Bruce Alan Ackermann

Ford Motor Credit Co. LLC is an automotive finance company. The company provides dealer and customer finance to support the sale of Ford Motor Co.'s products. Its primary business is to finance Ford vehicles and supporting Ford's dealers. It offers automotive financing products to and through automotive dealers. The firm operates through the following segments: Consumer and Non-Consumer. The Consumer segment engages in products offering to individuals and businesses that finance the acquisition of vehicles from dealers for personal and commercial use. The Non-Consumer segment engages primarily to products offered to automotive dealers, like loans to dealers to finance the purchase of vehicle inventory, improvements to dealership facilities, working capital, and the purchase of dealership real estate. The company was founded in 1959 and is headquartered in Dearborn, MI.

Lord Abbett & Co. LLC (Lord Abbett) is an independent, SEC-registered investment advisor and mutual fund manager headquartered in Jersey City, New Jersey. Founded in 1929, Lord Abbett provides advisory services to a variety of institutional clients, the Lord Abbett Funds and other registered investment companies sponsored by third parties, the Lord Abbett UCITS Funds, the Lord Abbett Luxembourg Fund, other foreign funds, privately offered commingled funds and various separately managed accounts.

Palisade Capital Management LLC (Palisade) is a SEC-registered investment advisor headquartered in Fort Lee, New Jersey. The firm was founded in 1995 by Martin L. Berman, Steven E. Berman, and Jack Feiler. They are a subsidiary of Palisade Capital Holdings LP. Palisade offers specialized investment solutions that seek to deliver attractive results to corporations, public plans, financial institutions, family offices, and individuals.

Zacks Investment Management, Inc. (ZIM) is a SEC-registered investment advisor headquartered in Chicago, Illinois. The firm was founded by Ben Zacks in 1992 and is a subsidiary of Zacks Investment Research, Inc., owned by The Greenwood Trust. ZIM manages separate accounts, public and private pooled investment vehicles, and is an adviser to several wrap-fee programs.

Founded in 1999 by Gregory Berlacher, Emerging Growth Equities Ltd. is a full service investment banking and brokerage firm located in located in King of Prussia, Pennsylvania. The firm focuses on small-cap, emerging technology companies in high growth industries including: medical technology, healthcare services, semiconductor design and engineering, software products and consulting services and special situations. Emerging Growth Equities is a member of the NASD and the SIPC.

Founded in 1996, E*TRADE Securities LLC is a broker/dealer headquartered in New York City. The firm is a subsidiary of E*TRADE Financial Corp. (NYSE: ET). The firm provides a full array of trading and execution services for their clients. They do not provide any internal research. The firm is a member of the NASD and the SIPC.

Founded in 1995, Value Trend Capital Management LP is a registered investment advisor located in El Cajon, California. The firm provides investment management services to individuals, trusts, retirement plans and non-profit organizations.

Saturna Capital Corp. is an independent, SEC-registered investment advisor headquartered in Bellingham, Washington. The firm was founded by Nicholas “Nick” Kaiser in 1989. Saturna Capital advises a variety of accounts divided between (1) investment management accounts for individuals, families, trusts, estates, corporations, and retirement plans and (2) pooled investment funds (mutual funds and private partnerships).

Moody's Investors Service, Inc. is a credit rating and investment research firm headquartered in New York City. They are a subsidiary of Moody's Corp. (NYSE: MCO). The firm performs international financial research and analysis on commercial and government entities and provides a variety of analytic tools for assessing credit risk. Their clients include creditors, investment banks and commercial banks.

Moseley Corp provides brand positioning and consulting services to the food industry. The private company is based in Franklin, MA.

Founded in 1996, Investrend, Inc. is a research firm headquartered in Forest Hills, New York. The firm specializes in an integrated, interdependent approach, pulling together research, broadcast, forums and information platforms as needed to create a cohesive platform to enhance events, conferences, research, publications and information distributions worldwide with services skewed toward shareholder empowerment.

