Corrections or additions?
This article by Barbara Fox was prepared for the October 29, 2003
issue of U.S. 1 Newspaper. All rights reserved.
Fast Lane: WindsorTech Rollup
Shares of WindsorTech Inc. began trading on Monday,
October 27, on the Nasdaq over-the-counter bulletin board as WSRT.
A data security and environmental compliance service company, the
firm was founded two years ago and did a reverse buyout with Delta
States Oil to become public. The company, which has 38,000 square
feet on Lake Drive in Hightstown, expected trading to begin in August
or September, but there were some red-tape delays.
Two years ago five partners chipped in a total of $900,000 to start
WindsorTech, among them the 41-year-old CEO Marc Sherman (U.S. 1,
September 17). Sherman promises to do a roll-up in this young industry
by buying small, profitable companies that are operating in a limited
geographic area or with a specific product focus. A roll-up would
reduce shipping costs and streamline work for clients with numerous
offices and facilities.
“We have invested heavily in our infrastructure to build a system
capable of handling in excess of 35,000 end-of-life IT assets per
month,” says Sherman. “With this infrastructure in place,
we are beginning to address the data security and environmental
concerns
of end-of-life IT assets for corporate, public and academic
America.”
WindsorTech’s audit report and certificate of disposition includes
function, condition, configuration, fair market value of sold or
donated
items, and whether sold to international market place whole or in
parts. Cost per computer, including keyboard, mouse, monitor, and
CPU: $11.50.
What’s good for Sherman’s business is the discard rate for computers.
An estimated 215 million computers will be discarded over the next
three years, each containing from two to eight pounds of lead that
will end up in the waste stream unless the computers are recycled
or cleansed of toxic materials.
Also good for the business are several government regulations, such
as EPA fines for improper disposal of IT assets that can be as much
as $10,000 per toxin, the Health Insurance Portability and
Accountability
Act (HIPAA) that mandates the confidentiality of patient records even
after the equipment has been tossed, the Gramm-Leach-Bliley Act of
1999 that requires banks, stock brokers, and insurance companies to
keep records confidential, and the Sarbanes-Oxley Act of 2002, which
requires that public companies maintain records of IT assets for seven
years.
A tremendous amount of due diligence is required in the vendor
selection
process for data security and environmental compliance, warns Sherman.
“The fines and liability involved for improperly handled
end-of-life
IT assets are simply too great to trust to a vendor that is not on
the cutting edge of the industry.”
WindsorTech Inc., 70 Lake Drive, Hightstown 08520.Marc Sherman, CEO. 609-426-4666; fax, 609-426-4543.Www.windsortechinc.comTop Of PageMelrich Road SaleThe 112 Melrich Road building housing FNS LogisticsServices has been bought by Dallas-based Crow Holdings. It was partof a two-building $19.5 million transaction that also included 114Melrich Road.One of the largest stand-alone buildings in the Exit 8A marketplace,the FNS warehouse has 245,528 square feet, 32-foot clear ceilingheights,and two drive-ins. Just before the purchase, Federal Express signeda lease for 75,000 square feet in the 114 Melrich Road building, whichused to be a distribution center for a maker of body buildingequipment.FNS is a Korea-based firm that distributes the products for anotherKorea-based firm, LG Electronics. Formally named Freight NetworkSystemsLogistics Services Inc., FNS moved in last summer. Clark Kim, itspresident, came from Korea last year. FNS will distribute the productsof LG Electronics (which has its United States headquarters inEnglewoodCliffs) in the eastern United States. This location was chosen bothfor its proximity to major highways and for its security — thewarehouse had been located in Avenel.About 10 workers and 11 staff members work in the office. “Eventhough we do business in freight forwarding for LG now, we may workfor other companies in the future,” says Brandon Kim, theassistantmanager. He came to this country when he was in high school andgraduatedfrom George Washington University in 2000 with a finance major. Incharge of human resources and purchasing is Todd Kim.The investment came from the second of three funds owned by CrowHoldingsRealty Partners, a $365 million real estate limited partnershipsponsoredby Crow Holdings, which directs the investments of the Trammell Crowfamily. Crow bought the properties from the JP Morgan SpecialSituationProperty Fund, a commingled pension trust fund managed by JP MorganFleming Asset Management. JP Morgan had bought the first building,114 Melrich, and built the second one, 112 Melrich. It was representedby Gary Gabriel in the sale.In the FSN lease, Robert Sager and Nick Kim of Insignia/ESG in SaddleBrook (now CB Richard Ellis) represented the tenants, while FrankCaccavo and Jason Goldman of Cushman & Wakefield represented thelandlord.FNS Logistics Services, 112 Melrich Road, SouthBrunswick Industrial Park, Monmouth Junction 08852. Clark Kim,president.609-409-0077; fax, 609-409-4496. Home page: www.fnsusa.comTop Of PageElder AccountingHilly Berlin and Barbara Kady aim to take some of theworries out of old age, both for the elderly and for their children.Whether the elderly person is living in his or her own home, or isin a care center, somebody — a child, a sibling, a niece or nephew— is eventually going to have to step in and deal with the elder’sfinancial affairs.Berlin’s and Kady’s new company, Princeton Financial Care ServicesLLC, can take care of the day-to-day bookkeeping and also provideadvice on longer-term negotiations with lawyers, stock brokers, andfinancial advisors. They do not sign checks, and