Key Personnel

Team

Our people are the most important asset we have, and we believe that our willingness to listen to our associates helps cultivate an environment which attracts and helps retain the very best.

Mark Finocchio

Mark Finocchio

President

Graduate of William Paterson University with a B.A. in Business Administration and minor in Economics, Mark began his career in the Specialty Food business as a sales representative with Anco Foods in 1984. After advancing within Anco based in Fairfield, New Jersey, he was promoted to the position of General Manager of Anco’s Florida Division in 1990.

In 1997, after Schratters’ acquisition of Anco Foods, Mark remained with the company as Vice-President and General Manager, expanding distribution into the Southeast United States.

Mark Finocchio joined the Dick Garber Co. in January, 2001 as Executive Vice President, responsible for principal and market development. In January of 2003, Mark acquired the company from Dick Garber. On March 20, 2009 Mark moved the company to their new corporate office in Coconut Creek, Florida. At this time he also changed the name to Pinnacle Food Sales.

Dick Garber

Dick Garber

Executive Director

Graduate of CCNY with a B.A. in Economics, Mr. Garber spent six years with Plumrose International rising to the position of National Sales Manager. In 1966, he founded the Dick Garber Co. Generally regarded as the leading Dairy/Deli Broker in the Florida market, Dick Garber Co. merged with Morris Food Sales in April, 1992. This merger eventually evolved into the sale of his business to Marketing Specialists Sales Co. in January 1993.

In August 1994, Mr. Garber re-established the Dick Garber Co., promptly resuming its position as one of the Sunshine State’s most experienced broker sales organizations with offices in Davie, Florida and Tampa, Florida. Under his direction, in November 1997, the Dick Garber Co. opened its Atlanta, Georgia branch office expanding company representation regionally to facilitate the entire southeast market. In January of 2003, Mr. Garber sold the company to Mark Finocchio.

Linda Rivera

Linda Rivera

Human Resource Coordinator / Office Manager

Linda joined the Pinnacle Food Sales family in 2006. Having graduated Cum Laude with an Associates Degree in Business Administration from Inter American University of Puerto Rico, Linda brings to our organization over 15 years of experience in the retail / customer service environment. This experience has proved to be a great value for our organization in many ways. Her primary role is that of Human Resource Coordinator responsible for all areas of Human Resource to include but not limited to processing of payroll, administration of benefit(s), and communication of policies and procedures to all Pinnacle Food Sales associates. Linda is also the office manager of our corporate office with customer service reporting to her. Her bi-lingual skills (reads, writes, and speaks Spanish fluently) are a plus, and align themselves well with our export business and local market.

Connor Finocchio

Connor Finocchio

DIRECTOR BUSINESS DEVELEOPMENT

Graduate of New York University with a B.A. in Business and Organizational Leadership. Connor began his career with Pinnacle back in 2014 as a merchandiser prior to enrolling at NYU. While attending college Connor worked as a Merchandising Coordinator with Yumami Foods gaining experience in business development and brand strategy. Following his graduation from NYU in 2018 Connor accepted a role at Sartori Cheese as a Retail Sales Representative. In 2021 Connor was promoted to an Area Sales Manager for Sartori focusing on working with distributors, major retailers, and managed Sartori’s e-commerce business for the Northeast Sales Division. Connor won a National Championship playing defense for the NYU Hockey team in 2017. He enjoys golf, travel, & trying new cuisines. We are excited to bring Connor’s energy & experience to our Pinnacle Team!

Rhonda Lee

Rhonda Lee

VP PINNACLE GA

Rhonda comes to us with over 28 years of Consumer Package Goods experience specializing in account management, category management, ecommerce and sales and marketing operations. Rhonda started her CPG career in 1994 with Cross Mark in Tampa, Florida where she began as sales representative. She was promoted to an in-house space management analyst for Publix and then into category analysis. Rhonda went on to work for major manufacturers, including Nabisco, Pillsbury, Unilever Best foods and Kodak.  Rhonda worked several years as a Category Management Advisor for retailers, manufacturers, and brokers before returning fulltime to the broker business in 2021. Over her career she has called on key retailers and distributors, including Publix, Kroger, Walmart/Sam’s, Amazon, Target, GFI and KeHE. Rhonda resides in Gainesville, GA.

