Empowering Angels: Manny Ratafia
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These articles were prepared for the November 29, 2000 edition of
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Scholarship Online: Ira Fuchs
In 1996 Ira Fuchs, then Princeton University’s
vice president for computing and information technology, thought using
the Internet in higher education would more likely improve the quality
of education rather than reduce its cost. Now Fuchs has relinquished
his university post to be vice president for information technology
at the Andrew Mellon Foundation, and he is working on Internet-based
projects that do dramatically improve the quality of pedagogy.
At a free technology lecture at the Princeton Public Library on
Tuesday,
December 5, at 6:30 p.m., Fuchs will discuss some of the newest, most
intriguing resources for scholars. Call 609-924-9529 for information.
As a teenager in Forest Hills, Queens, Fuchs was a ham radio operator.
His mother owned and operated women’s clothing stores, and his late
father was a wholesale diamond dealer. He enrolled at Columbia
University
when he was 16 and did systems programming even as an undergraduate.
At 24, with a master’s degree, he directed the computer facility at
the City University of New York. There he co-founded BITNET, a tool
for liberal arts scholars to exchange messages that prepared the
ground
for today’s flourishing Internet E-mail system.
As Princeton University’s computer czar, recruited by then president
William Bowen, Fuchs opened the sluices of fast Internet connections
to every dorm. Now at the Manhattan-based foundation, which also has
an office on Alexander Street in Princeton, Fuchs oversees a series
of demonstration projects in the cost effective applications of
technology
to teaching large numbers of students in very basic subjects.
Chief among these is an electronic archive of scholarly journals,
known as Jstor, which make scholarly journals accessible on the web
— able to be searched and printed out at super-high resolutions.
Another Mellon project is photographing and digitizing art found in
caves in Dun Huang China, an almost inaccessible oasis on the edge
of the Gobi Desert. This artwork offers details of life in China over
a 1,000-year period that ended in the 14th century.
A third example that Fuchs will show in his library talk is the online
course for alumni that has been launched by Princeton University.
The “Walk in Rome” web course, devised by faculty member
John
Pinto, is a good example of what a high quality multimedia seminar
can be, says Fuchs. “It has the feel of a well-done PBS show,
and it uses a CD for low speed connection but is also online.”
But Jstor is the Mellon Foundation’s pride-and-joy project. It is
now a not-for-profit organization headed by Kevin Guthrie, a
civil engineering major and varsity football player at Princeton
University,
Class of 1984 (U.S. 1, November 27, 1996). Based in New York City,
Jstor also has offices in Princeton and Ann Arbor.
“By scanning and doing OCR (optical character reading) we have
recreated one of the largest libraries of its kind,” says Fuchs.
“You can completely search on the full text in any of the
journals;
you can pull up the page images and print them.” In 1996 Jstor
had taken 15 journals that go back to the last century and put them
on the web. Now it has put up more than 120 journal titles, amounting
to 6 million pages. The expansion of Jstor has attracted more than
800 subscribing institutions in over 30 countries. Soon it will be
available in public libraries.
“What we have learned is, that what seems like a simple thing
to do, turns out to be not so simple,” says Fuchs. “We have
learned about the whole process of turning a paper volume into a
usable
searchable accurate database.”
Top Of PageNews Articles Online
While programs like Jstor bring scholarly journals
closer
to their audience, the public libraries are finding news for their
patrons to access back articles from daily newspapers. Now cardholders
at almost all the libraries in New Jersey can access and print
full-length
newspaper articles from four newspapers — the New York Times,
Washington Post, Philadelphia Inquirer, and the Bergen Record —
from their home computers. A three-year contract with the Gale Group
to add this service went into effect on November 1 for libraries in
Mercer and Middlesex counties.
The New York Times offers several months of archived articles, and
access dates back four years for the Philadelphia, Washington, and
Bergen newspapers. If you were going directly to the newspaper’s
websites,
you would be able to search the archives for free but would be charged
for the full text download.
