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Date: June 8, 1994

Title: 40 Under 40/The Next Generation of Business Leaders Has Already Arrived

Winston Churchill once said, “The world is meant to be wooed and won by youth.” Artistotle Onassis said that if someone hadn”t become a millionaire by the age of 30, the person was not going to do it.

Business is obviously a field of young people. Companies like Apple and Microsoft, which were both started by people in their early 20s, are proof of that.

BUSINESS recently went out to find the young and interesting business people in Northern New Jersey. The only criterion was that they had to be less than 40 years of age. We didn”t have any problems. As the following pages show, an amazingly diverse group of young people are in major positions today. Some of them have started their own companies, while others have risen quickly in big corporations. They have all already made it.

1. NORMAN ALWORTH

In the late 1980s, Norman Alworth, 35, faced a situation that would change his life. Executives at PharmaControl in Englewood Cliffs were looking to get rid of the company”s floundering Materials Processing Technology, a wholly owned subsidiary where Alworth was working as manager of sales and marketing. “The management team at Materials Processing was challenged by PharmaControl to sell it or liquidate it, and I led the team in a buyout in 1989,” he says.

Since then, the troubled company, which processes powders for use in such industries as pharmaceuticals and foods, has grown from producing just two types of products to a half dozen, and according to Alworth revenues are seven times what they were just five years ago. Alworth believes that contract manufacturers like Materials Processing will be in great demand in the future. “Big business in the 1990s is focusing on what it does best: developing and marketing products,” he says. “More and more companies are looking to farm out the manufacturing of those products to avoid problems like regulatory restrictions and high cost. We are definitely a growth industry for the ”90s.”

2. PATRICIA BARBARITO

Patricia Barbarito is an earthbound angel. By day, the 37-year-old partner at the Denville law firm of Einhorn, Harris, Ascher & Barbarito toils in the firm”s matrimonial practice. But once the dinner bell tolls, she dons another hat–or halo if you will. Along with husband Dr. Randy Marton, an infectious disease specialist at St. Joseph”s Hospital in Paterson, Barbarito has spent the last year-and-a-half drumming up support for The Hospice House of Friends, a facility for people dying of AIDS-related diseases. It will be built at a site still to be determined in Morris County.

“There really is no place in New Jersey for a person with AIDS to go to die. Nursing homes are so cold and lonely, and hospitals are so impersonal,” she says. “My husband and I have had a great love for this project for a long time.” Putting their devotion to the test, Barbarito and Marton donated the $10,000 in gifts they received last December for their wedding to the Hospice House. Support for the hospice has been slow going, but Barbarito hopes to have it up and running by early fall.

3. STEPHAN BOTES

For the past 13 years, Montvale”s Computer Consulting Services has been recruiting computer software development specialists from such countries as Australia, India and South Africa to come to the U.S. to work in teams on projects for American companies like IBM and Hewlett-Packard. But since Stephan Botes, 37, came on board as the company”s president in 1986, annual sales have exploded–increasing 1,700% to $12.8 million.

Botes sees the need for his company”s services growing. “We essentially supply the brainpower from outside this country that companies find in short supply here,” he says. Botes, who moved to New Jersey from Pretoria, South Africa in 1981, says his native land is a major source of talent in the wake of violence that has swept the country in the last few years. Says he: “The murders and unrest that continue there are contributing to the white flight out of the country, and I”m right there to offer the highly skilled computer specialists a job.”

4. ALAN BOWERS

When gubernatorial candidate Christie Todd Whitman was on the ropes in the last weeks of her long-fought campaign against Jim Florio last year, she realized that in order to pull off a win she had to gain the support of the state”s business community. Whitman turned to among others Alan Bowers, 39,a long-time Republican and the managing partner of the New Jersey practice of Coopers & Lybrand, a big six accounting firm, in search of that business support.

“Whitman”s basic philosophy for government–do more with less, encourage economic development, cut the fat in government–was one that I agreed with and one I knew others in the business community would respond to,” he explains. Bowers” success at getting Whitman”s message across was rewarded just after the election, when Bowers was asked to work on the governor-elect”s budget review committee. He is now the head of Whitman”s economic mas-terplan commission, which is drawing up a business plan for the state. In view of all this Trenton hobnobbing, is there a a full-time job in the Whitman Administration in the cards for Bowers? “I don”t think so. I”m happy here at Coopers in New Jersey. Just being involved in the political process is enough for me.”

5. MIMI BROOKS

Multimedia is being used more and more in business to bring boring corporate documents to life. One of the leading software developers in this new computerized frontier is Mimi Brooks, 33, president of Mur-ray Hill”s Logical Design Solutions. Brooks, a former director of information systems at AT&T”s human resources department, started her own company to develop a computerized annual report program that allows users to zero in on specific elements of the report and view exciting graphics along with the text. Says she: “It”s the next step on the way to the paperless society that everyone has been hearing about.”

Response to the product has been good. Logical Design Solutions has increased annual revenues from $500,000 in 1990, its first year in business, to $4 million last year. Brooks believes the potential of the market is limitless because companies can apply the technology to any type of corporate material, including brochures, manuals or promotional products. Since multimedia is a field where innovations occur by the hour, Brooks will now have to run to keep up.

