Entrepreneurship II (70-416 E) - Spring 2002
Instructor: Babs Carryer
Guest Speakers
January 30 David Lehman
February 13 Tom Emerson
February 27 Patrick Marx
March 13 Marcus Ruscitto
Areas of Practice:
Mr. Lehman
concentrates in providing corporate, business and tax counseling to privately-held
companies, including representing clients in transactions involving equity
and debt financing, formation and start-up, venture capital, sales, mergers
and acquisitions, technology licensing, and information technology. Mr.
Lehman has experience in (and has spoken on the subject of) structuring
transactions, including joint ventures, partnerships, limited partnerships,
limited liability companies, business trusts and corporations. Mr. Lehman
is a founding member of the firm TEC Council.
Professional Background:
Mr. Lehman has lectured at Carnegie Mellon University on various topics, including legal issues faced by entrepreneurs in start-ups enterprises.
Mr. Lehman
has also taught courses at Carnegie Mellon University in Law & Public
Policy.
Professional/Civic Activities:
Mr. Lehman
is a member of the Board of Directors of the MIT Enterprise Forum, and
a former member of the Board of Directors of the Pittsburgh Civic Light
Opera and is a former Director and Officer of Housing Opportunities, Inc.
Education:
S. Thomas Emerson is an experienced entrepreneur and corporate executive. He currently serves as Director of the Donald H. Jones Center for Entrepreneurship at Carnegie Mellon University in Pittsburgh, Pennsylvania. Prior to joining Carnegie Mellon he was President and CEO of Arizona Technology Incubator, a public-private partnership in Scottsdale, Arizona that mentors promising young technology companies. Prior to ATI, he served as Chairman and CEO of Xantel Corporation, a Phoenix-based high technology company that he founded.
Dr. Emerson has previously founded and built two market-leading high technology companies, Syntellect Inc. of Phoenix, Arizona and Periphonics Corporation of Bohemia, New York. Both Syntellect and Periphonics were backed by major venture capital companies, and both are market-leading computer hardware and software suppliers today, with combined annual revenues in excess of $400 million.
Dr. Emerson holds an S.B. degree from the Massachusetts Institute of Technology, Cambridge, Massachusetts and M.A. and Ph.D. degrees from Rice University, Houston, Texas.
Dr. Emerson co-founded Periphonics in December of 1969 and served the company in various executive capacities for fourteen years. His roles at Periphonics included Vice President Engineering, Vice President Software Development, Vice President and General Manager Western Operations. His last four years with Periphonics were as President and CEO, during which time the company experienced major growth and success.
In 1984 Dr.
Emerson founded Syntellect and served that company as President
and CEO until April of 1992. Syntellect grew from initial capitalization
of $30,000 in 1984 to more than $50 million in assets and more than $36
million in revenues in six years. Alex. Brown & Sons and Hambrecht
& Quist underwrote the company's highly successful IPO in 1990. Syntellect
was one of only seven U. S. companies to go public in 1990 with a valuation
above $100 million.
Dr. Emerson is highly skilled in managing complex product development projects and in managing in a rapid growth environment. A disciplined business planner, he is well versed in all management functions of high-technology product-based companies. Dr. Emerson has worked closely with sales and marketing organizations throughout his career, and is accomplished at closing sales. In addition to his contributions in founding and growing successful market-driven companies, Dr. Emerson has been honored for his accomplishments in business, technology development and innovation. He holds four U.S. patents and a number of foreign patents and has authored more than 20 technical and scientific publications and numerous business articles. Dr. Emerson was named Inventor of the Year by the U.S. Patent Office in 1973 for a highly innovative patent in the voice-processing field, and was named Entrepreneurial Fellow of the University of Arizona in 1986. Inc. Magazine and Arthur Young & Co. named him Arizona's High-Technology Entrepreneur of the Year in 1989. The Dean's Council of 100 at Arizona State University named him Arizona's Entrepreneur of the Year in 1990.
Mr. Marx is
an experienced entrepreneur and corporate executive. He is currently the
Director of Strategic Alliances at Mid-Market America, which is a financial
services/hi-tech company. Its primary brand, SaveSimply, is a life goal
savings program built on a technology platform that uniquely merges saving,
shopping rebates, and investing to create an extraordinary opportunity for
mainstream Americans to save for important life goals.