Use a library card number to log onto these websites to get the
newspaper
articles:
Mercer County Library: West Windsor, Lawrence,Hightstown,etc. (www.mcl.org).Plainsboro Free Public Library, South Brunswick PublicLibrary,or any library in Middlesex County, www.lmxac.org.East Brunswick Public Library,www.ebpl.org.Princeton Public Library, www.princetonlibrary.orgwill have the four-newspaper archive in the near future.Top Of PageEmpowering Angels: Manny RatafiaArchangels are a new breed,” says Daniel Conleyof Silicon Garden Angels Plus Investors (www.oncallcfo.com).”Archangelsbring enough capital to the table to do good, big work,” saysConley, “but they also add value with their wise technicalcounsel.Other investors consider this `the smart money.’”Two from this “new breed” of investor, Warren Bagatelleof Loeb Partners and Manny Ratafia, an individual investor,share the program at the New Jersey Entrepreneurial Network meetingon Wednesday, December 6, at noon at the Doral Forrestal. The title:”Archangels: When $1 Million Is Not Enough.” Cost: $45. Call609-279-0010 (www.njen.com).Bagatelle made his reputation as a “workout” manager, someonewho takes over direct management of companies that are havingdifficultiesand therefore has insight on how to analyze management and product.The son of a professional photographer, he majored in economics atUnion College in Schenectady, Class of 1960, and has an MBA fromRutgers.He spent seven years with Arthur Andersen and 12 years doing workoutsfor industrial companies in Rochester, New York. For this he was hiredby large investors, such as GE Capital, to be the operating officer.”I did five or six,” he says proudly, “and never lostone.”Bagatelle left line management for Wall Street in 1981 and was CEOof a small New York Stock Exchange member firm, and then became amanaging director of the venerable Loeb Partners, nearly 100 yearsold. Personally, he has about three dozen investments, and the firmhas 10 times that number. For his personal investments, Bagatellesays he generally chips in $50,000 to $100,000, along with one ortwo of his partners, to a variety of small companies (U.S. 1, March15, 2000).Manny Ratafia led the angel round of investment for SealTech, anincubatorcompany out of Stevens Institute (www.sealtech.com). “Becauseit had a value-added angel — Manny Ratafia — contributinga significant six figure amount, all the other cards in the deckshuffledtogether,” says Conley. “Other investors followed the `smartmoney,’ resulting in more than $1 million of equity investment andover $5 million of capital.”Ratafia, an individual equity investor in startup companies, is basedin Woodbridge, Connecticut (E-mail: manny@commtechsoftware.com).Growingup in New York on the Lower East Side and in Brighton Beach, he comesfrom a long line of entrepreneurs and always knew he wanted to beone. His Polish grandfather owned apartment buildings, a bus service,and a shoe factory, and his cousins currently have businesses.An alumnus of Cooper Union, Class of 1971, Ratafia has two master’sdegrees in engineering from MIT, one from Harvard, and an MBA fromDartmouth. He had a consulting firm, Technology Management Group,that provided consulting and market research on biotech and medicalproducts, and he also has a software firm, Commtech.Always a voracious reader and researcher, Ratafia created a nichefor himself by working around the clock to create special industryreports that beat the competition by six months. Pharmaceutical firmsand venture capitalists paid $2,000 and $3,000 for three 1986 reports— on a new cancer treatment, on the implications of AIDS research,and on the impact of biotech on veterinary medicine. “There wasa great need for information on biotechnology in the mid ’80s, andit wasn’t being fulfilled,” he says.From what he earned with these reports, he invested $500,000 inSealTech.Based in Parsippany, this company is making environmentally friendlyplastic film adhesives that do not expose workers to solvents.”Rightnow just one other company makes this kind of thing and it was foundedby Tim Peck, who now runs SealTech,” says Ratafia. “Thedownsideis very low, because we already have customers waiting for product.It has a tiny sliver of the market in each area where we think wehave opportunities.”At the NJEN meeting he will discuss his experiences at SealTech.”Angelinvestors and entrepreneurs don’t have enough information,” hesays. “It’s difficult to get quality information. Everyone hastheir own ax to grind, which introduces biases into their advice.I will tell how to try to make the playing field a little morelevel.”He will also tell how a small investor can negotiate better deals.”Venture capitalists would like to perpetuate the myth that theyhold all the cards and have all the power,” says Ratafia. “Atalmost every meeting I have gone to, they keep repeating that thereare so many deals out there, that whatever terms they want to set,everybody else should go along with. That is not an accurate portrayalof their relative power,” he says, “because once they haveselected something they are interested in, they are not going to walkaway from it that quickly. The VCs are under great pressure to investthe funds and invest them well, and if they have a good deal theyare not going to walk away from it because someone wants to changesomething here and there.”Ratafia is a skilled negotiator and, in fact, negotiation classeswith Leonard Greenhaulgh at Dartmouth were among his favorites. Asthe angel with the largest investment in SealTech he successfullybargained with the lead investor (an institution) to make the dealbetter for himself and the other angels. “We just insisted onwhat was appropriate,” he says, “and got them to change hugenumbers of things.” Various agreements had been