6. HOWARD BUBB

If you are finally getting used to phoning a business and having a computer direct your call to an electronic drop box, Howard G. Bubb, 39, may be partly to blame–or to thank. He is CEO of Dialogic, a Parsippany company that he claims “created the business of using IBM PCs for voice-processing functions.” The company”s equipment and software are used in voice mail, banking machines and catalog-ordering systems. Bubb, who received his electrical engineering degree in 1976 from Caltech, has flourished in the computer industry. On his way to Dialogic, which went public in March, Bubb founded Lexar Business systems, a digital PBX phone service company. The company expanded through a series of mergers and acquisitions to became part of a high-tech conglomerate worth around $160 million. He joined Dialogic in 1991 as vice president of the products group, and got his current job in 1993. The communications industry merged with the computer industry in the 1980s, and using computers for voice processing is where the action is now. Says Bubb: “It”s a fast moving business, just like the PBX business used to be.”

7. MARIA CAMPOS

Maria Campos, 26, and Allen Rivera-Ureta, 28, make their living primarily working alongside the U.S. government in the war on drugs. The two head up the two-year-old translation, interpretation and transcription firm The Language Arts in Hackensack, which subcontracts translators and interpretors to federal agencies like the Department of Justice and the F.B.I. Their biggest client is the Drug Enforcement Agency.

Campos says she and Rivera-Ureta did not have to undertake the arduous task of learning to bid for government contracts; they learned from others. “In 1989 we were working as subcontractors for a company called LCE, which was doing work for the Department of Justice,” she says. “Allen and I thought, ”We”re already doing this. Why not do it for ourselves?”” So the two began taking in contract work on their own until 1991, when sales reached $50,000, and The Language Arts was formally incorporated. Just two years later, the firm had three offices, a staff of 150 and sales of $1.7 million. Campos is enthusiastic about the company”s outlook both in the public and private sector. “Our business has mostly been word-of-mouth within the federal and state governments, but the North American Free Trade treaty looks like it is really opening up the trading companies to us,” she says.

8. MARY CAPORASO

How could someone with a degree in zoology end up building homes for a living? Mary Caporaso, 34, started working at Farinella Development in Springfield with her father. She knew nothing about the real estate business and first managed apartment buildings. Eventually she became a regional apartment manager. When the interest rates came down in the early 1990s, the company sold its apartments and started building townhouse developments around the state. The first complex was in Eatontown. As the company continued to build homes, Caporaso met with every single customer to make sure they were getting the house of their dreams. “I”ve given new definition to the term homemaker. As a mother and a wife, I understand the way the home needs to be constructed so that it makes sense,” she says. Caporaso, who has just been named secretary of the New Jersey Builders Association, says she doesn”t expect to increase the number of units in the near future, but she wants to maintain what the company already has and continue to be involved in all phases of projects. “If the business gets too large it runs you, you don”t run the business,” she says.

9. JOSEPH CLAFFEY

When Joe Claffey was 10 years old, he was diagnosed as having a form of blood cancer called acute lymphoblastic leukemia. Doctors gave him only eight months to live. He proved them wrong. Claffey, 32, is now executive vice president of Giblon & Claffey, a Clark-based insurance brokerage specializing in the construction industry. In the past 10 years, Claffey has worked hard to educate the industry about such intricate issues as compliance with environmental regulations. The company”s premiums have doubled since he joined the firm, reaching $25 million last year.

As for his childhood disease, Claffey will never forget how he fought to beat the odds. Recently some family friends donated a lab in his name at the Children”s Hospital of Philadelphia, where Claffey received the treatment that cured him in 1979. The Joseph T. Claffey Laboratory is dedicated to the research of childhood diseases. “When I was diagnosed, the odds were that two in 10 children would survive this disease. Now it is seven in 10. If I could see it go to eight or nine in 10 in my lifetime, a lot of things would be fulfilled for me,” he says.

Whether it comes to business or to health, Claffey has shown that it is not smart to bet against him.

10. GALINA DATSKOVSKY

The words “disaster relief” usually bring to mind countless volunteers packing clothes and canned goods to be shipped off to flood-soaked towns or hurricane-ravaged communities. But for many businesses damaged by the World Trade Center terrorist bombing in February 1993, disaster relief meant getting their computers back on-line. One of the high-tech Red Cross specialists that got people up and going was Galina Datskovsky, 29, president of Fair Lawn”s MDY Advanced Technologies. “The need for business disaster planning was never more apparent than after the World Trade Center blast,” she says. MDY helped get computers at three major law firms going again.

MDY was started as a way for Datskovsky and her husband, Mark Moerdler, 34, to make a few extra dollars while pursuing their master”s degrees in computer science at Columbia University. “At first we did simply computer consulting, but when we incorporated the business and began concentrating on disaster recovery and software product development for the legal industry the business really took off.” Since 1988, the firm has achieved growth of more than 1,500%, helping it to make the Inc. magazine 500 this year. Sales in 1993 came in at more than $3 million, and Datskovsky says the potential for continued growth is good. “We”re looking to our software division to expand into industries other than the law over the next few years.”

