Paul J Kolkmeyer

Paul J. Kolkmeyer is the current President and CEO of Priam Enterprises, LLC, a real estate development and investment company primarily involved in renovating and managing residential apartment buildings. He most recently served as the Chairman of the Buffalo Fiscal Stability Authority (also known as the Buffalo Control Board) after being appointed to the post by the NYS Governor in October 2007. He is the former President and CEO of First Niagara Bank and its parent, First Niagara Financial Group, Inc. He joined the Bank in June of 1990 as Senior Vice President and Chief Financial Officer and rose through the ranks to become Executive Vice President and Chief Operating Officer prior to being appointed President and CEO in December 2003. Prior to joining First Niagara, he spent nine years in New York City as Vice President for Morgan Guaranty Trust Company (now JPMorgan Chase) and at M&T Bank. He began his career in Western New York with Peat Marwick Mitchell (now KPMG) and then the Carborundum Company in Niagara Falls. Kolkmeyer is Past President and current Treasurer of the Board of Directors of Frank Lloyd Wright's Rowing Boathouse Corporation and serves on the boards of the Buffalo Academy of the Sacred Heart and as President of Buffalo's West Side Rowing Club. His past Board involvement includes First Niagara Financial Group, Inc., New York Bankers Association, Lake Shore Bancorp, Inc., The Buffalo Club and the Board of Trustees of Canisius College. He also served on the Federal Reserve Bank of NY Thrift Institutions Advisory Panel and the Executive Committee and Board of the Buffalo Niagara Partnership and the Niagara USA Chamber of Commerce. Other Board positions included his involvement as Chairman of the Canisius College Council on Accountancy, Chairman of the Board of Regents at Canisius College, two-term Chairman of the Board of the Eastern Niagara Chamber of Commerce and Chairman of the Board of both the Niagara Business Alliance and St. Joseph Hospital Foundation. He also served as a board member for the Western New York Better Business Bureau. Paul grew up in the Town of Tonawanda where he attended St. Joseph's Collegiate Institute. He graduated with a Bachelor of Science Degree in Accounting from Canisius College (1975) and obtained his MBA in Finance from Fordham University (1985). He and his wife, Nancy, a native of Niagara Falls, along with their daughters, Natalie and Emily, make their home in Amherst, New York.