set up so thatlarger institutions were favored in subtle ways, such as how thosewith a certain percentage of ownership can make certain decisions.His tips:Do the negotiating yourself. “They initially wantedto talk only through my lawyer as opposed to me directly,” saysRatafia. “That is more difficult, less efficient, and moreexpensive.Angels who are putting in $50,000 — no way they can justifyspending$10,000 on lawyers. As an entrepreneur I wrote my own contracts,rarelyused lawyers to help me, and if I did they would come in at the verylast stage.”Get the support of the other angels. “In additionto representing my own $500,000 investment, I also represented theothers and had quite a bit of leverage.” If smaller investorsassert themselves, he says, it is “not that difficult” tomake the agreements fairer. “Even someone putting in as littleas $25,000, if they can represent all of the angel class, they canhave quite a bit of clout.”Negotiate a little at a time and you are much more likelyto get what you want than if you present one long list. “I saidthat here is something I had a little bit of a problem with, and oncethey have agreed to one list of terms, each additional term is justone more little item.”Don’t take for granted that things can’t be done. “Younever know until you try. As an entrepreneur I did lots of thingsthat the rule books say you can’t do. It helps you stand out. As anangel, I have an unusual style of negotiation, tough andcreative.”Go for the win/win solution. “All of the investorsin SealTech feel we have a really good deal and a really goodcompany,”says Ratafia. “It is very important to create the feeling that,in the end, we are all on the same side and are working together.”— Barbara FoxTop Of PageCorporate AngelsPrevent Child Abuse-New Jersey honored StevenRosenthal,co-CEO of Epix, as Man of the Year. Deborah C. Brittain,president of the Association of Junior Leagues International, receivedWoman of the Year award. Epix is the Woodbridge-based professionalemployer organization (PEO) that Rosenthal founded less than 10 yearsago. It now has over 50,000 worksite employers and is the nation’slargest PEO.The state headquarters of the social service organization is in NewBrunswick. The annual dinner, at which Rosenthal was honored, raisedmore than $107,000 — a record amount.Harriet Bryan and Ted Vial received the fifth annualLeslie “Bud” Vivian Award for Community Service at thecommunityservice on Thanksgiving Day in the Princeton University Chapel. Theaward comes with $2,000 to be donated to a nonprofit organizationof the recipients’ choice.Bryan was instrumental in the development of Princeton CommunityVillage,Elm Court, and Griggs Farm, and has also been honored with a U.S.1 Helping Hands award. Vial was the first president of PrincetonCommunityHousing and urged early efforts to end racial discrimination inPrinceton’shousing.Top Of PageThe Chamber’s WalkThe New Jersey Chamber of Commerce solicits sponsorshipsfor the 64th annual “walk” to Washington, set for Thursday,February 1. The walking is done on a special Amtrak train that takesbusiness people and politicos to the nation’s capital. So many peoplewant to go that this year the chamber will send two trains — onebustling, the second one more quiet. The Capitol Steps, a troupe ofCongressional staffers-turned comedians, will entertain at a dinnerat the Marriott Wardman Park. In previous years, the newly electedpresident has consented to speak at the dinner.Advertisements in an “attendance book,” which is placed onevery train seat, start at $250 for a quarter page, and similar adsare available fro the “Congressional Directory” to bedistributedat the dinner. Call Kevin Friedlander at 609-989-7888. Ticketsfor the train ride, reception, and dinner cost up to $565 for thosewho are not chamber members.Top Of PageParticipate PleaseNew Jersey high school seniors can win FutureTechnologistsAwards granted by the New Jersey Technology Council and sponsoredby Vega Consulting Solutions in Parsippany, u.1 net ofMarlton, Dathil in Trenton, and NJTechNews, the houseorgan of NJTC. Other sponsorships are available at from $2,500 to$15,000.These awards have the purpose of encouraging students to stay in NewJersey and to expose them to technical careers. One award is forweb-basedinformation technology and another for life sciences andbioinformatics.Student applicants should be planning to attend a New Jersey collegeor university and to major in a high-tech subject. They may enteras individuals or as a team of two or three from the same high school,and they must do a project that shows skills in critical thinking,leadership, communications, presentation, and collaboration. Thedeadlinefor submitting the project is March 30, 2001. Those who make the firstcut will be given a final interview on May 23.Bob Carullo (of the Lakehurst Naval Air Station) and Ray Ingram(of Dathil) co-chair the NJTC’s technology workforce committee, whichdeveloped the scholarship program, along with the Technology EducatorsAssociation of New Jersey and a design team lead by Ingram and NJTC’sSara Lee Pindar. Call Pindar at 856-787-9700.Top Of PageDonate PleaseDave Collins, one of the DJs for the WNJO morningshow, is camping out in the parking lot of Lawrence Toyota onRoute 1 South and will stay there until the 18-wheeler trailer fromPrinceton Moving and Storage is filled with canned goods. Thefood will be donated to the Community Food Bank of New Jersey andSecond Harvest in Hillside New Jersey. Live updates will be airedon 94.5, the oldies station. Supporting this “WNJO’s Camping forCans” effort is Applebee’s Neighborhood Grill and Bar.Previous StoryNext StoryCorrections or additions?This page is published by PrincetonInfo.com— the web site for U.S. 1 Newspaper in Princeton, New Jersey.