Patrick runs Marx Financial Group, which has provided consulting to early
stage companies in fundraising strategies, developing business plans, valuations,
strategy development and turnaround projects. Previously he worked for Alcoa
in Corporate Finance/Audit doing special projects and finance, operations
and IT audits nationwide. He also worked for Deloitte Consulting performing
ERP installations, and Universal Instruments developing an international
financial reporting system and serving as the controller for the used equipment
division.He has helped found Romanian Christian Enterprises, a non-profit
venture fund/incubator and humanitarian agency to start/help businesses,
health care/education facilities and orphanages. Patarick worked as an associate
at the Energy Recovery Fund (a $150M venture/mezzanine capital fund) and
has co-taught at Binghamton University on Operations & Production Management
and Arad University in Romania on Operations & Production Management,
Accounting and Marketing.
Articles Published:
Local
Associations:
Member of the Pittsburgh Venture Capital Association and the Association
for Corporate Growth.
Education:
Stargate
The Crane Building, Suite 300
24th Street
Pittsburgh, PA 15222
marc@stargate.net
Thirty-one year old Marcus L. Ruscitto is President and Chief Executive Officer of Stargate.net, Inc. and each of its wholly-owed subsidiaries. Stargate has emerged as a premier regional eBusiness Technology Solutions Provider, serving both the corporate and residential markets throughout the eastern region of the United States. In 2001, Stargate ranked as the 2nd fastest growing Technology Company in the $25-100 million category, and in 2000 ranked first in overall growth among all high-tech companies in the region. Through a combination of solid organic growth, as well as aggressive acquisitions of larger competitors in the region, Mr. Ruscitto has grown Stargate from just two people to a large corporation with over 300 employees with multiple offices and data facilities throughout the greater tri-state area. More recently, Stargate acquired CISCorp, one of Pennsylvania's oldest and most respected professional technology services firms. This acquisition highlights Stargate's evolution and diversification from traditional Internet services into a more globally-marketed and managed professional services line.
Today, Mr. Ruscitto is recognized as one of the most knowledgeable members of the Internet and telecommunications community. On a consulting basis, local firms often request his expertise in computer networking and Internet/Intranet business applications. His understanding of the business is only equaled by his passion for the industry as a whole. Additionally, Mr. Ruscitto holds several domestic and international patents regarding Internet delivery and distribution technologies. Mr. Ruscitto has also been quoted in national industry periodicals such as Internet Week and ISP Report, and he and members of his management team are frequently featured as industry experts in the local media. Mr. Ruscitto also used to co-host an Internet talk show on KQV radio.
Mr. Ruscitto currently serves on the Board of Directors of a number of local and statewide organizations, including the United Way of Allegheny County, WQED, Net Health Systems, Inc. and the 3 Rivers Connect. Mr. Ruscitto is also a member of the Board of Trustees for the Burger King Cancer Caring Center.
In 1997 and 1998, Mr. Ruscitto was a final candidate for the prestigious Ernst & Young Entrepreneur of the Year award and has recently been named as one of "Pittsburgh's 55 Pacesetters for the New Millennium" by Small Business News magazine. Additionally, Mr. Ruscitto was recognized by the Vectors/Pittsburgh organization as its Person of the Year in Technology for 1999. Among his most recent acknowledgements, Mr. Ruscitto was nominated for the 2000 SBA Small Businessman of the Year award, a repeat nomination for the Ernst & Young Entrepreneur of the Year award, and was a finalist for the prestigious American Business Ethics award in 2001.
Since Stargate's inception, Mr. Ruscitto has overseen the company's macro-strategic direction, as well as its day-to-day operations. His financial and business backgrounds were instrumental in building Stargate's accounting and business processes early on. His technical abilities with respect to Internetworking have undergone great maturation; and today, he is very involved in steering Stargate towards technological opportunities that are most suited to complementing the present product mix and navigating the strategic direction of the company.
Mr. Ruscitto is a 1992, cum laude graduate of Miami University of Ohio, with a Bachelor's of Science in Finance. Prior to his position at Stargate, Mr. Ruscitto worked as a Benefits and Estate Planning Specialist for the CM Financial Group. He also worked as a Vice President of the Pittsburgh firm, Financial Planning Services, and served as a specialist in international portfolio management with A.G. Edwards & Sons, Inc.
In addition to his formal education and professional work experience, Mr. Ruscitto has endured a rigorous self-education process that has included extensive study of telecommunications engineering journals, self-funded trips to seminars and technology conventions and expositions, and hands-on training with computer networking systems.
Mr. Ruscitto's non-business interests include golf, skiing, dining out, scuba diving, automobiles, and traveling.