Our Team

Aida Gonzalez

Aida, one of the newest members at Mercantile, brings over 25 years of banking experience to our team. As a portfolio manager she partners with relationship managers to service and monitor our loan portfolio. That includes spreading and analysis of financials, cash flow and repayment analysis, collateral assessment, preparation of credit packages and credit presentations for credit committee for annual reviews, loan renewals and amendments. Aida was born in Philadelphia and grew up in a small coffee farm in Puerto Rico, where she also received her bachelor’s in Business Administration from the Pontifical Catholic University of Puerto Rico. She has been in Orlando since 1999. Aida’s big passion is cooking, she started cooking when she was 9 and she enjoys learning about the history of culinary cultures around the world and how to recreate their traditional dishes. Her son, a born and raised Floridian is the center of her world.

Angela Hardee

Angela joined Mercantile in 2005 as finance intern, but quickly found her calling as a closer. She worked full-time for years, and then she had a couple kids, so for a while she was working from home splitting her time between closing loans and playing supermom. Recently she has come back full-time and as a closing officer works with all parties to ensure a seamless closing process. Angela is from Longwood, Florida, and graduated with a bachelor’s degree from the University of Central Florida. She doesn’t really do much other than spend time with her real family and her “corporate” one. Good thing she has awesome families.

Aurelio Bedolla, Jr.

Aurelio, the newest member of the Mercantile family, is responsible for analyzing credit and financial data to determine the risk involved in lending money to prospective clients. He grew up in Hammond, Indiana, a suburb of Chicago (his words not ours). He attended Purdue University where he received his Bachelor’s of Science in Accounting and Master’s in Accountancy Degrees. He’s a fan of the Fighting Irish of the University of Notre Dame though, which means he and Shannon can celebrate (or commiserate) every Monday morning during football season. He claims he is a quiet and private guy, but give us a little time and we’ll learn some fun and interesting facts about him too.

Carolyn Skog

Carolyn joined Mercantile in 2009. She’s a senior loan officer responsible for business development. She is also tasked with working with clients through the underwriting, approval and loan closing processes. She most enjoys working with borrowers to identify lending needs and getting behind all the required documentation to understand who the borrowers are, what they do, and what sets them apart from their competition. Earlier in her career, Carolyn worked as a credit analyst and loan officer for a Central Florida community bank. Carolyn grew up in Orlando and graduated from Texas Tech University. Although she loves her job, her favorite job of all is being a mom. In her off time you will find her at the beach, on a kayak, or hanging out with her family and her house full of animals.
Contact Carolyn with your SBA 504 loan questions.

Dawn DeTomaso

Dawn has been involved with Mercantile since day one, all the way back in 2002. As our Closing Manager, she coordinates and facilitates our loan closings. That means lots of communication, following-up, and “wrangling” for documents from Clients, CDCs, Referral Sources, and other closing agents. She also fills the role of Office Manager, in truth she is our “Office Mom”. Dawn grew up in Miami and moved to Orlando for college. In whatever spare time she can find, she enjoys dancing (salsa, cha cha, etc.), being outside, and spending time with her family.

Geof Longstaff

Geof cofounded Mercantile and has been doing a little bit of everything since day one. He has years and years (and years and years) of banking experience under his belt, and uses it to help smooth out some of our more difficult (or as he says “creative”) loans and get our clients the financing they need quickly and efficiently. Mostly, he keeps the ship pointed in the right direction. Geof grew up in the Adirondack Mountains of New York. He spends nine weeks each year at his summer home there, but manages to stay plugged in with us between kayak trips. He graduated from Rollins College with his bachelor and MBA degrees, and has taught at the LSU Graduate School of Banking since 1998. Out of the office, Geof is an avid bike rider — paved-trail riding in Florida and mountain biking in the Adirondacks — and loves being with his grandchildren.

Ken Nichols

Ken has been “The Voice of Mercantile” since 2007. When you call our offices, you’re 85% likely to be greeted by his booming voice, and you’re 99.5% likely to enjoy your interaction with him (he’s a real jovial guy). In addition to directing phone traffic, he also makes sure we don’t run out of office supplies and keeps things like printers and faxes in working order. Ken grew up in Daytona Beach (the World’s Most Famous Beach) and graduated from the University of South Florida. He loves the Florida Keys, antique car shows, and museums that feature abstract art. He’s also our lone admitted liberal in the office, which makes for some interesting discussions from time to time.

Michael Linde

As a Commercial Underwriter, Michael analyzes the credit data and financial statements of our prospective clients. He prepares loan presentation packages for approval committee. Michael holds a Bachelor’s of Science degree in Exercise and Sports Science from the University of Florida and an MBA from the University of South Florida. He joined our team in 2015. When he’s not at Mercantile, Michael works for the Tampa Bay Buccaneers and the University of South Florida Bulls recording game day statistics. Without him and his real time record keeping, fantasy sports wouldn’t be possible!

Nikos Triadis

Nikos joined the Mercantile family in 2006. As our marketing manager he does a whole bunch of stuff in the marketing department, from writing and deploying our email campaigns, to designing our flyers and presentations, and from redesigning our websites to managing our social media presence, and everything in between. He was born and raised in Athens, Greece, and got his bachelor and MBA degrees from the University of Central Florida. As our in-house soccer guru, he’s very valuable when the World Cup, and other important soccer tournaments, roll around. He enjoys traveling, both back home and to other major cities in Europe or the States.

Ryan Simon

Ryan, one of the newest members of Mercantile, is responsible for handling incoming leads and working with clients on getting their loans underwritten and approved.  Ryan is originally from Houston, where he received a bachelor’s degree from the University of Houston. When not at work Ryan enjoys the gym, watching sports, and a nice sunny day on the beach, hence relocating to Florida and joining our Mercantile family.

Contact Ryan with your SBA 504 loan questions.

Shannon Marks

Shannon joined Mercantile in 2008, bringing with him over 20 years of banking and real estate development experience. As President and Chief Executive Officer, Shannon oversees and manages our loan production and closing functions (this means he’s a very busy guy). He grew up in Naples, Florida, moved to Orlando in the early 1990s, and is a graduate of the University of Notre Dame; he has been known to make friendly bets when the Fighting Irish play against another coworker’s alma mater. When he’s not at work, Shannon enjoys sports (he’s a Yankees fan), reading, and spending time with his family.

Contact Shannon with your SBA 504 loan questions.

Trey Colson

Trey has been with Mercantile since 2004. He has designed many of the marketing materials you might see from our company. In the past couple of years he’s taken a part-time role in the marketing department doing copywriting, graphic design, and more. He grew up in and around Orlando, graduated from UCF with a business degree, plays the drums (notably for The Silver Fleece), and can grow an alright moustache if necessary.

Yelena Brace

Yelena started out her career with Mercantile as an intern back in 2007. Now, as a Credit Administration Manager, she manages a team of commercial underwriters and portfolio managers. Her main responsibilities include overseeing loan underwriting process, managing workflow, approving credit memorandums and implementing policies. She is also responsible for qualifying general contractors for construction requests.  Yelena was born and raised in Russia and moved to the United States during her high school years.  She obtained a Bachelor’s of Science in Finance and MBA degrees from the University of Central Florida and graduated with honors from the Florida Banking Association – University of Florida Graduate School of Banking.  Yelena is a big fan of the Backstreet Boys and claims that they are the reason why she moved to Orlando, but the weather (especially the winters compared to the ones in Russia) probably were a factor too.