Joe Conway

Joe Conway

Executive Vice President

Joe officially joined our family in September 2017, and holds the position of Executive Vice President –  Publix working out of our Tampa office.  Joe has close to 35 years’ experience in the food industry, and for the majority of those years he has been calling on Publix. Joe has held multiple positions with different organizations to include broker, distributor, and manufacturer representative. In 2007, Joe joined the KeHE organization as an Account Executive calling on Publix. Joe was responsible for new product presentations, as well as line extensions across multiple categories and successfully spearheaded the launch, and retail execution of a new beer and wine category through KeHE at Publix. In 2013, Joe left the KeHE organization and accepted a position on the brokerage side of the business where he continued to call on Publix, along with additional retailers in the Southeast market. He has built relationships with multiple distributors to include KeHE and UNFI, as well as strong direct contacts with buyers at headquarter levels in multiple accounts. Joe has exceptional interpersonal skills, and is well versed in category analysis. He attended Penn State University and holds a BA in Journalism / Broadcast News. Joe and his wife Linda reside in the Wesley Chapel area, and they have two grown children Sean, and Chris. Joe enjoys golf, and playing the guitar in his spare time, and his “fall season” passion is Penn State football.

Michael Goeckel

Michael Goeckel

Vice President/Georgia

Mike began his career in the food industry with the Kroger Co. while attending Georgia State University. In 1968, Mike joined the Fred Burns Co. as a Retail Territory Manager. Mike was promoted to Retail Sales Manager; Account Executive, and Vice President of Sales. In 1975, Mike joined Larry White & Associates as Vice President of Sales and Partner. Mike remained with Larry White & Associates until the company was acquired by Bonacker & Leigh, Inc. in 1987. Mike remained with Bonacker & Leigh, Inc. in a number of key positions including Branch Manager, Regional Coordinator for Deli/Bakery, and Senior Account Executive.

In 1997, Bonacker & Leigh was acquired by the Budd Mayer Co. Mike remained with Budd Mayer as a Senior Account Executive until joining the Dick Garber Co.

In November 1997 Mike joined the Dick Garber Co. as Vice President and General Manager of the Atlanta branch office. Michael Goeckel brings 30 years of food broker experience in the Atlanta Market to our organization and to our Principals.

Andrew Wright

Andrew Wright

Vice President

Graduate of Florida State University with a B.A. in Marketing and Real Estate with a minor in Entrepreneurship, Andrew began his career as an LDP at Acosta. There he learned the CPG industry from the ground floor up through Retail, Analytics and ultimately ending in sales calling directly on Publix. Andrew then went on to become a Regional Account Manager for Biocodex and called directly on retailers around the entire USA. There he added 18 brand new business retailers by cold calling within his first 2 years. He then became a National Account Manager and directly called on all major Food/Mass, Club, Drug, E-commerce and Military channels for the entire country. Andrew is skilled in categories around the entire grocery store by being well versed in Nielsen, IRI, creating new item sell in presentations and innovation launches. Andrew is also an officer for the Florida GMR which has been an integral part of the Florida CPG community for 65 years and counting. Lastly, Andrew played football at FSU and was on the 2013 National Championship winning team. He enjoys trying new things, travel, fitness and spending time with his wife Erin and two dogs Odin and Freya.

