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Date: March 8, 1999

Section: 40 Under 40

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Title: 40 Under 40

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1. Joseph Atick, Visionics

Sick of your job”s narrow focus? Joseph Atick can relate. He started Jersey City”s Visionics after giving up on the theory of everything.

Atick, who wrote a physics textbook at 15 and earned his PhD at 23, is implementing a mathematical theory of vision in his firm”s face-recognition software. His clients, including Intel and the English borough of Newham, maintain facial databases so as to keep certain people in a population–like employees–or out of one–like rapists.

Sound heady? For Atick, it”s a welcome burst of practicality after he abandoned string theory, which seeks to explain all physical relationships in the universe. Such work is inevitably “separated from reality,” Atick explains in his tranquil Israeli accent, “and I had grown up in an environment where business reigned supreme.”

Atick honors his father, a Miami businessman, as he defends his scientific thesis in the marketplace. “I could spend 30 years trying to prove to the biological community that this is how vision works, or build a company to take advantage of breakthroughs we”ve made,” Atick reasons. He suggests his firm”s impact can grow as computers gain capacity. In 30 years, when he”s 64, history may reflect his choice.

2. Scott Baxter, Qwest Internet Solutions

Scott Baxter”s measured voice makes audacious deeds sound perfectly logical. Take the way he came up with the idea for Icon CMT, the Weehawken Internet services firm he founded in 1991 and sold last winter to Denver”s Qwest: “The company I was working for was going through a reorganization, which creates windows of opportunity.”

A man who enjoys writing business plans as much as selling them, Baxter originally focused on expanding the consulting side of Icon. In 1995, with $26 million in annual revenues, the firm raised $10 million in private equity to build a digital network. Three years later, hungry for bandwidth, Baxter got in touch with Qwest chief Joe Nacchio, with whom Icon shared a banker. Later that summer, Qwest–the country”s fourth-largest long-distance provider–picked Icon to form the basis of its Internet division. That business, based in Weehawken, now goes by the name Qwest Internet Solutions.

These days Baxter, 35, spends a fair amount of time at Qwest headquarters in Denver. While he still calls himself an “East Coast guy,” the Rockies may be setting in. He says he designed and helped engineer his new Bergen County house “literally in the side of a mountain.” Presumably, the sky is the limit.

3. Dorothy Leung Blakeslee, Municipal Advisory Partners

Dorothy Leung Blakeslee, 39, is proud of her many accomplishments–a growing business, a healthy family and oatmeal bread. Yes, oatmeal bread. “I”ve baked my own bread for five years,” boasts Blakeslee, with a laugh. When she”s not in yeast and flour, however, Blakeslee is running Municipal Advisory Partners in Upper Saddle River with her partner, Noreen White. The firm gives financial advice to state and local governments. “When school districts need to build schools, we make sure they get the best bids on their bonds,” Blakeslee explains. “We also show them different financing possibilities and help them invest their funds.” In addition, Municipal Advisory Partners works with state entities like the New Jersey Highway Authority.

Blakeslee and White worked together as investment bankers for Bear Stearns in the 1980s. Blakeslee went on to work for Printon Kane & Co. in Short Hills, leaving in 1990 to help White start Municipal Advisory Partners. Blakeslee says her firm now has a staff of five and a steady flow of clients. She is also a board member of the New Jersey Housing & Mortgage Finance Committee and the first vice president of the Asian American Political Coalition, which educates New Jersey”s Asian population on political issues.

4. Francesca Brockett, Toys “R” Us

Francesca Brockett was an eager pre-med student at Harvard until she discovered in her sophomore year that she couldn”t stand the sight of blood. Today, as the senior vice president of strategic planning and business development for Toys “R” Us in Paramus, Brockett, 39, works as far from the operating room as possible.

Brockett joined the company last September from PepsiCo spinoff Tricon Global Restaurants. It was the most recent in a series of career changes. “After deciding against medical school, my best friend gave me an ad from The Crimson, the Harvard newspaper,” she says. The ad was for Booz, Allen and Hamilton, a consulting group. Brockett graduated in 1982 and went to work as an analyst in the firm”s Atlanta office.

But coaching others in business wasn”t enough for Brockett. “I was tired of not being part of the team that actually gets the job done,” she says. Having managed the football team while she was an undergrad at Harvard, Brockett wanted to recapture that esprit de corps. In 1992, she went to work for PepsiCo, holding such positions as vice president of corporate development. Today, her focus is toys–and lots of them. “My role and my team”s role are working on things that will generate growth three and four years from now.”

5. Judy Capano, McCann-Erickson World Health Group

“The bottom line is I travel a lot,” says Judy Capano, and she”s not complaining. Capano, 33, is executive vice president and director of operations for McCann-Erickson World Health Group, the Parsippany health-care advertising arm of McCann-Erickson, the world”s largest ad agency. She was recruited from the job of executive vice president at a New York City agency in 1997. There, Capano had already shown a proclivity for success.

At World Health she runs the worldwide network of agencies the ad giant has either acquired or started in the three and a half years since it decided to get into health-care advertising. McCann-Erickson had 24 offices when Capano came on board; it now has 32 with a total of 830 employees.

Capano has been responsible for pulling together the disparate threads of the newly merged companies. “When I started, I had to establish basic communications links between all the agencies so that we could deliver the benefits of a worldwide network to clients,” she says.

Capano credits her boss, Joe Torre, World Health”s CEO, with exposing her to a wide range of challenges, which are “making me a better manager, marketer and problem solver.” Torre”s confidence in Capano, who in her free time exercises a “passion for fitness” and active sports, seems to be well placed.

