Lyle Elias kicked off "ATMs in the Americas," the ATM Industry Association's conference here this week, by introducing his successor as president

Lyle Elias kicked off "ATMs in the Americas," the ATM Industry Association's conference here this week, by introducing his successor as president, only the second person to hold the office in the group's five-year history. With his trademark humor, Elias, executive director of stored value card processor Value Payment Network, said that ATMIA's executive board had "staged a coup d'etat." ATMIA International Director Mike Lee lauded the new president, Tom Harper, as "a strong visionary." Indeed, as one of the original founders of ATMIA, Harper's vision helped launch the association, which bills itself as the ATM industry's sole international trade body. The association now has three chapters -- ATMIA Europe, ATMIA Australasia and ATMIA Africa -- in addition to the original United States chapter. According to Lana Harmelink, its director of operations, ATMIA expects to launch two more chapters in Latin America and Canada by year's end.