Emily Finocchio

Emily Finocchio

DIRECTOR OF MARKETING

Graduate of Lynn University with a B.S. and an M.B.A. in Marketing. Emily began her career with a Graduate Assistant position at the Marketing Department for Lynn University from 2019 to 2020. While there, she worked with the digital content team, optimizing content for their website and social media platforms. The position focused on creating, publishing, distributing, and tracking the relevant and valuable content for their target audiences. She has since joined Pinnacle Food Sales in January 2021 as Marketing Director. Emily is responsible for planning, directing, and coordinating marketing efforts for Pinnacle Food Sales. Through this position, Emily will assist in growing the Pinnacle Food Sales brand name.

Gene Evans

Gene Evans

General Manager – Georgia Division

Gene started his career in the fast-food business with a Burger King franchisee as an Assistant Manager and worked his way up to District Manager in charge of 6 stores. In 1993, he moved into the food brokerage business and has been there for 29 years. He was a sales account manager calling on major retailers and distributors, such as Publix, Winn Dixie, Cub Foods, A&P, Whole Foods, JH Harvey’s and GFI.  In 2002 Gene assumed the role of General Manger/Inside Sales Support in the Food Brokerage industry. He graduated from Northern Illinois University with a Bachelor of Science degree in Marketing.  Gene enjoys spending time with his family, playing with, and walking his grand dogs, camping, sports, and playing the guitar.

“For over 40 years Pinnacle Food Sales has specialized in areas such as merchandising, category management, and marketing services to producers of food products.”

Account Executives

Team

Alex Stout

Alex Stout

Account Executive

Alex is a graduate of Florida Gulf Coast University with a BS in Resort and Hospitality Management.  He has worked in the CPG industry with Sherwin Williams calling on large retailers such as Lowe’s.  Alex participated in the Sherwin Williams Leadership Development Program where he honed skills in category management, data analysis, and presentation building techniques. He has worked both in the retail trade in addition to calling on chain headquarters, and during his time at Sherwin Williams he was promoted three times in four years.

Fran Huff

Fran Huff

Account Executive

Fran began her career in the food industry as a demonstrator during the early 1980’s. In 1985, Fran joined the Dick Garber Co. in Florida as a Retail Sales Representative. Fran was promoted to Retail Sales Supervisor and Account Executive in 1994. She joined Hopco Foodservice in 1998 and specialized in servicing major Foodservice Distributors.

Having relocated to Georgia in 1999, Fran returned to our organization in 2000 as an Account Executive. Her experience in both retail and foodservice segments of the industry make her a true asset to the company. Fran makes headquarters calls to numerous supermarket retailers and distributors out of our Atlanta Office. She is also responsible for our Club Store calls (e.g. Costco SE).

Jennifer England

Jennifer England

Account Executive

Jennifer brings experience to our organization from several different areas. Jennifer started her food career working as a clerk in a Natural Food store. She progressed from a clerk position assuming various positions to include Buyer, Assistant Store Manager and ultimately Store Manager. Jennifer joined Pinnacle Food Sales in 2005 as Customer Service Manager. In this position she worked closely with both Principals and Customers to assure all orders, requests, and needs were received and processed in an accurate and timely manner. She also assumed additional responsibilities with over sight of promotion and pricing programs as well as editor of our monthly newsletter “Shop Talk”.

Jennifer transferred to Georgia accepting the position of Supervisor working closely with our Retail Associates to ensure maximum effectiveness in their daily activities relating to increased sales, secondary displays and regular store call responsibilities.

In June of 2014 Jennifer transferred to North Carolina & is working with Diana Morrison as our liaison to Harris Teeter.

William Gomez

William Gomez

Account Executive

Will began his career in the food industry in 1991 with Specialty Foods as a field salesman.

In 1994 Will joined Fine Distributing also as a field salesman responsible for maintaining accounts in both Publix and Winn Dixie.