6. Peter A. Caporilli, Tidewater Workshop

Attempting the untested can be both fun and profitable. Just ask Peter A. Caporilli, the 36-year-old founder and CEO of Tidewater Workshop in Oceanville. Armed with a bachelor”s degree in mathematics from Stockton State College in Pomona, and the skills he had picked up from his uncle and grandfather who were in the business of building boats from cedar, Caporilli decided to take the plunge in 1991. He gave up his job as marketing director for Hanover Direct, a catalog company based in Weehawken, and formed Tidewater Workshop, which specializes in making garden furniture from white cedar wood. The company sells its products primarily through its mail order catalog.

“I couldn”t stand the corporate environment and missed working with cedar. I also felt there was real opportunity for classically-styled, yet inexpensive, garden furniture from cedar wood. It was unheard of at that time,” says Caporilli.

Since the first year, which saw revenues of $30,000, the company has grown rapidly. Named as one of the top 500 fastest growing companies in the U.S. by Inc. magazine, Tidewater Workshop will soon move into its new, 10,000-square-foot manufacturing facility in Egg Harbor City. Caporilli”s goal now is revenues of $10 million in 2000.

7. Joseph D.Cascio, New Jersey Convention and Expo Center

Following in his family”s footsteps in real estate set Joseph Cascio”s career in motion, but the strides he has now taken in the trade show and exposition market are his own. “There are not many people in the 25- to 35 year-old range involved in the business,” he points out. Cascio, 30, is the director of sales for the New Jersey Convention & Exposition Center in Edison. Despite his youth, Cascio is familiar with the executive world. At 18, he joined New Jersey Equity, a real estate firm in Edison founded by his uncle. Cascio worked in real estate sales for eight years, becoming vice president of New Jersey Equity at age 22.

Wanting to see if he could succeed outside of the real estate market, Cascio took an opportunity to get into a new field. The New Jersey Convention & Exposition Center is owned by Summit Associates, a real estate developer where Cascio”s father works. When arrangements were needed for a golf expo in 1995, the principals at Summit Associates gave Cascio a shot setting things up as the show manager. When that show was a hit, Cascio was hired as promotional director, and in 1996 he was named director of sales. “I would have probably had more opportunities in real estate than what I am doing now,” he says. “But I”m branching off from the family and doing something different.”

8. Lisa Cash, Princeton Softech

Bell Atlantic was too “slow moving,” says Lisa Cash, vice president, North American sales, for Princeton Softech. Cash, whose career chugs along pretty fast, obviously couldn”t stay there forever. By the time she left, bi-annual promotions had put her in a position where she was responsible for a $100-million division. She came to Princeton Softech, a software subsidiary of Mountain Lakes” Computer Horizons in early 1998, and has been overhauling its sales operation ever since.

“I saw that the average sale was growing in size, but that the number of sales hadn”t been changing,” she says. The 34-year-old, who came to Princeton Softech as sales manager and was promoted to her current post in a year, has set up telemarketing and telesales groups to funnel leads to the sales force, and created a training system to help convey her effective brand of marketing techniques. “We want our people to carry the million dollar quota,” Cash says. “This year it”s $875,000. We”ll get there next year.”

Cash, whose main off-the-job pleasure is spending time with her 2-year-old, started out as an accountant. Says she: “I paid the sales people and decided I wanted to make more money.” Good move.

9. Tracy Challenger, Red Bank RiverCenter

Downtowns, communities, buildings and streets–places, in general–inspire Tracy Challenger. She is the 34-year-old director of Red Bank RiverCenter, a downtown redevelopment organization. Her fascination for places may have its roots in her exotic lifestyle as a child. “I grew up in a lot of different places. I have lived in the city and country and all the places in between,” she explains. So it was only natural that Challenger studied urban planning at Penn State University and landscape architecture at the North Carolina State University School of Design.

Challenger, who is internationally recognized for her expertise in urban redevelopment, joined the Red Bank RiverCenter in 1995 as its executive director after doing a little bit of snooping. Says she: “Before I joined the center, I visited Red Bank and talked to people on the streets about their town. I had a good feeling about this community, and I sent in my rsum.”

Since then, Challenger has coordinated the design, finance and legal agreements for a $2 million streetscape improvement project and helped make Red Bank one of the top five Business Improvement Districts in the country.

10. Jeffrey Citron, Datek Online

After leaving Manhattan to live in the pastures of Brielle, Jeffrey Citron is voicing expansive thoughts. His Iselin firm, Datek Online Holdings, runs some 45,000 equity trades every day for 180,000 customers. Citron sees these numbers as a base for his electronic trading network, Island ECN, which he hopes will one day “extend the capital markets to every single person in the world.” He also presumably hopes to snuff out associations between his firm and Datek Securities, a 29-year-old firm that used to employ him alongside associates of penny-stock felon Robert Brennan.

The word from Citron, also 29, is that he keeps to the high road. He plans to expand Datek”s portfolio this year to include debit cards for customers. Just as Island seeks to lure droves of small investors with advanced technology, Citron focuses Datek”s business on the modest accounts and youngish investors–average size: $30,000, average age: 35–that dominate it.

Citron keeps it clean in his spare time, too. He points with pride to network technology he and his wife donated to the Brielle Public School. Thanks to that investment and some energetic volunteers, Citron says, Brielle teens now spend Thursday nights teaching senior citizens how to use the Internet. That”s a novel exchange in itself, but higher stakes may lie ahead.

