Team Bios 

In the early 90’s, Mr. Mireskandari worked at The World Bank in Washington, D.C including time at the International Finance Corporation, a private sector lending division of The World Bank, with a focus on emerging market lending. He managed a loan portfolio for the IFC. Amir has served as an advisor on privatization to the Kingdom of Morocco, the Government of Belize, and various capacities to Governments of Jamaica and Barbados.

Mr. Mireskandari cofounded The Lugano Group, Incorporated in 1998, which offered securities brokerage, advisory and investment and consulting services as well as economic and financial studies.

Mr. Mireskandari founded Miresco rugs in 1999. Mireco operated more than 80 rug stores, manufactured rugs, and was a large rug import company. Miresco also had multiple rug licenses with large retailers and brands. Miresco was one of the larger rug wholesale companies with more than 1,000 clients.

During the last 20 plus years, Amir founded and operated various companies active in distressed assets and liquidation of retail operations of luxury goods, home furnishings, and general merchandise. He has been involved with more than 3,000 liquidation locations including many national brands. He also has founded and operated brick-and-mortar & online retailers. He has been an advisor to restructurings, and M&As involved distressed companies in many industries.

Mr. Mireskandari previously held both General Securities Representative (Series 7 and Series 63) and Principal (Series 24 and Series 28) licenses. He earned his B.B.A. and M.B.A. in International Business from George Washington University and completed his postgraduate studies in Management from Harvard Business School.

Amir Mireskandari is fluent in English, Farsi, French and Italian. He resides in Houston, Texas, and is married with two young daughters.

Mr. Lewis has been engaged in the Art and Antique business for 35 years.  Currently, he owns and operates Lewis and Maese Auction house.

Jack Nichols graduated from O’Gorman High School in his home town of Sioux Falls, South Dakota.  He earned his bachelor’s degree in history (Summa Cum Laude) from the University of South Dakota where he was also President of Lambda Chi Alpha fraternity, a Student Senator, President of the Interfraternity Council, and a Homecoming Royalty Finalist.  He went on to earn his M.B.A and graduated law Cum Laude from Creighton University School of Law in Omaha, Nebraska where he worked at First National Bank of Omaha.  Mr. Nichols joined Lindquist & Vennum, PLLP (which is now Ballard Spahr LLP) and from 2012 to 2014 he drafted/negotiated more than 100 commercial leases for locations around the United States.  In 2014, Mr. Nichols started the firm Jack J. Nichols, P.C. (affiliated with Nichols & Rabuck P.C.) in Sioux Falls, South Dakota where Mr. Nichols’s practice areas included corporate law, M&A, real estate, employment law, cyber law, trademark prosecution, commercial litigation, criminal defense, and juvenile defense.  In 2015 Mr. Nichols began a specialty practice in bankruptcy and debtor/creditor law and grew it to be one of the largest volume bankruptcy practices in the state.  In addition to jury and court trials at the state and county level, Jack has experience in federal court litigation in South Dakota, Texas, and Delaware, as well as federal bankruptcy court litigation and trials.

Mr. Nichols served on the board of directors of South Dakota Pulse Processors, LLC, representing the shares of Pulses International, LLC, which involved the financing and construction of a pulses processing plant in rural South Dakota.  He has also advised various non-profits and sports clubs and their directors, and served on the board of directors for Alliance Benefitting Children of South Dakota.

Mr. Nichols was named a Super Lawyers Rising Star in 2014, 2015, and 2016.  In 2020, East River Legal Services featured Mr. Nichols in their annual publication for his dedication to helping low-income and modest-means families through pro bono work.

Mr. Nichols resides with his wife in Houston, TX.

After honorably serving in the United States Marine Corps, he attended and graduated from Memphis State University in 1975, and graduated from South Texas College of Law in 1979. He was licensed to practice law in Texas in 1980. Eric G. Carter is the founding principal of The Carter Law Firm

Mr. Carter is an experienced trial and appellate lawyer who has been practicing for over 32 years. He has tremendous experience in restructuring and foreclosures, and has been involved in vast number of adverse proceedings. Most recently, he has counseled healthcare providers and organizations in a variety of healthcare legal matters and healthcare law topics. He has represented publicly traded corporations, franchised automobile dealerships, handled mergers and acquisitions of companies, prepared and finalized State and Federally chartered Bank formations, closely held corporations, partnerships, and estates.

