The Duty Drawback Staff

David N. Simcox is President of Comstock & Theakston, Inc. (Comstock). He has served in this capacity since joining the firm in 1975 and is the third generation of family management. He obtained his Customhouse Broker’s License in 1977 and moved the business from New York City to New Jersey in 1985. Mr. Simcox orchestrated the purchase of competitor drawback specialist, C. J. Holt & Co., Inc. in 1987 as a wholly-owned subsidiary of Comstock and established another subsidiary, Compliance Consultants, Inc., to address the growing emphasis on issues of compliance. Mr. Simcox was instrumental in getting the drawback portion of the Customs Modernization Act introduced into Congress. He has served on the Drawback Committees of NCITD and NCBFAA and represented the broker’s association on the Drawback Regulations Team that wrote the current drawback regulations. He has also testified before the House Ways and Means Committee about the importance of duty drawback as one of this nation’s only remaining export incentive programs.

Mr. Simcox has assembled a team of qualified, experienced associates to offer the highest level of drawback knowledge and service possible. Having been an educator himself, he has provided training and instruction for his staff, nine of which are now licensed brokers. He has also incorporated education as one of the firm’s service offerings, as evidenced by the fact that Comstock is one of the few drawback specialists that provides courses in drawback and import compliance to clients and the general public at their facilities and through various organizations. Mr. Simcox has been active in lobbying to influence and change the nature of drawback and is highly involved in the ongoing efforts to streamline and modernize this long-established trade policy.

Mr. Simcox can be contacted at 201-967-1220, ext. 109, or by email at dsimcox@dutydrawback.com.

Edwin Van Ek is President of C. J. Holt & Co., Inc. He advises clients on all aspects of duty drawback including corporate consulting on duty refunds, obtaining national and port approvals from Customs & Border Protection, setting-up corporate drawback operations, systems analysis for data transfer, claim preparation and filing, compliance reviews and applications and drawback audits. He was involved in the education field until 1982 when he joined the staff of drawback specialists Comstock & Theakston, Inc. He was licensed as a customs broker in 1986 and became President of C. J. Holt in 1987. C. J. Holt, founded in 1856, is the oldest continuously operating drawback specialist in the United States today.

Mr. Van Ek is a long-standing member of the NCBFAA Drawback Committee.
He is also an AAEI Industry Leadership Council member and co-chairs the AAEI Drawback Committee. He was actively involved in writing the drawback section of the Customs Modernization Act. He represented AAEI on the Drawback Regulation Team that met with Customs to rewrite the Drawback Regulations using interest-based problem solving and received the Vice President’s National Performance Review Hammer Award for improving the way government works. Mr. Van Ek is currently the trade co-chair of the Trade Support Network Drawback Subcommittee that is writing a new drawback statute to meet the user requirements of the Automated Commercial Environment. He also actively lobbies for the inclusion of full drawback rights in the Free Trade Agreements currently being negotiated by the United States Trade Representative.

Mr. Van Ek can be reached at 201-967-0414, Ext. 112, or by email at evanek@dutyrefund.com.

William Hagedorn is a Vice President of Comstock & Theakston, Inc. He has served in this capacity since 1982, the same year that he obtained his Customhouse Broker License. He has managed various drawback accounts during his career, including both the world’s largest computer company and the world’s biggest chemical producer, developing and expanding them to maximize their drawback potential.

Mr. Hagedorn was responsible for bringing the concept of unused merchandise drawback into the Customs Modernization Act and was also involved in writing other sections of that law pertaining to duty drawback. He was selected to represent NCITD for the Drawback Regulation Team that met with Customs and was instrumental in rewriting many of the drawback regulations. For his work on the Drawback Regulation Team, Mr. Hagedorn received the Vice President’s National Performance Review Hammer Award. He has also actively lobbied for the inclusion of full drawback rights in many of the existing and prospective free trade agreements.

Mr. Hagedorn can be contacted by phone at 201-967-1220, ext. 106, or by email at bhagedorn@dutydrawback.com.

Chris Rittinger is a Vice President of Comstock & Theakston, Inc., and has been with the company since 1997. He has managed some of the largest drawback programs in the chemical industry and has enabled many other diverse companies to maximize their drawback programs. He has conducted on-site training for clients and has served as an instructor for the World Academy. Mr. Rittinger holds a BS in Education and has been a Licensed Customhouse Broker since 2004.

He can be reached by phone at (201) 967-0414x104 or by e-mail, ritt@dutydrawback.com

Brenda L. Sweetman

Brenda L. Sweetman is a Vice President of Comstock & Theakston, Inc. and serves as their Internal Compliance Officer. She is also Vice President of Compliance Consultants, Inc. (CCI). Starting her career with Comstock in 1985, Ms. Sweetman has managed drawback programs for companies in a wide variety of industries. She was instrumental in forming CCI, which is the consulting arm of the Comstock Group of Companies, in 1997. She has conducted compliance assessment reviews and on-site training for importers and duty drawback claimants around the country. She taught drawback and import compliance courses for the World Trade Institute for twelve years and has authored many articles on the topic of Duty Drawback. In 2006,
Ms. Sweetman joined the staff of the World Academy as an instructor and drawback consultant.

Ms. Sweetman holds a BA and a M.Ed. in Education and is a Licensed Customhouse Broker. She is a frequent speaker on the topic of duty drawback. She can be reached by phone at 201-967-0414, ext. 119, or by email at bsweetman@dutydrawback.com.

Michael Kerlen

Michael Kerlen is a Vice President of Comstock & Theakston, Inc.  He joined the firm in 1988 and became a licensed Customs Broker in 1991. Mr. Kerlen has developed and managed complex drawback programs for a variety of product lines including electronics, agricultural products, textiles, chemicals and petroleum.  He has taught drawback and compliance courses for the firm and for outside organizations such as the World Trade Institute and the World Academy. He is often called upon to make presentations at various trade associations and individual companies. Mr. Kerlen has published a number of articles on duty drawback and has been the company’s representative at AAEI, Joint Industry Group (JIG), American Petroleum Institute, and other organizations devoted to improving trade programs and expanding duty drawback.

He can be reached at 201-967-1220, ext. 117, or by email at mkerlen@dutydrawback.com.