11. Tom Curnin, Olde Mill Inn

For 12 years, Tom Curnin worked hard in the finance business, but he was missing out on family life. “I wasn”t spending any time at home,” he says. “I was part of a huge machine on Wall Street.” Nowadays, Curnin, 38, is busy as managing partner and general manager of the Olde Mill Inn and Grain House Restaurant in Basking Ridge. “Here I am running my own company,” he marvels. “This is much more of a people business.”

In his Wall Street days, Curnin held jobs as a computer programmer and a loan trader at firms such as E.F. Hutton and Lehman Brothers. Worn down by the 7 a.m. to 7 p.m. workday, Curnin became an investor in 1993 in the revitalization of the then-bankrupt Olde Mill Inn. “We redid the hotel inside and out from 1993 through June of 1994,” he says. In 1995, he bid farewell to Wall Street for good to become a full-time restaurateur. With a 2-year-old son at home and his wife expecting a girl in April, Curnin is glad to have the flexibility to be there for his family as he continues to build up the Inn. “We”ve doubled the staff to 160,” he says. “As much as we have accomplished, we”re not yet at capacity.”

12. Robert F. D”Allesandro, Welco Gases

Three years ago, when Robert F. D”Alessandro joined his father”s industrial gas distribution business, Newark-based Welco Gases, the government was waiting to grab the company”s land and eager buyers were queuing up to buy his father out. Those challenges were nothing compared with what came next. D”Alessandro”s father, Frank, from whom he was hoping to learn about the business, was diagnosed with cancer and died soon after. The younger D”Alessandro, a Juris Doctor from Boston College Law School, chose to keep the third generation family business running. He realized, though, that he had to create a more professional image and offer value-added services.

D”Alessandro, 30, first enticed several experienced professionals from gas manufacturers to join him, and then invested in the construction of a $5 million filling plant that would enable Welco to test, package and sell highly purified specialty gases to new customers, such as research companies and universities. Today, the company is growing at the rate of 20% per year and has revenues of $14 million. Says D”Alessandro: “Two years ago a gas manufacturer told us independent distributors were fast disappearing. We”ve proved that not only can we exist, but we are more competitive and viable.” His next challenge, says D”Alessandro, will be to maintain that viability as the company grows.

13. Fernando E. Dager, Applied Ergonomic Solutions

Got a backache? A cramp in your thumb from typing on the computer all the live-long day? It could be your office furniture, cautions Fernando Dager, president of Applied Ergonomic Solutions in Glen Rock. “The Occupational Safety & Health Administration just released a draft of standards for the ergonomics industry,” Dager explains. “All companies will soon have to meet standards for problem jobs that cause repetitive stress injuries.” Dager, who says his company”s revenues doubled between 1996 and 1997 and were up 15% last year, is eager to offer office products and consulting to ergonomically challenged businesses. Applied Ergonomic Solutions already works with the likes of Lucent Technologies, MTV and Johnson & Johnson.

Dager, 37, enjoys his job”s daily client contact, a change from his middle-man days. The native of Santiago, Chile and graduate of William Paterson University in Wayne started his career with 3M, where he ultimately worked in international business development. Dager left in the early 1990s after 13 years, worked with a Brazilian exporter in New York City, was approached by CLUSA International to import ergonomic products and discovered his calling. He launched Applied Ergonomic Solutions in 1996. “I get to work with the end user,” says Dager, a family man who still exercises a life-long passion for soccer. “I like having more control over making a business deal happen.” Now, how about that backache?

14. Phillippe Escaravage, Senesco Technologies

Phillippe O. Escaravage is the chairman and COO of Senesco Technologies, a biotech start-up based in Princeton. The 23-year-old Canadian jumped into business early. He and his brother began planning to invest in likely prospects while Escaravage was finishing up his bachelor”s in economics at Princeton in 1997. The pair had some inherited money and decided to support the work of a professor at Ontario”s University of Waterloo, who was studying certain medicinal properties of insect saliva. Senesco is focused on the technology of another Waterloo scientist, who has isolated a gene related to plant aging. Escaravage and his partners took Senesco public in January by absorbing a shell company.

What prompted Escaravage to forsake the more traditional first-job route and jump into a start-up with a bunch of fellow graduates? “I didn”t find a job I wanted to do,” he says. “It just sort of happened.”

This budding tycoon, who says he is finishing up a deal to raise an additional $1.2 million for Senesco, is married to Malcolm Forbes” granddaughter. Does this make the entrepreneur game easier? “It can help open up some doors,” he admits. “But you”ve still got to produce.”

15. Joseph Forgione, Sterling Properties

Joseph Forgione”s voice often cracks, but his enthusiasm never does. He”ll tell you his homes don”t either. This trained civil engineer works with Wayne Zuckerman and Steven Katz to build and sell new homes in the state”s upper midsection. He says their 8-year-old business, Livingston”s Sterling Properties, delivered 130 homes at an average price of $410,000 last year. Sound cushy? Forgione, 33, says otherwise.

“There”s a lot of pride in the land that”s left,” says Forgione, who specializes in land acquisition and approvals. “People have to sell it before it”s rezoned for larger lots or snapped up for state open space.” Sterling, with projects smaller than 70 lots or 200 apartments, profits on the homebuying boom only when it stitches together economic and speedy projects.

For Forgione, who grew up in West Orange working summers for his father”s homebuilding firm, this demands a soft touch. Sterling is naming a Florham Park subdivision, River Bend, after the farm that once owned it. “When you”ve got these infill jobs, it takes the same effort to build 10 lots as it does to build 2,000 acres out West,” he says. No wonder his voice is cracking.

