larry serves as founder, president, and CEO of Software Earnings and First Touch Payment Solutions.

Over the years, Larry has developed strong Business Relationships with large public companies, such as IBM, Unisys, Glory Global Solutions, ARCA, Card Connect, and NCR Corporation to leverage their hardware platforms, software platforms, and customer relationships to open doors to develop a suite of mission-critical software applications for the payments industry.

The following is a partial list of customers that have licensed software from SEI and FTPS: Bank of America, CitiBank, Wells Fargo, Key Bank, JP Morgan Chase, BB&T Bank, Regions Bank, SunTrust Bank, First Tennessee Bank, Citizens Bank, Barclays Bank, The Federal Reserve Bank, many community banks, Dodges, Sapp Brothers, Goodwill, and Laguna Development Corporation.

As payment methods continue to change, Larry has been instrumental in embracing all payment types; therefore, giving all businesses (Large and Small) solutions to enhance their businesses by either cost reduction, performance efficiencies, and revenue generation. His companies have developed a new suite of software applications specifically for managing cash, check and credit and debit card transaction activity. The new suite is called Red Carpet Software (RCS) and provides executives, management, and clerical staff with dashboards to monitor payment activities and events within their businesses.

Larry enjoys the challenges and eagerly looks forward to working with clients, partners, and employees.

David Garavelli

Chief Experience Officer

David Garavelli began his career in the banking industry after his graduation from Southwest Community College in Memphis, TN. He began working at First Tennessee Bank in 1980, where he ran operations for First Express, a national check clearing business. In 1988, he began working for First American Bank, heading up their West Tennessee operations. He also worked for the Federal Reserve Bank of St. Louis from 1991 – 1996, before returning to First Tennessee Bank to run their document processing and return center in Memphis.

Garavelli began his career at Software Earnings and First Touch Payment Solutions as director of consulting, subsequently promoted to senior vice president of business development, senior vice president and industry specialist, executive vice president of product management, and chief operations officer. He currently serves as chief customer experience officer. Garavelli says a highlight of his career was the development of Software Earnings’ check optimization product. He played an instrumental role in this project. The solution allowed banks to move away from keying at proof machines to keying online from an electronic image. Garavelli’s favorite role at First Touch Payment Solutions is working with partners, clients, and development to provide a pleasant customer experience.

As chief experience officer, it is his responsibility to provide a knowledge base for the retail industry for product offerings and be the liaison between the partner, client, and internal teams.

Tim Woodard

Chief Technology Officer

Tim Woodard is currently the chief technology officer at Software Earnings and First Touch Payment Solutions. As the CTO, he directs the company's product strategy and is responsible for product architecture, implementation, and operations. He also considers himself a relationship manager. Tim's trademark is making sure all customers are treated with the utmost respect and integrity.

Woodard has over 24 years of experience in the banking industry. After attending the University of Memphis, he was fortunate to receive a position at Check Solutions in the IT department. In that role, Tim helped solve all IT-related issues for the company. After a few years, he started traveling around the country installing check processing software. In 2003, Woodard was pleased to accept a position as an implementation specialist with Software Earnings. In the last 18 years, he has installed, configured, and supported software implementations at over 65 different banks. In 2013 he was promoted to his current role at Software Earnings and First Touch Payment Solutions.

Bart Trahan

Chief Architect, Product Development

Bart Trahan has been with Software Earnings for 25 years, moving up from lead developer to his present role as chief architect of product development of First Touch Payment Solutions. He is a graduate of Delta State University in computer information systems and has been in software development for over 35 years, getting his start at the age of 17 for the Department of Agriculture.

Trahan came to Software Earnings after leaving his role as senior developer for Fed-Ex. Previous to his time at Fed-Ex, he was a developer for Holiday Corporation (the former owner of Promus Hotels, Harrahs, Embassy Suites and others.) During his time at Software Earnings, he has been involved in major projects developing recycler interfaces, the enterprise cash dashboard, the payments remittance manager, our ATM balancing system, and our enhanced security system.