Fine Distributing was purchased by Gourmet Awards / Tree of Life in 1999. There he continued his career accepting a position as a Publix reset specialist in 1999 which he held until 2005 when he accepted a Sales Supervisor position in charge of a sales territory from Key West to central Miami-Dade County. In 2010 he accepted a position with Sysco South Florida as a Marketing Associate until he joined Pinnacle Food Sales in August 2011

Hector Muniz

Hector Muniz

Account Executive

Hector began his “food career” 39 years ago with a local distributor in 1980 called Mass Merchandisers. He worked his way up through multiple positions to include; Route Sales, Territory Manager, District Merchandising Manager, Business Development Manager, Category Manager, and Account Executive. Hector’s latest position was part of a three-person team managing the Publix Supermarket account, as an Account Manager. He is well versed in category analysis through his 8 years as Category Manager at UNFI.

Supervisors

Team

“You have goals – Pinnacle Food Sales will help you reach them”

Linda Mathesie

Linda Mathesie

Supervisor

Ms. Mathesie began her career in 1980 as a part time supermarket clerk who soon worked her way to Department Manager and on to middle management. In 1992, Linda joined Gourmet Award Foods and assisted in developing sales teams and routes in the Florida market for Publix and Winn-Dixie. She was selected to join the merchandising team and among her successful endeavors, Linda was instrumental in the design of perishable merchandising techniques used by the major supermarkets in the Florida market today.

Linda became a welcomed addition to our organization in 2001 where her merchandising ability is called upon by our customer base to increase sales. She works close with supervisory level personnel at Publix and Winn-Dixie introducing new product lines, training staff at retail outlets, and creating general sales excitement.

Crystal Jones

Crystal Jones

Supervisor

Crystal joined Pinnacle Food Sales in 2007 as a Supervisor covering the Central Florida and East coast regions of Florida. Crystal began her Supermarket career with Albertsons in 1974 holding several key positions and culminating as Corporate Sales Coordinator for Private Label products in 2001. Crystal launched her brokerage career in 2001 as a Key Account Manager calling on accounts such as Albertsons and Publix as well as distributors such as Tree of Life. Crystal also had direct responsibility for supervision of all Retail Field Associates in both the Grocery and Produce categories throughout all supermarket chains in Florida, Georgia, and Alabama.

Crystal brings significant years of experience which in turn she shares with her direct reports in order to achieve daily and specific Company and Principal objectives.

Kristie Sikes

Kristie Sikes

Supervisor

Kristie started her food career in 1989 as a retail bakery clerk for Publix Supermarkets. Kristie relocated to Georgia in the early 90’s to join her fathers food broker business as a retail sales associate calling on different supermarket chains throughout the southeast market. In 2002 Kristie joined our organization with the primary responsibility of establishing new routes for the growing Georgia, Alabama, South Carolina, and Tennessee  markets.  In 2004 Kristie was promoted to Deli / Bakery tech focusing on our Kroger Atlanta account. In 2014 she was once again promoted to Supervisor of our Atlanta Retail Associates and is responsible for all activities of our retail team based out of our Atlanta office.

Don Scullion

Don Scullion

Supervisor

Don came to us in February 2019 as a Supervisor covering the West Coast of Florida.  He began his career with Specialty Foods Inc. starting as a selector, order checker, and Routing Supervisor. He then went to Tree of Life where he held an, Assistant Account Manager position for Winn Dixie, and Kash – N – Karry stores. He left Tree of Life and then accepted a position with Premier Marketing International as the VP of Retail Sales where he worked with Winn Dixie and several distributors. He came back to Florida as an Area Manager for Acosta Sales & Marketing. Don brings with him over 25+ years of experience that he can use on an everyday basis to share with his new team. Don enjoys running and reading in his off time.

