Sam Zamarripa

San Zamarippa is an investment banker who served as a State Senator from Georgia's 36th District. He was elected to the Georgia Senate in 2002. In April, 2006, he announced his decision not to see re-election to the Senate.

Involvement in investment banking and finance
Zamarripa is the founder and President of the private equity corporation Zamarripa Capital Incorporated, which focuses on lower middle market companies in the Southeastern United States.

From 2002 to 2006, Zamarripa was a Partner and Managing Director at Heritage Capital Advisors, working primarily in the area of investments in media and financial services. In 2007, Mr. Zamarripa was appointed as a Senior Adviser to Darby Private Equity, the private equity arm of Franklin Templeton Investments. He started his career in financial services in 1990 with Diaz-Verson Capital Incorporated, a registered investment advisory firm with over $400 million in assets under management.

Mr. Zamarripa co-founded the United Americas Bank, NA of Atlanta. He served as Director of the Holding Company for United Americas Bank since 1998. He is a director of Assurance America Corporation.

Front group activity
In April, 2010, Zamarrippa served as the public face of a financial industry front group called Stop Too Big To Fail that opposes financial reform legislation. TPMMuckracker researched the group and reported that "every indication is that Stop Too Big To Fail is an astroturf operation funded by corporate interests to give the appearance of grassroots opposition to reform." The group tries to fool people into opposing financial reform by employing a liberal-sounding message, "Stop Too Big to Fail," to fight Wall Street reform legislation under consideration in the Senate in April and May, 2010. STBTF runs TV ads opposing financial reform. For the campaign, Zamarripa's front group worked with an advertising agency whose past clients included the Swift Boat Veterans for Truth and several GOP campaigns.

External resources

 * Sam Zamarippa The Ruse of Too-Big-to-Fail, Huffington Post, March 25, 2010