Pete has over thirty years of merger & acquisition and corporate finance experience.  He joined Merkel & Associates in 2007 when Falls Capital, an investment banking firm he founded in 1993 merged with Merkel.  Falls Capital focused on M&A transactions representing both buyers and sellers of middle-market companies.  Prior to Falls Capital, Pete was a Senior Vice President at Kemper Securities Inc. (now Wells Fargo Securities) in Cleveland where he handled mergers & acquisitions, public equity offerings, and debt placements.

Before Kemper Securities, Pete was with First Chicago (now J.P. Morgan Chase) where he originated and transacted M&A transactions of middle-market companies in the Midwest.  Prior to that, he was based in Hong Kong and was the business manager for First Chicago's Asia-Pacific region responsible for all administrative activities, including strategic and financial planning, human resources, and real estate activities in seven countries.  He concurrently served as chief lending officer for CCIC Finance Ltd., a Hong Kong-based joint-venture merchant bank owned by First Chicago, Bank of China, and The Industrial Bank of Japan. CCIC specialized in industrial and real estate joint venture structuring and financing in China.  He joined First Chicago as the head of the Cleveland regional office where he was in charge of corporate lending in a three state area.  Pete began his career with Irving Trust Company in New York (now Bank of New York Mellon) in computer operations before going into corporate lending. 

He holds a BS degree from Miami University and an MBA degree from Fordham University.  He also served as a computer programmer and operations officer in the U.S. Navy.