1. WILLIAM DIANA

When Bill Diana was a senior at Rutgers in 1983, he balked at the idea of a career selling insurance. “I didn”t want to be in insurance at all,” he recalls. “My dream was to go to law school.”

But, like so many college grads, the money had run out, and Diana was forced to reevaluate his options. His new outlook on the insurance field changed when Diana decided to take a sales position at Teachers” Insurance Annuity right after graduation. Surprise of surprise. He liked it. “In sales, you choose your own hours, and if you work hard the rewards are there,” Diana says.

Only eight months after taking on the job at Teachers” Insurance, Diana received an offer from Paul Gross, father of his college roommate, to come to work at his Paramus insurance firm. Diana accepted a sales position in the group-benefits marketing division at Gross”s company, NIA Professional Plans. Ten years later, Diana, 32, is head of that $60 million division. In addition, he was recently named a vice president of the firm and chief operating officer of the personal services division of NIA Professional Plans” parent company, The NIA Group.

Diana is now discovering that he enjoys the administration and management of the company as much as he did selling insurance. “While I really enjoy sales, I see myself getting more involved in the management of the company,” he says. “I find it a lot more interesting and challenging.”

2. JO-ANNE DRESSENDOFER

After stories about her began appearing in national business publications, Jo-Anne Dressendofer started receiving phone calls from admirers around the country. That”s no surprise, since the 33-year-old entrepreneur still looks like an attractive college sophomore. But she is actually CEO of Morristown-based Imedia, a company Dressendofer started when she was 27. Before opening her own company, she worked at a video production house, where she found that clients were frustrated because they had to explain technical requirements over and over again to different people. She wanted to create a company where all corporate marketing could be done under one roof. Her first client, AT&T, gave her $1 million in business along with a phone and a space to work. Since then Imedia has ranked No. 296 on Inc. magazine”s fastest-growing private company list, has been a three-time finalist in Inc.”s Entrepreneur of the Year program, and will be featured in an upcoming Prentice-Hall management textbook. Dressendofer is also a member of the Young Entrepreneur Organization and the only female board member of First Fidelity Bancorp.

With new clients pouring in on a weekly basis, Imedia is expanding rapidly. Dressendofer is now in the process of setting up an office in Chicago, where Hewlett-Packard will be a client. “There”s no stopping us,” she says. With that kind of track record, who”s to doubt Dressendofer or her company.

3. AMY FACTOR

Amy Factor, 36, says, “I”ve not been through that many companies.” True, but she has managed to work her way quickly to the top executive suites of Immunomedics, one of New Jersey”s budding biotechnology firms. Factor, who is a CPA with an MBA from Rutgers, spent seven years at Peat Marwick, the accounting firm, until she was offered what she calls “a tremendous opportunity” to be vice president for finance at The Vista Organization, an entertainment company. “That was the enticement that got me out of accounting,” she says. Morris Plains” Immunomedics picked her up in 1988 to do the same job. In 1989 she added the positions of secretary and treasurer. This February Factor took over as executive vice president. Her primary job now is “to help turn Immunomedics into a financially self-sustaining company,” she says.

That involves shepherding several monoclonal antibody-based X-ray imaging agents through FDA approval and then getting doctors to use the unfamiliar and expensive products. Her job recently became more difficult: in late May the FDA failed to approve the company”s first product. As Factor walks through Immunomedics” new headquarters building she talks about the manufacturing that will eventually fill the still-empty space. But, she says, “We”ve got to get the drugs approved first. That”s the ultimate goal.”

4. STEVE FASULO

The rapid change in the way health care is provided in this country is providing opportunity to Steve Fasulo, 35, vice president of HoMed Convalescent Equipment in Whip-pany. His company, which started out as a family-owned drug store in 1959, moved into the home-medical business in 1966. Fasulo, who has a bachelor”s in economics from Rutgers, started as a purchasing agent at Mountainside Hospital in 1982 before he joined up with HoMed in 1984. Hospitals were then beginning to emphasize shorter patient stays, and he saw home health care as the market of the future, although few companies were doing it then. Since January, Fasulo has been vice president/general manager of the firm, which has grown to 71 employees and $11 million in annual sales, up from 28 employees and $3.7 million in sales two years ago. HoMed offers a wide range of home-medical care and equipment. In fact, Fasulo says that his firm can duplicate at a patient”s home almost any treatment provided in a hospital–at a far lower cost. Says Fasulo, who will soon buy a share of the business: “We are the alternative to institutionalizing people.”

5. WARREN FELDMAN

AT&T. MCI. Sprint. TotalTel? Yes, TotalTel–if Warren H. Feld-man, the company”s 38 year-old CEO has his way. Feldman”s Clifton company competes with those giants to provide long distance phone service with a focus on the business customer. Feldman, a 1977 Wharton graduate with a law degree from George Washington University, had spent three years as a practicing attorney when he saw “this great opportunity for a more interesting and rewarding lifestyle.” In 1983 he joined TotalTel, where his father was a director, to “assist in turning around” the company, which was then a money loser with “nominal revenues.” Feldman, who like his father is a large stockholder in the company, says he upgraded the equipment, hired good people and focused on marketing. The strategy seems to be working. While a number of smaller competitors have merged or gone out of business, TotalTel has grown to about 5,000 customers and has revenues of $2 million a month. Revenues have doubled in just the last 15 months, and Feldman says, “I see them continuing to grow.”