Laura Schilling

Laura Schilling

Merchandising Manager

Laura began her journey with cheese and merchandising in the late 1980’s, working in her home town of Buffalo, N.Y. for Hickory Farms. That was her humble beginning of her love affair with cheese. Laura then grew to leading a team in Specialty Cheese for Whole Foods in Virginia for over 8 years. Wanting to grow beyond the 4 walls of one store, she took an opportunity to join ANCO Fine Cheese and grow the Harris Teeter business in NoVa./ Maryland /D.C./ Delaware. Laura has grown Harris Teeter from 10 stores in the area to 70+ stores and still growing. In each of these stores, Laura has set up cheese kiosks and trained team members. Laura has been with Pinnacle since March 2018 and oversees a team of Pinnacle Rep’s. Laura is committed to bring the very best to Harris Teeter, in products, displays, training and their growth.
Laura resides in Virginia, married to her husband Jeff. Together they have a son Kevin, daughter-in-law Melissa and 4 beautiful grandsons. Kevin Jr. (K.J.). Ethan, Noah and Jonah. They are all the loves of her life!

Alec Valeriano

Alec Valeriano

Specialty Cheese Merchandiser

Alec joined our team in July 2019 as a Specialty Cheese Merchandiser. Alec will be focused on our Specialty Cheese program at Harris Teeter, & will also help us grow our other business within the Fresh Foods Department.  He has spent the last eight years as a Specialist (Specialty Foods) with Albertson’s/Safeway for their Northern Virginia Market. Prior to that he spent 2.5 years working in the Specialty Cheese Department of a Whole Foods.

Alec resides in Maryland with his wife Alicia & will be working Harris Teeter’s Northern District with Laura’s supervision.

Angela Hoyle

Angela Hoyle

Specialty Cheese Merchandiser

Angela has over 30 years experience in the food service industry, in various restaurants and also supermarket retail. Her focus has always been building a repeat customer base through great customer service.  Her marketing skills came to the forefront when she was hired as an Assistant Manager in Starbucks with Farm Fresh Supermarkets in 2009 and promoted to Manager a year later. Creating beautiful displays and sharing product expertise with customers proved to be a strength.

In 2016, Angela accepted a position with Harris Teeter as a Cheese Consultant. Through training and personal research, her love of cheese grew into a passion.

Angela lives in Virginia with her husband Ray, and their dog Toby. She enjoys her flower gardens and all types of crafting in her free time.

Traci Goodman

Traci Goodman

Retail Field Operations Supervisor

Traci began her career serving and protecting children in Boston and then Charlotte as a Child Protective Service Investigator. After twelve years serving children and families, Traci committed full-time to raising her own children. In 2015 She joined the Pinnacle Food Sales family as a part-time specialty cheese
merchandiser where she discovered a passion for cheese and an excitement for presentation and engagement with customers. In 2020, Traci became the Charlotte team manager, and in 2022 she was promoted to Retail Field Operations Supervisor. Traci designs and creates specialty charcuterie trays and cones for Harris teeter as well as boosts sales by designing and creating eye catching specialty cheese displays. Traci lives in Charlotte, NC with her husband Clark, and enjoys travel, cultural cuisine, and flower
gardening.

“Pinnacle Food Sales operates a specialized brokerage company focusing on perishables and associated products.”

Administrative Support

Team

Amy Valsamis

Amy Valsamis

Senior Customer Service Representative / Reconciliation Support

Amy started her position with Pinnacle Food Sales in 2005 and is our senior customer service / reconciliation liaison providing support services to our Principals in all areas relating to deduction, and commission statements. During her time in this position she has developed strong lines of communications with all of our retailers, distributors, and other customer(s), as well as her counterparts working within each of our principals organizations. Additional support functions which Amy oversees are the maintenance of many of our principal(s) data base systems to include, but not limited to platforms such as Adesso, Synectics, Promo Assist etc. Particularly as it relates to promotions / trade allowances, spend rates verses budget plans, and pricing.

Nalini Seepersad

Nalini Seepersad

Customer Service Representative / Order Entry – Processing

Nalini came to Pinnacle Food Sales in 2015 with a successful background (15 years) of customer service/support. In her current role Nalini is our primary point person responsible for all processes relating to customer service / order entry and processing. In this role she provides services such as confirmation of purchase order receipt, verification of pricing integrity, logistical support as it relates to assurance of on-time deliveries, and any other support service(s) to assure that the order and delivery process flows smoothly and is complete.

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