16. Laura Berman Fortgang, InterCoach Training and Development

In December 1996, Laura Berman Fortgang”s world exploded. Money magazine ran an article detailing how headhunter Mary Jane Range increased her income from $65,000 to $500,000 in 18 months. What was her secret? Weekly strategy sessions with career coach Laura Berman Fortgang, owner of Verona-based InterCoach Development & Training. “I suddenly had 350 people on a waiting list,” says Fortgang, 35. Next came a book deal for Take Yourself to the Top: The Secrets of the World”s #1 Coach, which was published last year.

Fortgang, who began her own coaching practice in 1993 after a two-year training course, was an early participant in the personal coaching boom. The number of personal coaches is now nearing 20,000, up from 3,000 in 1994.

When she graduated from Boston University in 1995, Fortgang pursued her dream of becoming an actress. For the next five years, she traveled the country in regional productions, waitressed and taught aerobics. Following a final role as Fanny Brice in “Funny Girl,” she decided to leave the stage. She called on Jay Perry, a personal coach in Maplewood, and, before long, her future was clear. “It was like a fish meeting water,” Fortgang says of her introduction to career coaching. Since then, she and her staff of four have coached celebrities, as well as employees of large companies such as Johnson & Johnson and Prudential. She even appeared as a guest on Oprah on January 12th. Says Fortgang: “I already feel this is leading me somewhere new.”

17. Al Fuller, Integrated Packaging

For Al Fuller, Chief Operating Officer and co-owner of Integrated Packaging, business and community interests are closely linked. When he and his partner bought their corrugated box factory in 1993, the 50-year-old facility, tucked in a residential neighborhood of New Brunswick, was in danger of closing. Since then, IPC has rejuvenated the plant, grown revenues at a 20% per year clip and increased the number of employees by 15%. Many of IPC”s employees are able to walk to work from the surrounding neighborhood.

The 38-year-old Wharton M.B.A. saw his company listed by Black Enterprise Magazine as the 49th largest black-owned corporation in the country last year. In 1998, revenues increased from $43 million to $50 million, so look for IPC to keep climbing.

But dollars and cents aren”t Fuller”s only focus. “The most important thing I am involved in right now is working with minority undergraduate interns we bring to IPC from Rutgers and some of the historically black colleges,” says Fuller. He is an active member of the National Association of Black MBAs, works with the Civic League in New Brunswick and speaks frequently to high school and college students on the subject of entrepreneurship. He reminds them, no doubt, to think outside the box.

18. Michael Gray, Marketing and Promotions Group

Michael Gray is a calm and confident person. At 30, he is already right where he has always wanted to be–running his own business. “I don”t like taking orders and didn”t quite like working in a corporate environment. I wanted a work life that gave me more control over my future,” says Gray.

So, in the spring of 1993, at age 24, he quit his job as director of public relations and advertising at Morris Plains-based Weichert Realtors and founded Marketing & Promotions Group. Since then, the Ridgewood-based promotions firm, which provides custom-printed advertising collaterals, has seen rapid growth. With three additional sales offices, in Florida, Missouri and North Carolina, and a print shop, the number of clients has increased to more than 150.

The William Paterson University graduate believes that success lies in the way people approach life. “One really needs to focus on one”s goals. You can”t sit back and expect things to happen. You have to make things happen,” he says. True to his word, Gray is already working on several screenplays, which he hopes to turn into films, and has two additional businesses in the works. Add ambitious to calm and confident.

19. JoAnn Gregoli, Elegant Occasions

JoAnn Gregoli has an interesting observation about her 12-year old event planning business, Elegant Occasions. “My business grew as fast as my family. Both grew beyond my wildest imaginations,” she says, alluding to her five children, ages 2 to 11. Gregoli, 39, started her Denville business as a part-time job to supplement her family income after she quit her regular job with a public relations company to raise a family. “I did not expect to achieve this kind of success. I now travel a lot and usually hire a babysitter and take a couple of children with me,” Gregoli continues. “The biggest challenge is to maintain the balance between home and work.”

Gregoli”s biggest challenge may also be her biggest strength. Says she: “If you have to manage five children”s routines every day, then you have to be incredibly organized.” Gregoli”s work has taken her to Aspen, Colorado and even Aruba. Elegant Occasions plans and coordinates between 15 and 25 social and corporate events each year. Gregoli has coordinated weddings for actor/comedian Joe Piscopo, for one of the producers of Good Morning America, and for Rupert Murdoch”s daughter in Beverly Hills. She is now planning to try her hand at fund–raising events, which she finds more satisfying.

20. David Hughes, Resorts International

David Hughes, CFO of Resorts International Casinos, worked his way through Stockton State College in the mid-1980s not by waiting tables, but by dealing cards in the gaming halls of nearby Atlantic City. When he got out of college with a degree in accounting, Hughes tried his hand in the world of “bean-counting” with a large regional bank, but found that he missed the excitement of “operations mixed with business” that the gaming world offered him.

When Hughes came knocking, the industry was happy to let him back in. After a year with the Sands organization in 1987, Hughes moved on to Trump Plaza, where he spent seven years. Then, after a brief interlude with a gaming concern in Colorado, he returned to the East Coast to help Sun International open the Mohegan Sun Casino in Uncasville, Connecticut.

Hughes, 36, became CFO of Resorts International in Atlantic City two years ago, when it was purchased by Sun International. He says the experience of being a table dealer has been “invaluable” in his rise through the ranks of his profession. That rise isn”t likely to end soon, as long as Hughes keeps playing his cards right.

