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Change is in the Air

Article Contributor / Andrea Cook / Senior Manager — Learning

For 29 years, SHAZAM’s team of EFT client learning trainers were the same three faces, but change is in the air! It’s safe to say that at some point in the life of every financial institution that uses SHAZAM’s EFT products and services, you would have been trained by Dan Ferrel, Duane Betz or Diana Kern. In 2025, Dan, Duane and Diana will celebrate their 30th SHAZAM-iversaries!

On July 1, the Learning team experienced a change in one of those well-known faces! Diana Kern stepped out of her familiar role to chase another passion. This is an exciting development. Diana is very talented and was wearing multiple hats in her role as a Client Learning Trainer. She was on the road as a member of our Speakers Bureau team, a highly recruited speaker in the payments industry, collaborator with payment associations, a host for many SHAZAM webinars and workshops, the primary choice to partner with our sales teams to demo EFT products and services, and in her spare time, Diana assumed the responsibility of EFT product and service training. In a big leap of faith, Diana accepted the position of Senior Financial Solutions Consultant. I truly feel this was a wonderful opportunity for Diana to expand her work with our financial institutions by partnering with our sales teams to find the best product and service solutions.

While this was an exciting opportunity for Diana, it left a void on the Client Learning team. Dan and Duane shouldered the bulk of training due to Diana’s array of duties outside of true training, so with the transition of Diana from her current role, the Client Learning team didn’t miss a beat! Dan and Duane continued to fill all EFT product and service training requests.

I immediately went to work finding a replacement for Diana. During the internal application process, the perfect candidate stepped forward. Jacob Karr, a 10-year veteran of the EFT Client Support team, most recently serving as Workflow Coordinator, was welcomed with open arms to the Client Learning team! Jacob and I had produced a few webinars together and were cross-team collaborators, so Jacob wasn’t a new face. I was impressed with Jacob’s knowledge, skills and abilities as a member of the EFT Client Support team, so deciding to add him to our team was an easy decision. Diana held an Accredited ACH Professional designation and hosted all ACH webinars and workshops. The team knew it would be critical for Jacob to earn that same designation and assume the ACH responsibilities. I’m very excited to announce in early October, Jacob officially earned the title of AAP.

The future of the Client Learning team is bright! Dan, Duane and Jacob will continue to be your trusted advisors, delivering quality training on EFT products and services.