6. PETER FIORETTI

Two heads are better than one, especially when the two people are both financial wizards. Peter Fioretti, 34, (r) and his brother Robert, 32, (l) started Roseland”s Mountain Funding in 1990 to provide debt and equity financing for new acquisitions, development projects, workouts and bankruptcy properties. Their interest rates range from 10% to 15%, as compared with 7% to 8% that most banks charge, but their clients need the capital quickly and are willing to pay the price. In addition, they acquire and develop property for the company”s portfolio.

The brothers have always been in business together. Prior to forming Mountain Funding, they founded Waterfront Invest in Hoboken, a development company that built quality housing in cities. Peter Fioretti has been making waves since he was in his late 20s. He received the state”s Small Business Adminis-tration”s Businessman of the Year award in 1988 and Entrepreneur of the Year in the real estate and construction category by Inc. magazine in 1989. In 1993, the average-sized loan per month at the company was $1 million, and the Fiorettis expect that figure to double in 1994. Double or nothing has made the Fioretti brothers two very successful businesspeople.

7. HOWARD FREEMAN

Sports fan Howard Freeman in 1980 was working at his dream job: promotions director for the New Jersey Nets basketball team. But then a funny thing happened. One pay day, Freeman mistakenly received the paycheck of Nets star Otis Birdsong, and he realized that to get rich in sports there are only two jobs–owner or player. So in late 1981 Freeman started his own promotions company, Promo 1 in Mahwah. The New Jersey Nets became one of his first clients.

Thirteen years later, Freeman, 39, does promotions for sports clients like the Virginia Slims Tennis Championships and the U.S. Olympic Volleyball Team. In 1992 Freeman and his partner John Korff also took over the QuickChek New Jersey Festival of Ballooning. Freeman says his goal is to make the festival, which has been held at Solberg Airport in Readington for the past 11 years, the premier one of its kind in the nation. The numbers show he”s well on his way. In the first year he and Korff ran it, the festival brought in 107,000 people, up from 40,000 the year before.

8. MICHAEL GARIPPA

Michael P. Garippa, 39, started out as a pre-med student at Rutgers, but is more likely to end up owning a hospital at the rate he”s going. He founded Clark-based PromptCare, a home health-care company, in 1985. After getting a master”s degree in public administration from New York University, Garippa went to work for the Newark health department. From there he held jobs in New York City”s Health and Hospitals Corp., Pfizer and Omni Medical. He then spent a year with a small home health-care company before starting PromptCare with a group of hospitals and doctors. The company, which he says, “delivers a boutique level of care,” provides patients with the equipment and training to receive intravenous medications, treatments for breathing problems and a wide variety of other services at home. PromptCare also works with managed-care systems to control costs by monitoring the progress of treatments and keeping patients out of the hospital. PromptCare, which since a 1993 merger is one of three companies that make up the high-tech division of Transworld Home HealthCare, has grown as hospitals seek to discharge patients more quickly. Revenues have grown from $2 million in 1986 to an anticipated $11 million this year. What”s next? Says Garippa: “My goal now is to become a $75 million component of the parent company.”

9. MICHAEL GORDON

On Michael Gordon”s desk sits a tiny paperweight that protects a stack of telephone messages waiting for his reply. The paperweight bears the insignia of one of his major competitors. “I keep it there to keep me on my toes,” Gordon, 38, says with a smile. And it has. Since Fairfield”s Commercial Business Forms started in 1984, sales have increased from $300,000 to $2.55 million last year.

Gordon”s industry of distributing commercial business forms, stationery, brochures, labels and just about any other paper product needed to conduct business is an easy one to get into, and Gordon has many competitors. The secret weapon of Commercial Business Forms is a consulting team that goes to customers and evaluates how they use forms. “We go in and streamline the way in which forms are used,” he says. “Businesses never realize that they”re running their operations inefficiently because no one has ever taken that extra step to ask what the forms do and how they could be made to work more efficiently.”

10. RICHARD GREENBERG

Richard Greenberg”s career in the environmental industry began with real estate. After doing a stint as a chemist with DuPont, Greenberg left the company in 1986 to join an uncle”s real estate business. Many of the properties he handled had environmental problems, and he decided it was costing the company too much to hire consultants to find solutions. Greenberg got rid of the consultants and used his doctorate in chemistry to figure out the answers. After word got out that Greenberg was doing his own consulting, the calls from other real estate companies came pouring in asking for help.

In view of such high demand, Greenberg decided in 1987 to form his own company, Environmental Waste Management Associates. EWMA now employs 100 people, including 25 at an environmental testing lab in Randolph, and revenues for 1994 are projected at $10 million. With the firm”s success, Green-berg, 35, has made a name for himself as an environmental expert. He”ll soon be the facilitator at a conference in Britain on “Air, Water and Waste.” For the future, Greenberg says he may set up his own lobbying company or buy a public company. He also has a few DEPE permits in the works for new technologies.