21. Ramin Kamfar, New World Coffee and Bagels

Some industry watchers believe that running a bagel manufacturer and retail chain is a foolhardy task. Ramin Kamfar, founder of New World Coffee & Bagel of Eatontown, seldom listens to naysayers. “You have to be a contrarian if you are going to be successful in business,” he says. Kamfar, 35, started his company in 1993, after leaving a job as vice president of private placement for Lehman Brothers. “Even when I got my MBA and went to work for Lehman Brothers, I still wanted to go out and build something,” he says.

Born in Iran and raised in Europe, Kamfar enjoyed spending time in coffee bars and thought the U.S. was ideal for this market. But the coffee and bagel wars have left some casualties. Manhattan Bagel of Eatontown went into bankruptcy in 1997 and was bought by Kamfar”s company last year. That acquisition expanded New World Coffee & Bagel from 40 stores to a chain of 340–and prompted Kamfar to move his company headquarters from New York City to Eatontown this year. “We are eventually going to have two or three large national coffee and bagel companies that dominate this market,” he says. Kamfar hopes to see New World Coffee & Bagel as one of those survivors.

22. Alan Levy, Destia Communications

Last month, Alan Levy changed the name of the company he helped expand from $30 million in annual sales to $250 million from EconoPhone to Destia Communications. He coined the word “destia” by combining “destiny and destination” to better reflect the corporate identity and future of the Paramus-based telecommunications company. But a few years ago, Levy, the president of Destia, which employs 1,000 people in 10 countries, did not know what his own destiny had in store for him.

A New York City native, Levy, 39, began his career with an accounting firm, Edward Issacs, before drifting into the growing telecom industry as the CFO of Viatel, a New York City-based company, in 1993. Three years later, he joined EconoPhone, a fledgling telecom company offering low-cost long distance services between the U.S. and Europe. As the CFO, one of Levy”s first jobs was to draw up a strategic vision for the company and then find the capital to finance it. Morgan Stanley, the blue-chip investment firm, picked up a minority stake in Destia, which is now preparing to go public. Levy doesn”t enjoy talking about himself. Says he: “I don”t want to be famous. I just want more customers.”

23. Gerry Libertelli, G. Triad Development

E-commerce is hot, hot, hot. So many people want in, that to stand out you have to be hot, too. Gerry Libertelli, 32, is hot. His Cranford firm, G. Triad Development, is, in his words, “a one-stop shop for Internet development and engineering.”

The product G. Triad creates is not the pretty screen a casual surfer clicks past. “We do the heavy lifting under the interface,” he says. His company develops powerful applications that grab information out of big databases and allows users to work with it over the Internet. Clients have included Dow Jones, the Princeton Review and BOC Gases. Annual revenues now exceed $1 million.

Libertelli founded the company in 1994, but didn”t go at it full time until late 1997, when he left his job as technical director of Smart Money Interactive. Before then he had worked for Charles Schwab in San Francisco. Libertelli got into high-profile Web programming without any formal computer training: “I was a political science major from Seton Hall,” he says, “but I”ve been working on computers since I was 16.”

Libertelli, who is now talking to venture capitalists about raising money for expansion, remembers when people told him no one could make money with the Internet. Says he: “This is pure vindication for me.”

24. Stash R. Lisowski, NJIT Enterprise Development Center

When Stash Lisowski took on his current job, he often fielded a curious question. “People would ask, ”How many chickens do you have?”” he recalls. “I said, ”This incubator hatches small businesses, not chickens.””

Indeed. Since Lisowski, 35, became director of the Enterprise Development Center at the New Jersey Institute of Technology in Newark in 1995, the small business incubator has taken off. The center, which housed 18 companies contributing 75 jobs in 1995, now has 43 companies contributing 227 jobs. “We went from 50,000 square feet to 80,000, with another 30,000-square-foot building to begin construction this summer,” adds Lisowski, who also started the New Jersey Incubation Business Network two years ago to provide a forum for the state”s six incubators.

Lisowski first saw the incubator as a way to exercise his financial training simultaneously to 18 companies. He had graduated from Albright College with a B.S. in accounting in 1986 and spent four years as an auditor with Coopers & Lybrand. In 1991, he joined Accurate Information Systems in South Plainfield as a controller. The world of small technology start-ups interested him, and led him to NJIT”s incubator. Lisowski, a big-game fisherman who once reeled in a 100-pound tuna, sees similar challenges in managing the incubator sector. Says he: “I see the strength of the incubator program increasing with better funding and higher quality small business graduates.”

25. Nicholas R. Loglisci Jr., IBS Interactive

For Nick Loglisci, the path from West Point through telecom sales to becoming president of IBS Interactive, his Internet consulting and service firm, reflects one trait: discipline. Listen to him describe the firm”s May 1998 initial public offering: “What they teach you in business school and what goes on are two different things. I was acting CFO during the IPO process.” Ah. But things have slowed down since then? “I involve myself in acquisitions and with Wall Street analysts. I also try to make at least one sales call a week.”

If Loglisci, 36, is relentless, his company shows it. He says his firm, which provides Internet connection setup as well as Web site design and management services and has been much in the news lately, draws its biggest margins in consulting and e-commerce development. The majority of its revenues come from Internet hookups. That duality, plus the recent purchase of an Alabama Internet service provider, keep Loglisci steeped in the methodical mindset he learned at West Point, from where he graduated in 1985. His biggest challenge may await in a few months: “I have a child on the way, and I should get to know my daughter-to-be,” says Loglisci. The cadet hopes he can fit diaper changes into his whirlwind schedule.