Throughout his career, Mr. Carter has successfully managed complicated litigation involving multiple parties and complex issues. Mr. Carter is a certified Mediator and Arbitrator and is licensed to practice before the Texas State and District Courts; United States of America Supreme Court; United States of America Fifth Circuit Court of Appeals; United States of America Seventh Circuit Court of Appeals and the United States District Court for the Southern District of Texas. Through appointments, Mr. Carter has served as Special Judge in the Harris County Criminal Courts and as Receiver and Special Master in the State District Courts of Texas.

Wayne M. Greenwald represents the entire spectrum of parties-in-interest in debtor-creditor matters and cases under the U.S. Bankruptcy Code. He has extensive experience in business and commercial litigation and assists clients at all phases of dispute resolution, including pre-claim negotiations, mediation, arbitration and trial.

Wayne M. Greenwald has been concentrating in debtor-creditor law for more than 30 years. He was the assistant chair of the Defense Research Institute’s Special Litigation Group on Creditors’ Rights and Bankruptcy. He formerly served as co-chair of the American Bankruptcy Institute’s commercial fraud task force.

Mr. Greenwald lectures frequently and has published or edited articles, treatises and books on bankruptcy and creditors’ rights, including Criminal Practice/ Bankruptcy Proceedings. He is highly regarded in the legal community and has been included in 2007, 2008 and 2010 New York Super Lawyers.

Mona Miles has over 20 years of progressive leadership experience, consistently demonstrating a deep commitment for organizational success while maintaining the highest level of integrity. Ms. Miles currently serves as Chief Administrative Officer for RMP Partners, LLC., where she leads the teams of various aspects of day-to-day operations, including financial, client services, project management, marketing and research. She oversees a staff of project management specialists and retail professionals committed to the success of the organization’s clients and partners.

Prior to joining RMP Partners, Ms. Miles held several leadership roles, including serving as Chief Operating Officer of the Texas Justice Center, Chief Compliance Officer for Mires, Ran, Clark & Associates and held the position of Director of Media & Communications with ECommerce Sourcing Solutions.

Ms. Miles served as the Chief Operating Officer of the Texas Justice Center, leading the development and construction of the largest mediation and arbitration facility in the State of Texas. As Chief Compliance Officer for Mires, Ran, Clark & Associates, she oversaw the research, investigation, and documentation of the Company’s complex fraud cases. Ms. Miles built databases of financial data to outline irregularities in financial reporting and actual transactions. She has overseen the development of report protocols that used various informational sources to support litigation of alleged fraud in public companies and served as liaison with various reporting and law enforcement agencies pertaining to financial fraud. She had the unique responsibility for directing the technology and cybersecurity component of the firm including e-discovery, computer forensics, and cyber risk assessment.

Ms. Miles is a proven leader utilizing values and thoughtfulness to ensure the development and success of large teams of professionals. Her exceptional work history is complimented by her strong leadership and extensive training.

Ms. Miles embodies the spirit of empathy, philanthropy and giving back to the community. She’s long been an avid supporter of a variety of causes, from early childhood development and autism to cancer research.

Ms. Miles previously held both General Securities Representative (Series 7) and Security Industry Essentials (SIE) licenses.

Joshua Thompson is the Chief Information Officer responsible for all of RMP Partners’ technology initiatives, including information technology and digital strategy spanning applications, data, servers, cybersecurity and infrastructure across the enterprise.  He brings over 25 years of exceptional experience in the planning, development, delivery, and monitoring of technical solutions that address the needs of his clients in support of their missions, while maintaining the highest level of integrity and professionalism.

Prior to joining RMP Partners, Mr. Thompson was the Marketing Director of Fandango, where he directed the company’s branding, developed marketing strategies that drove customer growth and revenue efforts driving 4,000,000+ website visits, as well as creating scalable marketing processes ensuring maximum growth, revenue and profitability.