Founded in 1986, Merriman Capital, Inc. is an SEC-registered broker/dealer and investment banking firm headquartered in San Francisco. The firm is a subsidiary of Merriman Holdings, Inc. (NASDAQ: MERR), a financial services firm that focuses on fast-growing companies and their institutional investors. Merriman provides advisory and investment banking, equity research, institutional services, corporate services and venture services primarily to corporate clients. Merriman Capital provides research, brokerage and trading services primarily to institutional clients. The firm offers a full range of specialized and integrated services including: equity research, specialized trade execution, equity capital markets, corporate finance, mergers and acquisitions, sales and trading, market making, corporate and venture services, restructurings and strategic advisory services. Merriman Capital employs bottom-up, fundamental analysis of small-cap companies in select industries including clean technology, healthcare, technology and consumer/Internet/media. The firm also has expertise in emerging markets, with emphasis on emerging markets in China. Merriman Capital is known to engage in shareholder activist investment strategies. Merriman Capital is a member of the NASD, the SIPC and FINRA. The firm serves as an introducing broker/dealer for Pershing LLC. They do not hold or maintain funds or securities or provide clearing services for other broker/dealers.

Argus Research Co. (ARC) is a research firm headquartered in New York City and was founded in 1934. The firm is a subsidiary of Argus Research Group, Inc. ARC produces, distributes and markets investment and economic research.

Resnik Asset Management Co., Inc. (RAMCO) is an independent wealth management firm headquartered in Yonkers, New York. The firm was founded by Paul Resnik in 1995. RAMCO provides investment advice to individuals, such as their retirement and trust accounts.

RedChip Independent is an investment research firm located in Maitland, Florida. The firm is a division of RedChip Companies, Inc. and their ultimate parent is ProManage, Inc., an advanced software development process management and consulting firm located in Burlingame, Massachusetts. RedChip provides fundamental research on small-cap companies. They seek to identify undervalued and underfollowed small-cap companies that are profitable or near term profitable and have effective management teams, mass appeal, growing sales and improving margins. After considering these factors and looking at expectations implied by the stock's current price, RedChip issues a strong buy, buy, speculative buy, hold or sell rating. The rating combines the firm's projection of the stock's performance, their assessment of the company's financial strength, their confidence in the company's management team and their confidence in their forecast.

Hitachi America, Ltd. manufactures and markets electronics, computer systems and products. Its business products include information technology, medical and life sciences, mining and construction machinery. The company was founded on October 28, 1959 and is headquartered in Tarrytown, NY.

Resnik Communications Pty Ltd. organizes financial services conferences. The company was founded by Paul Jay Resnik in 2000 and is headquartered in Sydney, Australia.

Wall Street Research (WSR) is a boutique research firm that provides independent analyst research reports, corporate profiles, and newsletters of selected quality emerging growth companies to the investment community. The firm specializes in the small-cap investment arena, looking for emerging growth companies with strong management, unique or proprietary technology, significant market potential, financial strength, and outstanding long-term earnings growth possibilities. WSR has achieved one of the best track records in the small-cap investment marketplace and is well known for discovering undervalued companies and bringing them to the attention of the investment community. The firm's highly regarded analysts include a number of CFAs and MBAs with expertise in a diverse range of industries. WSR has offices in Los Angeles, CA, and other locations.

Founded in 1898, Northeastern University is a private research university located in the heart of Boston. Northeastern teaches worldwide experiential learning, urban engagement, and interdisciplinary research that meets global and societal needs. The University offers a range of undergraduate and graduate programs leading to degrees through the doctorate in nine colleges and schools.

The Oregon Bankers Association is a full-service trade association that represents state and national commercial banks, savings banks, and trust companies. The non-profit company is based in Salem, OR, and the CEO of the company is Linda Wilhelms Navarro. The association was established in 1905 and offers quality training, information, and educational services to its members. The association promotes and integrates diversity, equity, and inclusion across its organization and the banking industry it serves.

South Carolina Research Authority provides research and commercialization services. It caters maritime technologies, metals and advanced materials, ordnance, health and bioscience, technology services and solutions, and alternative energy. The company was founded in 1983 and is headquartered in Columbia, SC.