26. Christine A. Malone, CompComm

Christine Malone last year left a cushy job in Denver with US West, a Baby Bell company, and came to New Jersey to take a shot at recharging her step-father”s business, Comp Comm, a consulting firm that specialized in wireless communications. Says Malone, 37: “Since then it has been a thrill ride. Sheer terror one moment and utter excitement the next. There is never a dull moment.”

In the early- to mid-1990s, the Voorhees-based company, which designed and built wireless networks and towers, was quickly losing its business to bigger competitors in a rapidly consolidating industry. Malone, who has a bachelor”s degree in electrical engineering from the University of Pennsylvania and a master”s degree in industrial administration from Carnegie Mellon University, decided to go after a new set of customers–municipalities. She marketed the company as an independent technical consultant to towns and cities that had telecom companies knocking on their doors to erect wireless towers in their regions.

Comp Comm now has 10 employees and has already done about two dozen jobs as consultants to municipalities, both within and outside New Jersey. For Malone, redirecting a company means being in control of her destiny, something she couldn”t do in her previous jobs, including one in Phoenix, where she trained NATO Air Force personnel on airborne radar jamming equipment.

27. Carmine Marinaro, Corporate Information Systems

When Carmine Marinaro left Fairleigh Dickinson University in 1982, after earning a B.S. in management on a combination academic/baseball scholarship, he had no idea that his first job would turn out to be the basis of his whole career. Marinaro took a post with an executive-search firm–headhunters in common parlance–and after five years of working for somebody else decided to go into business for himself.

Corporate Information Systems, an executive-search firm specializing in software sales professionals, was born in the basement of Marinaro”s parents” home in 1987, and by 1989 had moved to an 800-square-foot space in Rutherford.

That space then morphed into CIS”s current 3,000 square feet of office space in Rutherford, where Marinaro, 37, works with his 16 employees. CIS does “well over $1 million in revenue” each year, Marinaro reports, and will be growing bigger in the future. “There is so much business out there that we need to expand,” he says. Those expansion plans involve an eventual move to the technology-laden West Coast, where Marinaro hears the hunting is good.

28. Cynthia Nicholas, The Marcus Group

As a youngster, Cynthia Nicholas enjoyed writing and wanted to become a veterinarian. Instead, after graduating with a degree in journalism and political science and a brief stint with New Jersey Monthly, Nicholas joined The Marcus Group in 1983 as a receptionist. She”s been there ever since. Today, she is a senior vice president of the Secaucus-based firm and leads its public relations division. Says she: “I was probably the worst receptionist they had. But, pretty soon I was working on accounts and writing press releases.”

Her new job description has served her well. Nicholas developed some award-winning campaigns, including the New Jersey Governor”s Task Force on Child Abuse and Neglect, which bagged the Iris Award for Excellence, the “Yes, You Can Buy a Home in New Jersey” campaign for the New Jersey Association of Realtors and the 1996 Tax Amnesty Campaign. Nicholas says her biggest challenge is when a client doesn”t have the best news to announce. Says she: “Everyone thinks the public relations people put a spin on news. I hate that phrase. We don”t fix the message.”

Nicholas has little time to spare these days, between raising her two daughters, working and looking after three cats, a dog and numerous birds and fish. “But one day I hope to become a teacher,” she says.

29. Laura O”Hara, Chase Manhattan Mortgage

“We always clean up the messes at the end of the day,” explains Laura O”Hara, who, despite her own job description, doesn”t bring a mop to work with her. O”Hara, 39, is chief litigation counsel for Chase Manhattan Mortgage in Edison, which last year originated $75 billion in loans to consumers nationwide. “We”re the third-largest mortgage company and servicer in the country,” O”Hara explains. “You can imagine the kind of litigation at a company that size.” And if you can”t, O”Hara and her staff of four are usually working on a litigation portfolio of about 500 cases, involving everything from class-action lawsuits to counterclaims in foreclosure actions. “We review the cases, get the right outside counsel, and decide when to settle and when to litigate,” O”Hara continues.

O”Hara, also a mother of three children–ages 6, 5 and 2–says she knew from a young age that she wanted to be a lawyer. The Queens native graduated from Villanova in 1981 and Georgetown Law School in 1984. Following a brief stint at a Philadelphia firm, she headed home to New York City, joining Wilkie Farr & Gallagher in 1986. Nearly four years later, she went from large private practice to in-house legal department, joining Chemical, which later merged with Chase. What does O”Hara enjoy most? Says she: “Being the voice of reason when people are mad enough to sue each other.”

30. Todd E. Phillips, Chamber of Commerce of Southern New Jersey

Todd Phillips is a big Washington Redskins fan. But it was actually a connection to the Philadelphia Eagles that helped him advance his career. After he spent more than 10 years with the United Way of Gloucester County, where he ultimately served as campaign director, one of the charity”s board members suggested he check out opportunities with the Chamber of Commerce of Southern New Jersey, based in Voorhees. That coaching came from Ron Jaworski, the Eagles” former quarterback and a Southern New Jersey businessman. “It turned out to be a great change,” says Phillips, who now serves as vice president of membership for the Chamber of Commerce of Southern New Jersey, the state”s largest with 1,800 members. “I got to see a different side of business.” Phillips, 36, brings on new members, keeps the existing ones happy, manages special events and coordinates the sales of chamber business resources.

“I”m hoping our chamber can do more for its members, like offer them health-care insurance,” says Phillips, who wears his chamber hat enthusiastically. “Southern New Jersey is a hidden gold mine for business. The only distinct disadvantage is that we”re seven different counties with different cultures. It”s hard to pull them together.”