1. WILLIAM HANSON

William Hanson started working in the real estate business when he was only 15, doing lease extractions and looking at the numbers and percentages. Now the 30 year old has just been appointed president of the James E. Hanson Inc. in Hackensack, which was founded by his father. However, the young Hanson didn”t get to the top of the company by riding the family coattails.

He started working with one of the company”s property managers right out of college and then began to manage a few buildings on his own. In 1985 Hanson negotiated his first lease. Now, as president, he has taken over many of the company”s responsibilities. That will allow his his father to concentrate on other issues like strategic planning.

The younger Hanson is in charge of the 15-person sales staff, and he continues to sell himself as well as his properties. In addition, he is involved with the New America Network, which permits the brokerage to do representations on a national basis. Most importantly, he continues to learn about the industry. “I make it a point to always look back over the past six months to see how far I”ve come,” he says.

2. LONNA HOOKS

Montclair”s Lonna Hooks, 35, was sworn in on Jan. 18 as the 29th Secretary of State by Gov. Christine Todd Whitman and already the ambitious young woman is making her mark on the state”s business community. That”s not surprising because Hooks has been doing that since she received a law degree from Washington D.C.”s Howard University School of Law in 1984. After serving a clerkship with Judge Theodore Newman of the District of Columbia Court of Appeals, she became a litigation analyst at Home Insurance Company of New York, while keeping a private law practice in Montclair.

Hooks worked briefly at the Morristown law firm Shanley and Fisher and then made her first political contact with Whitman, serving as her chief of staff when the governor was president of the New Jersey Board of Public Utilities. After the Democrats returned to power in Trenton, Hooks went to work as senior counsel in the commercial law department of Schering-Plough in Kenilworth. Some wonder whether Hooks has grabbed too much power in the early days of the new administration, but for now she is the point person on business issues for Whitman as the state”s business ombudsman.

3. MICHAEL JAMIESON

After six years of working in advertising, 28-year-old Michael Jamieson in 1985 decided he wanted to do things his own way. He started Jamieson Advertising in Watchung with one client, a small commercial real estate company, and no overhead. Soon Jamieson started to get calls from other real estate companies. But when the real estate market nosedived in the late 1980s and ad budgets went south as well, he knew he had to find another niche.

Jamieson found that niche in high technology. The company has created interactive computer presentations, which permit a com-pany”s background and product information to be presented on a computer screen and allow a user to select just the information the he or she wants to receive. Video, music and sound effects are also part of the package.

Jamieson says programs like this can cost hundreds of thousands of dollars. However since he produces everything in-house he charges only $20,000 to $30,000. Among his clients: ABB Lummus Crest and Dun & Bradstreet. Although only a few New Jersey agencies now offer the services, Jamieson knows the competition will soon be on his heels. “We”ll have to work hard to remain on top,” he says.

4. BARRY KAPLAN

When Barry Kaplan, 36, was an undergraduate at the Wharton School at the University of Pennsylvania he was already in business. One of his ventures was a soda-by-subscription business where fellow undergrads would sign up to have six-packs of soda delivered to their dorm weekly for a nominal price. “Students had these small refrigerators in their dorms, and many didn”t have the time to stock up on drinks,” he says. “I saw there was a need, and I exploited it.”

After graduating magna cum laude from Wharton, Kaplan went on to receive a law degree from George Washington University and then started his own law practice. But he was unsatisfied. “Practicing law is a great intellectual experience,” he says. “But I was much more interested in the economics of the practice, how the business was run.” In 1986 Kaplan became general counsel at Ramsey”s Liberty Travel, and just five years later, he was promoted to chief operating officer. With just over 174 company-owned retail travel agencies, or stores as Kaplan likes to refer to them, Liberty Travel is one of the state”s largest travel companies. In 1993, Liberty Travel had more than $1 billion in revenues.

Kaplan insists that no matter what the economy does, his company”s future is bright. Says he: “We sell something that everyone wants to buy. Everybody wants to go on a vacation.”

5. MICHAEL KEMPNER

Michael Kempner started young. At 19, he went off to Washington, D.C. to get involved in politics. He served in several governmental jobs while attending school at night. After several years of doing that, he got the chance to run his first company and deal with its problems.

The company, Winter”s Liquor-Filled Chocolates, proved to be a challenge. Kempner had to fight to change laws in 35 states so that liquor-filled chocolates, which are very popular in Europe but illegal in most parts of this country, could be sold legally. After that experience, he knew he was prepared to start his own company.

So in 1986 at age 28, Kempner started MWW/Strategic Communications in River Edge. The company is now the largest independent public relations firm in the state and also has offices in Seattle, Washington, D.C., Boston, Santa Fe and New York City. A London office is slated to open soon. Kempner says he wanted to create a company that would combine public relations, media relations, investor relations, advertising as well as marketing and video so that he would be able to serve the client in all areas of media work. Some people consider Kemp-ner too pushy, but few people get very far if they are not pushy.