Under Mr. Thompson’s leadership role of Chief Marketing Officer at Luxeyard, a publicly traded company, he developed and implanted a national advertising strategy resulting in membership growth of zero to more than 900k in less than 8 months. Additionally, he successfully managed the brands nationwide email outreach, social media outreach, and celebrity endorsement relationships, while he developed and streamlined the internal processes, workflows and SEC reporting and requirements filings.

Mr. Thompson graduated from Humboldt State University with a Bachelor of Science degree in Business Administration and currently resides in Los Angeles, California.

Patricia (Patty) Adams Emerson has over 30 years experience in the home furnishings market. She started in the private retail/wholesale sector managing, buying, designing, creating successful marketing platforms and establishing training programs for sales teams for her business Papeterie which was sold thru many national retailers such as Nordstrom’s, Victoria Secret, Bloomingdales and Bergdorf Goodman.   

In 2000 Ms. Emerson joined Miresco as Director of Operations where she was responsible for establishing viable rug and proprietary furniture departments within a vast network of existing home furnishing and design centers nationwide. For over a decade she oversaw the operations of 18 stores, over 30 permanent concessions departments, in addition to manufacturers pop up stores and lease hold departments. Patty brought with her a comprehensive knowledge of the home furnishing and design market where she was integral in developing custom rug programs and a proprietary furniture line which she sourced worldwide for more than 700 wholesale clients. Store operations, budgeting, product flow, marketing, training protocol for management/sales staff and HR duties for more than 200 team members were under her supervision. Her duties also included contract negotiations for lease hold and concession departments, procurement and negotiations for pop up and short term real estate leases,  worldwide travel to establish, implement and manufacture custom designs ensuring quality goods and reliable supply chains. 

Ms Emerson currently is COO and EVP for Retail Management Partners a national liquidation company specializing in home furnishing and general merchandise. Over the past decade she has overseen the operations, marketing, augmentation and wind down of more than 1,000 retail locations. Ms. Emerson has served as chief purchasing agent for many national liquidation events. She supervised numerous regional managers that had operational oversight for hundreds of consultants in the field. She was responsible for developing the messaging and marketing strategy for companies ensuring profitable liquidations. Ms. Emerson was the architect for developing and implementing the platform for online timed sales and auction strategy for the liquidation services. Searsrugs.com and Artvanrugs.com were just a few examples of the online sales platforms she developed and oversaw. 

Trial Attorney and then a Senior Trial Attorney with the Tax Division of the U.S. Department of Justice (“DOJ”) in Washington, DC from 1969 to 1983, where I represented the Government in a broad range of tax litigation. My duties included coordination with various divisions in the national and field offices of the Internal Revenue Service (“IRS”), negotiation of settlements, and the handling of all aspects of pretrial discovery, trial, briefing, oral argument, and appeal. I was a charter recipient in 1977 of the Tax Division’s Outstanding Attorney Award, which I again received in 1981.In 1982 as a result of my involvement with the litigation of a number of investment tax credit(“ITC”) cases, I was selected by the Justice Department’s Assistant Attorney General (Tax Division) to head a study of the Government’s ITC ruling and audit policies and practices, and to prepare the Government’s brief in a lawsuit seeking to enjoin one of the then “Big-8”accounting firms (Ernst & Whinney) from deceptive and abusive practices in the preparation of ITC studies for clients.

Upon leaving Government practice in August 1983, and until April, 1986, I joined and became a partner in a Houston law firm (Axelrod, Smith, Komiss, & Kirshbaum, P. C., tel: 713-861-1996; ok to contact) where I was primarily involved with federal tax audit, controversy, and litigation matters in the representation of individual, partnership, trust, and corporate clients on a broad range of legal issues, with an emphasis on tax shelter matters.

From April 1986 to present I have been practicing in my own firm, continuing my tax audit, controversy, and litigation practice and adding an emphasis on the resolution of collection matters before the IRS, including bankruptcy aspects.

Darlene Underwood brings over 30 years of senior level experience in Human Resources, Operations, Organizational Management and Business Development. Her extensive background has included extensive experience working in consulting environments supporting companies with organizational and management restructuring, human resource development, organizational change, and corporate development. She specializes in areas of organizational growth, change management, succession planning, team development, employee coaching, and training and development.