Nevertheless, Phillips enjoys strategizing. He regularly plays chess on the Internet against competitors from all over the world.

31. Steven J. Rosen, STAR/Rosen Public Relations

Students may cringe at the mention of an exam, but for Steven Rosen, president of STAR/Rosen Public Relations, one test proved to be prophetic. “I took a career counseling test when I was a teenager, and I scored high in public relations, which I had never even heard of,” he says. Nevertheless, Rosen went on to get his bachelor”s degree in public relations at Boston University in 1981.

Returning to Margate, his hometown, Rosen had better luck in the job market. He worked from 1981 to 1986 as an account executive at Elkman Public Relations, and then as a senior account executive at Earle Palmer Brown & Spiro from 1986 to 1988. He moved to Weightman Public Relations, where he stayed from 1988 through 1996 and returned to Elkman as executive vice president from 1996 to 1997. Fourteen months ago, Rosen, 39, was lured by RBT/Strum of Cherry Hill to head up the soon-to-be-formed STAR/Rosen Public Relations. In that brief time, he has generated $1.2 million in revenue working with such clients as Bell Atlantic, Arthur Andersen and Aetna U.S. Healthcare. “I joke with friends that I haven”t had the luxury of a mid-life work crisis because I picked the profession I love,” he says. No wonder he scored high on his career counseling test all those years ago.

32. Ken Schapiro, Condor Capital

When Ken Schapiro”s father, a physician and casual investor in Flemington, began teaching his son about the stock market years ago, he had no idea that he was giving him some early career training. Today, the younger Schapiro, 33, is in charge of investing $270 million for the clients of his investment management company, Martinsville-based Condor Capital.

Schapiro founded the company not long after earning his M.B.A. from the University of Colorado in 1988. “Most people would consider it impossible to do this with no experience on Wall Street,” he says. “And the first few years were tough.” But by demonstrating consistent returns and a commitment to providing fast and up-to-date information to his clients, Schapiro was able to attract a strong client base

Making information about their investments available to his clients at any time has been one of Schapiro”s main goals. Portfolios are updated on a weekly basis with the results accessible via the company”s Web site. More than 50% of his clients use the online service regularly, which is a large number in the industry.

Schapiro”s clients, who have an average of just under $1 million each invested with him, stand ready to give the lie to anybody who doubted that Condor Capital would fly.

33. Eric Scott, New Jersey 101.5 FM

There aren”t many 28-year-olds who can claim to have “been in the business”–whatever the business may be–for 14 years. But Eric Scott, news director for New Jersey 101.5 FM radio in Trenton, has literally been involved in radio news for half his life.

Scott has had his deep, authoritative voice since junior high school, when he was first recruited to be a news reader on a local radio station in his hometown of Springville, New York. By age 17, he was a reporter for WKBW in nearby Buffalo, and by age 19 he had his first job as a news director.

After being news director at New Jersey 101.5 for two and a half years in the early 1990s, Scott spent the next three years at WCBS in New York City. Last October he returned to the New Jersey station, when he got the proverbial offer he couldn”t refuse: “The station has made a strong commitment to news, and that was very important to me.” Scott expects to double his eight-person news staff by the end of 1999. Scott believes he can expand 101.5”s already strong editorial voice, making the station attractive to both listeners and advertisers. Now if he can only make sure he doesn”t lose that voice.

34. Ken Shepard, Atlantic City Surf Baseball Club

Some think it”s a cabaret, others think it”s a bowl of cherries, but to Ken Shepard, “Life is a promotion.” The 34-year old president, general manager and minority owner of the Atlantic City Surf independent league baseball team says that for the fans who show up at his team”s stadium, “Entertainment comes first, baseball comes second.”

It is a philosophy that has guided Shepard since 1987, when, five months out of college, he became the youngest general manager in professional baseball, with the Geneva, New York franchise of the Chicago Cubs. During his first full season as GM, Shepard agreed to sleep in the press box until his team ended a losing streak. He was there 17 nights. A few years later, as vice president of the Wilmington, Delaware Blue Rocks, he married his wife, Tonya, at home plate in a ceremony that involved sky-diving ring-bearers.

Shepard”s Surf, which won its independent league championship last year, is part of the burgeoning minor league baseball scene in the Northeast. “We consider ourselves part of a developmental league,” he says, pointing out that 20% of the players involved in the league last year are at spring training with major league teams this season. Even for the players, it”s all about promotion.

35. Scott D. Spruill, Ad-Mail

Scott D. Spruill was just 24 when he started his mail-processing company, Ad–Mail, in 1992. Today, the Cherry Hill business rakes in annual revenues of more than $8 million. Looking back, Spruill, now 32, credits his success to youth and navet. “Being nave is an asset when you start. After a while, the reality of the risks you took sets in and begins to look irrational,” he says.

Ad–Mail is a 24-hour letter shop, presort bureau and direct marketing operation that handles more than 200,000 pieces of mail per day for more than 500 local and national companies. A Moorestown native, Spruill first worked for his brother-in-law”s Florida-based company, Postal Center International, where he learned the in”s and out”s of the industry. Then he headed home to New Jersey to launch Ad–Mail with a partner.

Spruill says that as an experienced salesman, selling was the easiest part of the job for him. But he now realizes that as owner he is also in charge of the operation. Spruill recalls selling so aggressively that a competitor in the region literally closed shop over a weekend. But when most of the competitor”s clients knocked on his door, Spruill couldn”t handle all of them and had to turn some away. But such growing pains are now long gone. Inc. magazine last year rated Ad-Mail as the 65th fastest growing private company in America. Spruill”s next goal? To build revenues to $30 million before taking Ad–Mail public.