6. A.J. KHUBANI

In 1983, a 23-year-old A.J. Khubani was looking through the pages of the National Enquirer with wonder. There in black and white were page upon page of advertisements touting everything from X-ray glasses to miracle cellulite cream. Khubani got to thinking, “These guys must be making some money here or why else would there be so many ads?” So Khubani took $20,000 in savings, reached a purchase agreement with a manufacturer of inexpensive AM/FM radio headphones, made up his own ad and contacted the Enquirer. “What was the worst that could have happened to me,” he says jokingly. “I would have lost the $20,000 and have had to go out and get myself a real job.”

Much to Khubani”s surprise, the response was incredible. “It was very exciting,” he says. “I only broke even, but I did $60,000 in business. I was hooked.” Khubani, 34, is now the king of low-budget television infomercials. His company, Telebrands, which has its headquarters in Fairfield, manufactures and sells products such as the Whisper 2000 hearing device and Ambervision sunglasses. Sales in 1993 were more than $100 million. Says he: “We”ve just begun to sell in Western Europe, and the response has been excellent.”

7. DANNY LAM

In August 1990 at the age of 33 and after nearly 10 years of working at TriCon Capital in Paramus, Danny Lam was named president of that multimillion-dollar financial services firm. At the time, TriCon was the commercial finance and equipment leasing arm of Bell Atlantic, and Lam “was flattered at their confidence and impressed with the decision to break away from the Bell Atlantic culture in which there”s a set career plan as to how people progress within the company.”

There was a reason for the company”s departure from the norm. Bell Atlantic had decided to refocus its efforts on telecommunications and get out of financial services.

“In 1993 it just seemed to be the right time for Bell to spin off TriCon,” he says. Lam was ready. After an initial tough two years, the economy began a slow recovery, and TriCon”s fortunes picked up. In 1993 TriCon had revenues of $245.3 million and profits of $37.1 million, up from $242.3 million in revenues and net income of $27.4 million one year earlier. Lam insists the company”s future is bright with the promise of a better economy and its renewed focus on commercial finance and leasing services.

8. KATHY LAWLER

Kathy Lawler has always been ambitious. She finished high school at the age of 16 and then went on to receive her bachelor”s and law degrees. During law school at American University, she did a summer internship at Pitney, Hardin, Kipp & Szuch, the state”s second largest law firm, which is based in Morristown. The firm hired her right after graduation in 1983. She”s still there and was named a partner at 31. Now at 35, she continues to specialize in ERISA- the Employee Retirement Income Security Act, which involves pension and welfare planning. In addition, she has become a master telecommuter so that she can both work and take care of her two children. To complete her professional hat trick, Lawler also teaches the pension law and administration certificate program at the Philadelphia Institute.

In a field where women are just starting to reach the top of the corporate ladder–at Pitney, Hardin there are only eight female partners out of 45–Lawler is confident that the number of women partners will continue to increase, partly because of the new possibilities that have been opened for them by telecommuting. It is tough to juggle family, career and professional growth, but Lawler feels she can handle all that just fine. “A lot of women decide to stop working when they have children, but I”m not going to let that affect my career,” she says.

9. JIMMY LIBMAN

Unlike many small business owners, Jimmy Libman, 37, has been able to expand his small enterprise through both good economic times and bad. His gourmet cookie-making company in West Orange, Gimmee Jimmy”s Cookies, has increased sales steadily from $50,000 in 1984, its first year of operation, to $1 million last year. Growing Gimmee Jimmy”s, though, meant Libman had to overcome more than just economic obstacles. Libman has been deaf since birth.

Libman started Gimmee Jimmy”s Cookies out of his parents” home. The response to his high-fat content but also high-taste cookies has been incredible. His mother Dody had become sort of the local baking celebrity in West Orange for her decadent cookie recipes, and once news spread through the neighborhood that the baked goods made from her recipes were available for sale, the orders came pouring in. The business grew so rapidly that within a year Libman set up his own bakery in West Orange. This year Libman celebrates the company”s tenth year in operation, and he is now considering offering his products to a more diverse line of gourmet shops and possibly franchising the business.

10. JOHN LONSDORF

Fresh out of college, John Lonsdorf started teaching junior high school English, while also doing some advertising and public relations on the side. He signed his first teaching contract for $10,000. Lonsdorf now makes a little more than that.

After teaching for three years, Lonsdorf, 25, joined a small advertising firm, Landmark Advertising, in Whippany. In 1986, he left the firm and at 29 started Roberts & John Advertising and Public Relations. Originally there were two Roberts and one John in the firm, but now there is only one of each–John Lonsdorf and partner Robert Gagauf. Based in Parsippany, the company has 16 major clients, including St. Barnabas Medical Center, AT&T, Cali Associates and Cushman & Wakefield of New Jersey.

Although Lonsdorf has kept the operation small, the firm is involved in all aspects of marketing, including newsletters, direct mail and public relations. The company had $11 million in capitalized billings last year. Lonsdorf says that the biggest change in his industry has been the rapid pace of technological innovation, and he intends to stay on the leading edge of new developments. But the competition remains tough. “We”ll work as hard as we can to remain on top,” he says.

