Meet the Team
A boutique commercial finance company is only as good as the people structuring the deals. At LVRG, that means career commercial lenders, bankers, and underwriters who have spent their working lives inside this business, structuring credit facilities, underwriting complex transactions, and closing financing for established companies.
Every member of this team sits on your side of the table. They analyze the full picture of a business before any lender sees it, then build the structure that gets a complex transaction approved at the right terms. Conventional business loans, working capital lines of credit, asset-based lending, and owner-occupied commercial real estate financing, delivered through our own capital and through direct relationships with the most active commercial lenders in Michigan and beyond.
These are the people who structure and close the financing.
Leadership
Charles M. Barr — Founder & Chief Executive Officer
Charles M. Barr founded LVRG and has spent two decades building it into one of Michigan's most respected boutique commercial finance companies. He has structured and closed hundreds of commercial financing transactions for Michigan companies, earning a reputation among owners, bankers, and referral partners as the person to call when a deal needs to be built correctly and closed. Charles leads LVRG with a single conviction: that an established company deserves a capital partner operating entirely on its side of the table, with the institutional relationships and the deal intelligence to make it matter. His full story is on the CEO of LVRG page.
Darlene Barbat — Chief Growth Officer
Darlene Barbat leads LVRG's growth and strategic initiatives, working with established companies across Metro Detroit and throughout Michigan to structure the capital behind their next stage. She built her career on relationships across Metro Detroit's business community, then spent eight years in lending where she consistently ranked among the top one percent of originators in the country and earned repeated recognition from the industry's largest institutions.
That combination — a relationship-first approach paired with a top-tier production record — is what she brings to LVRG's clients. Darlene is deeply connected throughout Metro Detroit's Chaldean business community and a regular presence at the Chaldean Chamber of Commerce, making her a trusted advisor to family-owned and closely held companies across the region. Owners rely on her for her judgment and for the genuine care she brings to every relationship.
Morgan Kennedy — Director of Client Relations
With fifteen years at LVRG, Morgan Kennedy is one of the firm's most trusted advisors and a central figure in how clients experience working with LVRG. She guides owners through every stage of a transaction, from the first conversation through structuring, underwriting, and closing, making certain each client receives the senior-level attention and clarity that complex commercial deals demand.
Morgan works alongside Charles Barr on the firm's most involved transactions, coordinating lender placement, underwriting, due diligence, and the third parties on every deal so that financing closes cleanly and on schedule. Her command of commercial credit and her commitment to long-term relationships have made her a trusted resource to clients and colleagues alike.
Advisory Team
Elizabeth Caldwell — Senior Commercial Finance Advisor
Elizabeth spent twenty years in commercial lending structuring middle-market credit facilities inside a regional bank before bringing that discipline to a boutique practice. She works on the firm's more complex transactions, building financing for companies where the structure matters as much as the terms, and is known for walking owners through complicated capital stacks without losing them in the language. She holds an MBA in Finance.
Jonathan Pierce — Commercial Real Estate Finance Advisor
Jonathan brings fifteen years in commercial real estate finance and a background as a bank portfolio manager, pairing institutional underwriting discipline with the attention of a boutique advisor. He structures owner-occupied and investment real estate financing for established companies, with a sharp read on valuation and debt service coverage that positions a transaction for the strongest available terms.
Katherine Bennett — Asset-Based Lending Advisor
Katherine has spent more than a decade in asset-based lending inside larger institutions, structuring revolving credit facilities against receivables, inventory, and equipment. She works with growing companies whose capital is tied up in the balance sheet rather than the bank account, and builds the facilities that put it back to work. A CPA by training, she pairs rigorous financial analysis with a level of attention institutional lending rarely provides.
Andrew Collins — Senior Commercial Lending Advisor
A career commercial banker with eighteen years of institutional experience, Andrew structures customized credit facilities for established companies and guides them through the most demanding financings. His traditional credit foundation gives him a clear read on how a transaction will be received before it ever reaches a committee, and he has built a reputation for closing complex deals cleanly and on schedule. He holds a degree in finance.
Lauren Mitchell — Commercial Finance Advisor
Lauren began her career as a credit analyst inside a traditional lending environment, learning how transactions are evaluated from the underwriting side of the table. She now structures working capital, equipment, and growth financing for established companies, and is known for taking the time to understand where an owner is trying to take the business, then building financing that supports it and gets approved.
Lending Support
Lilly Harper — Client Onboarding & Loan Processing Manager
Lilly manages the earliest stages of every transaction, moving each client from first conversation to underwriting without friction. She oversees incoming files, gathers and organizes the financial documentation a commercial transaction requires, and packages each file to institutional standards before it advances to a lender.
It is precise, detail-driven work, and it is one of the reasons LVRG's transactions move the way they do. By preparing every file completely and correctly at the outset, Lilly positions each deal for the cleanest path through underwriting and gets owners to a closing without unnecessary delay.
The Relationships Behind Every Deal
LVRG's network is built at the top. Over two decades, the firm has earned direct working relationships with the most active and respected commercial banks and lenders in the market, and not at the branch level. LVRG works directly with the CEOs, principals, and senior decision-makers at these institutions: the people with the authority to structure a transaction, price it aggressively, and say yes.
When a deal calls for it, LVRG is not filing an application into a queue. It is bringing a transaction directly to the person who runs the institution, backed by twenty years of trust built one closing at a time. And when the right answer is our own capital, we fund the transaction ourselves.
That is what a boutique firm with institutional relationships actually means. Not a longer list of lenders, but a higher level of access to the ones that matter, and the standing to bring a company straight to the top.
Work With the Team
Every engagement at LVRG begins with a conversation with a senior member of the team who listens first and structures second. If your company is ready to scale, acquire, expand, or own its building, this is where it starts.
Call LVRG directly: (855) 998-5874