36. Gregg Stolzberg, Millennium Practice Management

Gregg Stolzberg, 32, president of Millennium Practice Management Associates, has walked both sides of this street. As a network contracting manager for Aetna, he says his job was “beating up doctors on behalf of the insurance company” in regards to fees and paperwork. “Now, with that background,” he continues, “I can help the doctors in this hostile environment.” Ramsey-based Millennium contracts with physicians to handle all aspects of their practices, including dealing with managed-care organizations.

Stolzberg says that he and his co-founders “felt that most doctors still like medicine,” and set out to create a company that would let them practice. “We view medical practices as businesses where doctors are the CEOs and we are the COOs.” He explains, “They have to make the decisions based on moral and financial points of view, then it”s up to us to implement.”

Millennium currently represents a number of medical groups, primarily in Northern New Jersey, including the physicians of Jersey City”s Christ Hospital. According to Stolzberg, revenues for 1999 are running about 40% higher than in 1998.

Stolzberg”s partners have a few more miles on their odometers than he does, which is useful when it”s time to close a deal. “It”s tough to get a doctor to turn a $5 million practice over to a punk kid,” he admits.

37. Jeffrey S. Tauber, CyberShop International

Is it fun being Jeff Tauber, CEO of e-commerce hub Cybershop International? Ask him in Furbish.

Tauber, who ran Moonackie linen manufacturer Avanti from 1983 to 1988, bet heavily that customers would pay above retail for Furbies, the little electronic toys that speak their own language and dominated last year”s Christmas toy season. So in October, he ordered more than 20,000 toys and, he says, sold all but 200 at his egift.com site. How did he know the market would absorb all that Furbish? Tauber says he speaks the language of retail.

Before brewing up Cybershop in his Montclair basement in 1994, Tauber, 37, was a buyer for Bloomingdale”s and Federated department stores. Looking beyond what he calls the “dinosaurs” of mall-based retailers, he says he saw a lot of “computer geeks” starting to sell online. He figured someone with his trained intuition could “make a dent.”

So far, so good. Cybershop picked up a $1 million investment from a General Electric pension fund in 1995, went public last March, and worked out of a Manhattan office before putting down roots last August in Jersey City. The firm now operates the gift site and an electronics site in alliance with Edison”s Tops Appliance. Later this month, Cybershop plans to launch a discount store online. Sounds bullish in any language.

38. Steven Thomas, Celgene

Steven D. Thomas, vice president of pharmaceutical affairs for Warren”s Celgene, is the guy who helped get thalidomide approved for sale in the U.S. British-born Thomas, 37, was an infant when thalidomide became the world”s most hated drug. Says he: “When I came to Celgene and heard they were considering the development of this drug, I was almost speechless.”

Sounding quite the scientist, Thomas describes the process as “exhilarating, an enormous challenge,” for a near beginner in the drug-approval process. “There was a tremendous learning curve,” he says. Tiny Celgene had to outsource the management of the clinical trials and use consultants for much of the day-to-day work. “The company paid millions of dollars to educate me for this, for which I am grateful,” he acknowledges, saying he never would have gotten the chance to manage such an enterprise at a big firm.

Next for Thomas, who admits he was surprised to find that New Jersey offered “a wonderful rural environment,” is the development of thalidomide versions with fewer side effects and a bigger, richer, Celgene. “I would be very happy to be part of that,” he says.

39. Mary W. Wiener, Med-Corp

Mary W. Wiener, 34, is already on the equivalent of her fourth mini-career. Today she is a principal of Union-based Med-Corp, a company that works with insurance companies to review and bargain down the costs of claims.

Wiener started the first of several bank positions at age 18. During this time she took marketing and management courses. An illness in 1993, Wiener says, led to her being laid off. Despite her initial response to this, “I was so disgusted,” it proved an opportunity. She went to school and became a nurse. After school, however, she performed patient care for only three months before joining Med-Corp as a case manager.

At that point, Med-Corp was handling home-care cases for insurers, making sure treatments and medications were administered properly and cost effectively. Despite the obvious fit with her nursing training, Wiener says, “My business background was more valuable.” She was able to negotiate discounts and save the firm”s managed-care clients “a great deal of money.” Wiener finally bought into Med-Corp, and formed the Home-Care Vendor Network, a panel of home-health service providers through which Med-Corp offers insurers savings on needed services.

Wiener also sings with a band and is preparing to cut her second CD. Will this be career number five?

40. Muhammad Zafar, PC Age

Growing up in a middle class family in Pakistan, life was tough for Muhammad Zafar. The eldest of seven children, he had to battle his way out of an economic straitjacket to get an education. But perseverance has changed the course of his destiny. At 39, Zafar is today the founder and president of Fairfield-based PC Age and the author of 17 books on computers.

“I left Pakistan out of desperation,” Zafar explains. “Even after having earned a master”s degree in applied physics, I couldn”t find a steady job.” In 1985, he landed in the U.S. as a student and earned a master”s degree in computer science from Newark”s New Jersey Institute of Technology in 1988. After working as a computer professional for a couple of years, Zafar set up PC Age in December 1991.

“With an investment of $4,000, I started offering Microsoft and Novell computer networking certification training for career changers from a 200-square-foot office,” says Zafar. Business soon expanded, and in 1995 he opened a second branch in Edison. Today, PC Age employs 50 professionals and revenues have risen from $1.8 million in 1997 to more than $4 million last year. Zafar plans a third center in Northern New Jersey soon.

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