1. STANLEY MATTHEWS

When Stanley Matthews (r) and Vincent Stallings (l) were undergraduate roommates at Kean College in the late 1980s, the two always talked about starting a business together, but they were uncertain about what field they wanted to tackle. “When I was in college, working various part-time jobs, I ended up at a courier service and got the opportunity to see the business from the management side,” Matthews says. “I recommended to my roommate that this might be a good business for us to go into.” With the backing of two partners, and a substantial personal investment of their own, the two graduates launched 504 Express Courier in Newark in 1987.

Catering to Newark”s large law community, Matthews, 30, and Stallings, 31, have expanded their business by investing heavily from the company”s profits in technology. “We”re bringing state-of-the-art computerized tracking and on-line services to our clients just like the national courier companies,” Matthews says. The strategy must be working. The company”s sales are up 110% over the past three years despite the slow economy, and Matthews says that revenues last year were nearly $1 million.

2. FRANK RISALVATO

Two years ago, Frank Risalvato, 34, took $5,000 in savings and started Inter-Regional Executive Search in the unheated basement of his Oakland home. He recalls wryly, “In the winter I used to sit there shivering, answering the phone with my overcoat on. Have you ever tried to type when your hands are shivering?” Today, Risalvato”s business consists of three employees and several blissfully heated rooms in a Pompton Lakes office building.

As a testament to how much his business has grown since those early days, Risalvato keeps three manila folders close at hand chock full of billings for each year he has been in business. The folder containing 1991 billings is barely filled, but the 1993 one is a lot thicker. It contains billings of about $370,000.

The company”s clients include some of the largest consumer electronics and insurance companies in the nation. Risalvato”s 1994 folder is now coming along nicely. “If things keep going the way they”ve been going for the past few months,” he says confidently, “this could be a two-folder year.”

3. THOMAS RIZK

Thomas Rizk, 37, knows he is young to be the chief financial officer of a company. In fact, he never expected to have that role. In 1989 Rizk joined Cranford-based Cali Associates, a real estate developer, as general counsel. He had recently received his law degree from New York University. As general counsel, Rizk immediately became a member of the company”s executive committee, where he was involved with all of the major decision making. At the time, Cali was right in the middle of the real estate market crash, and Rizk soon began to manage finances. Rizk had an interest in tax law while in law school, and so increased financial responsibility was a natural fit. In 1992 he was appointed chief financial officer of the company.

Cali has continued to do well under Rizk”s financial direction. Buildings have remained 80% occupied, and leasing activity has continued to increase since the lowest days of the recession in 1991.

Rizk, though, hasn”t let the title go to his head. He wants to continue to strengthen the firm”s real estate portfolio and is looking for new ways to expand revenues. “I want to remain a driving force in taking the company into new directions,” he says.

4. ELIZABETH ROBERTS

Most people who think about health care think the future lies in managed care. Dr. Elizabeth Roberts, 37, thinks that”s where her future lies, too. She is the director of Flagship Health Systems, a subsidiary of Delta Dental Plan of New Jersey. She administers Flagship”s product, DeltaCare, under which patients are directed to selected dentists who receive a set monthly fee for their care. Roberts received her D.D.S. degree from Marquette in 1981 and got her first taste of management when she filled in for another dentist who was on sick leave. “I wanted to do more,” she says.

Roberts has already had a varied career in managed dental care. In 1986 she went to work as an insurance consultant, helping Prudential launch its own national dental plan. Prudential hired her in 1988, and when she left three years later she was a regional director of its dental maintenance organization. Roberts, who went to night school to get an MBA from Rutgers in 1991, also recently received a certification in life insurance.

Roberts sees a “strong leadership role” for herself in the growing managed dental care field, working with businesses to save money on benefits, and with dentists to develop plans “they can be proud of.”

5. ROBERT RUDIN

Robert Rudin wanted to create a different kind of real estate company. When he was asked in 1987 to start up the New Jersey office of Edward S. Gordon Co., the large New York City firm, he wanted the company to focus on tenant representation and to offer a higher level of customer service than other brokerages. He felt that this would be the way for the company to compete in a state where they didn”t have any name recognition. Now at 38, Rudin is the executive director of an office that boasts more than 40 employees and a lease portfolio in New Jersey of more than 1 million sq. ft.

The real estate bug bit Rudin early. He started right out of college with Cushman & Wakefield. Then a New York City-based firm, Douglas, Elliman, Knight & Frank, asked Rudin to start up its New Jersey office in Secaucus. Rudin worked there for 10 years, and was responsible for many of the state”s largest transactions at that time. He was with Douglas, Elliman until moving to Edward S. Gordon Co.

As the Gordon company continues to grow, Rudin is looking to take it in new directions. Earlier this year, he set up a group to tap into the industrial market, an area in which the company had previously not done much work.

6. ALFRED SCOTT

Like all fashion designers, Alfred Scott, 29, and his sister, Melinda Scott Katzman, 34, showcase their trendy new line of products to buyers every spring. Not only show. They also sell a lot. Wholesalers last year snapped up $11.2 million of their product. But it”s not the latest in baby doll dresses or bell-bottom pants that whips wholesalers into a buying frenzy; it”s gift wrapping paper. That”s right, gift wrapping paper.