Darlene has directed hundreds of corporate organizational restructurings and downsizings providing hands-on responsibility for the successful transition of employees and restructuring of the client personnel pool, as well as sourcing and selection of key personnel for future growth of the organization.

Prior to joining RMP Partners, Darlene’s professional experience included seven years as COO for an International Outplacement Consulting Firm, eleven years as COO/VPHR of a National Retail Management firm, nine years as Executive Vice President of Client Services with an International Human Resources Consulting firm and two years as Director of Human Resources and Senior Consultant for a National Energy company.

Darlene attended Our Lady of the Lake University Houston, Texas Campus majoring in Business Administration / Human Resources Management. She has completed numerous continuing educational programs MBTI Certification Program, CPCC Certification and Risk Management, Workplace Safety and Loss Control with The Hartford Company.

Darlene is actively involved in community outreach programs, having served as an officer with the Montgomery County Food Bank, actively worked with numerous programs focused on ending hunger in the community. She is a member of the Society of Human Resources Management (SHRM), HR Houston, and the American Business Women’s Association (ABWA). She is affiliated with the International Association of Career Consulting Firms (IACCF), is a Registered Career Consultant (RCC), Certified Professional Career Coach (CPCC).

Mr. Alidad Mireskandari was trained as a molecular genetics at the National institutes of Health (NIH). After obtaining an MBA form University of Michigan Business School, Mr. Mireskandari spent three years as a consultant where he led cross-functional teams in designing complex R&D/Marketing/Supply Chain integration initiatives for pharmaceutical and medical device clients.

From 2000-2009 Mr. Mireskandari was a Hedge Fund Manager trading life sciences portfolios for a number of multi-national banks and hedge funds. He is an experienced financial analyst trained to predict and track profitability of investments by conducting proprietary research, financial analysis and evaluating product development initiatives for both public and private life science companies. His has extensive experience in M&A valuation, due diligence and technology transfer. He also has expertise in building valuation models and developing revenue-forecasting models for life science companies

In 2009, Mr. Mireskandari became President & CEO of a Start-up venture, overseeing the introduction a number of genetic tests to market by licensing 2 platform technologies from Yale University. He directed the build-up of his company’s commercial infrastructure to include, billing, marketing, reimbursement and customer service capabilities. He also managed R&D activities and built operational capabilities of commercial laboratory to include CLIA license certification and CAP accreditation. He led all Quality and Regulatory Assurance activities and FDA interactions on behalf of company.

Since selling his startup company in March 2014, Mr. Mireskandari has been leading MRC’s Life Sciences consulting division, which provides consulting services for life science companies in all aspects, including operational improvement, product development, technology transfer, fundraising, deal structure, and financial due diligence.

Mr. Palavan is a registered professional engineer and has more than thirty-eight years of professional experience in the areas of geotechnical engineering, foundation design, environmental engineering and construction materials testing and inspection. This experience has been on a wide variety of projects throughout the U.S.A as well as overseas.

Mr. Palavan’s experience in geotechnical engineering includes structural foundation design of various structures from high-rise building, bridges, dams and petrochemical plants to individual homes, roads, warehouses and retaining wall. He has also supervised numerous pile driving operations and quality control inspections for chemical plants and high-rise buildings.

Mr. Palavan’s environmental and hydro geological experience includes performing comprehensive site assessments, soil sampling and installation of monitoring wells, industrial waste disposal site evaluation and design of industrial landfills, design and permitting of municipal solid wastes landfills, groundwater site evaluations and studies, and continental ground water movement evaluation. He has also designed and investigated numerous sanitary and storm sewer facilities. He has worked as a Senior Project Engineer for several landfills sites throughout Texas and California where he was responsible for field investigations plus laboratory testing and analysis of all potential disposal areas.

He has a Bachelor of Science in Civil Engineering, A&M University System of Texas, Texas; Master of Science in Civil Engineering (Geotechnical) University of Houston, Texas; Post Graduate studies in Soil Mechanics, University of Houston, Texas.

He is member of National Society of Professional Engineers, Texas Society of Professional Engineers, National American Society of Civil Engineers, American Society of Civil Engineers Texas Section, and National Civil Engineering Honor Societies (Chi-Epsilon) and National Engineering Honor Society (Tan-Beta-Pi).