In 1987, while Al was finishing his senior year at Syracuse University, the brother-sister team were two entrepreneurs hunting for a business plan. After considering and then rejecting several start-up ideas, Melinda came upon a metallic tissue sheet product while working with a paper-products maker.

“The demand for the shiny wrapping paper was huge, but there was only one manufacturer making it at the time,” Melinda says. With an initial investment of $60,000, Rockaway”s Glitterwrap was born. The key to the company”s phenomenal growth, says Al, is change. By diversifying its product line to include more than 100 types of gift wrapping paraphenalia, Scott says the company will continue to stay one step ahead of the competition. That means always reacting immediately to fickle trends.

7. WARREN STRUHL

Sometimes less is more–just ask Warren Struhl, president of PaperDirect. The Lyndhurst company was founded in 1988 by Struhl, 32, his brother Teddy and friend Alan Kipust to sell specialty laser printer paper to computer users who want to look good in print but don”t want to buy a truck-load of paper.

Teddy, who was working for a business that sold larger quantities of paper, brought a knowledge of the field to the venture. Warren at the time was selling real estate in Chicago, but he realized there were “lots of people like me who had a laser printer but no access to small quantities of interesting paper.” So the brothers and Kipust started a catalog business offering laser paper through direct mail. They saw the catalog as a way to grow rapidly and get national distribution. The response to the first 10,000 catalogues encouraged the fledging company to have a private stock offering in order to raise about $1 million for expansion from family, friends and business associates.

PaperDirect was recently sold to Deluxe, the St. Paul check printing giant, for more than $100 million. Warren will remain president. The company now has 450 employees, and he expects sales of more than $100 million this year.

8. EDWARD SUSCO

Edward Susco, 37, and his team are on call 24 hours a day, seven days a week. But he is not a plumber or a locksmith, Susco is president of Audio Visual Associates in East Hanover, which provides sales, rentals and service of any and all types of high-tech commercial audio-visual equipment. His round-the-clock service has saved the neck of more than one executive on the verge of a nervous breakdown when the VCR or some other piece of equipment went on the blink a half hour before a major presentation.

Susco recalls one particular evening: Blaine Hess, the CEO of Lipton,had scheduled an important meeting at the company”s Englewood Cliffs headquarters on a Monday morning, and everyone was naturally going crazy trying to make everything right. When it became apparent at 6:00 Friday night that some equipment in the company”s new multipurpose room was on the fritz, a frantic call went out to Audio Visual Associates. Susco and his staff worked through the night and the weekend to get the equipment working. Lipton executives later reported to Susco that the big boss was extremely pleased.

Susco says his company”s responsiveness is what sets it apart from the rest. “That”s the kind of service other companies in this industry just will not provide,” he says. “That is the key to our success.” And successful it has been. Sales have increased from $280,000 in 1988, the year Susco founded the firm, to $2.4 million last year.

9. RAJ TAHIL

In 1987 Raj Tahil was working in the new product development division of Procter & Gamble, when he began to notice the increasing demand for gelatin capsules. Those are the soluble containers used for drugs like ibuprofen. “Two relatives of mine had a business in India making just such gelatin capsules, and we were discussing the increase in demand, especially in the animal-health sector,” he says.

Tahil, who was living and working in Toronto at the time, decided to look into starting his own gelatin capsule manufacturing company, but needed a location that would provide a fertile market. Says Tahil: “I chose to move to New Jersey in 1989 for three reasons: the heart of the pharmaceutical industry is here; the state has one of the best international transportation networks; and because of the abundance of professionals, like law and accounting firms, that are knowledgeable in international trade.” After five years, Torpac in East Hanover is one of the leading producers of gelatin capsules for the animal-health products industry. It had sales last year of $1.5 million. There is a cloud, however, on Tahil”s horizon: the slowdown in drug research due to fear over health-care reforms. “Last year our pre-clinical research sector was down 40%,” he says disappointedly. “It was a real body blow.” But Tahil says that his company will keep growing by tapping the field that has kept its revenues climbing recently: international business. “The overseas market for gelatine capsules is rapidly increasing.”

10. SANDRA WEINER

Sandra Weiner, 35, says, “I”ve been an entrepreneur for years.” She remembers making pillows with tie-dye designs when she was 11 years old and selling them to local stores around her Michigan town. Now she is president of Samco Time Recorders, a Carlstadt company that integrates hardware and software into computerized systems to track the comings and goings of a company”s employees.

Weiner graduated from Wharton in 1982. Before Samco she worked at a dessert-making company and for a firm that manages fitness facilities for employers. In 1988 she started HCS Communications, a data communications firm that installed computers and networks. Two years later, while she was negotiating to provide service for a company that sold computerized time recorders, the firm”s management decided to leave the business and turned over its clients to Weiner. Computerized data collection–time clocks–became her company”s main line of business. Sales have increased 75% during the last year. Weiner says that when she was an employee she realized that since she was already putting in 16-hour days, “I should be on my own.” u