they do not sellinvestments — but they promise to organize all the necessaryinformationso that the elderly person or the geographically distant relativecan easily understand it.The pair plan to work with elderly people in the Princeton,Hightstown,and Pennington area. Their marketing plan consists of a well-writtenbrochure sent to assisted living homes, and they say the responsethey have received indicates that there is a need for their services.”There is plenty of room in this market,” says Linda Richter,whose firm — Personal Paperwork Solutions and More — alsocaters to the senior community. “We do medical billing, and theyhave other areas of expertise. Everyone has a different niche.”Berlin is an alumnus of Rutgers, Class of 1956, who was a partnerat Eisner and Tenenbaum in New Brunswick. Joined by Barbara Kady,he opened his own firm, H Berlin CPA PA on Livingston Avenue in NewBrunswick 30 years ago. Berlin’s wife teaches elementary educationin North Brunswick, and they live in Princeton. Kady went to Collegeof New Jersey, Class of 1959, and taught school before joining Berlinin his business. Kady’s husband, Robert Kady, is an architect,formerlyat the Hillier Group and now at Thomas Associates, and they live inPennington.They merged with two younger CPAs to form Schorp Collier & Berlinso as to diminish the amount of their tax work, hectic during thetax season. “In our practice we saw all the problems that theelderly were having,” says Berlin.Their company can organize and review bills, arrange for directdepositsand monthly deposits, prepare and file insurance claims, meet withattorneys and investment advisors on financial plans, reconcile bankaccounts and summarize broker account activity, prepare and submittax forms for household employees and caregivers, administer trustsand estates, and manage rental properties.Short-term projects might include photographing the contents of ahouse for an electronic inventory, evaluating options for long-termcare insurance, evaluating options for selling a home versus renting,evaluating the pros and cons of reverse mortgages, and arranging giftsto children and grand children.Decrying the lack of planning that causes confusion when it comestime to execute a will, they note that sometimes executors appointedat the time a will was prepared become incapable of performing theservices needed, and they offer their services as executors.The price depends on the type of work and frequency of work. To write15 to 30 checks once a month will probably cost $125 a month, saysBerlin. That includes going to the senior citizen’s home to pick upthe bills and discuss the work and then paying the bills, probablyusing Quicken, Microsoft Money, Quickbooks, or Peachtree software.”Based on what we have seen, $30 to $35 an hour is a fairfee,”says Berlin. “On certain cases we can charge a flat fee.”That may seem like a lot of money for someone who can write theirown checks, but the target client is the elderly person who no longerhas the ability to do it correctly — and who doesn’t have a nearbyrelative willing to do it. “We have witnessed situations whereduplicate payments were made, insurance coverage lapsed, and dividendchecks were not deposited,” says Kady. “We have observedseniorsmaking inappropriate investments, such as tax shelters and unsuitableannuities.”If Berlin and Kady are helping other people to slow down, what willhappen to their clients when they retire? “We have a younger CPAwho is willing to work with this,” says Berlin. “We hope tohave this so well organized that we can bring in younger people andjust do the supervision.”Princeton Financial Care Services, 106 WestFranklinAvenue, Straube Center, Pennington 08534. Hilly Berlin CPA and BarbaraKady. 609-730-0067. E-mail: princecare@aol.com Home page:www.princeton-financial.comTop Of PageSenior Care MovesSenior Care Management moved last month from 23 Route1 North in Pennington to 261 Upper Ferry Road in Ewing, where it canmore easily serve clients in Bucks County as well as in Mercer andHunterdon counties.”We are still a small business, and we cater to individual needsto help elders age in place,” says Jan McCurdy, a partner in thetk-year-old firm along with Barbara Bristow. Founded in 1990, thefirm offers professional care management (services and counseling)for older adults and their families. It has a certified home healthdivision providing long-term services for older adults. The partnersare members of the National Association of Geriatric Care Managers,the National Guardianship Association, and the National Associationof Social Workers.Senior Care Management, 261 Upper Ferry Road, Ewing08628. Barbara Bristow, partner. 609-737-8398; fax, 609-737-1220.Home page: www.seniorcaremgt.comTop Of PageGrants AwardedFraser Research, 182 Nassau Street, Box 1569,Princeton08542. Alexander G. Fraser, president. 609-497-7337; fax,609-497-7335.Fraser Research has received a five-year collaborative award fromthe National Science Foundation for a project called “100 Megabitsper second to 100 Million Households.” It will be conducted byinvestigators from Fraser Research, Carnegie Mellon, Stanford, Rice,University of California at Berkeley, and Internet2.Alexander “Sandy” Fraser set up the not-for-profit researchorganization to provide research in science and technology in supportof a national communications infrastructure (U.S. 1, August 6, 2003).Fraser predicts that domestic access to 100 megabit-per-secondInternetaccess will dramatically affect daily life, “but only if thenetworkis much more reliable, anticipates applications not yet envisioned,is economically sustainable for the long run, is easier to use andoperate, and is more secure than the Internet is today.” Theprojectwill design blueprints for this near-future network by applyingprinciplesfrom security, economics, and network research.At Cambridge University, Fraser had written the file system for theAtlas 2 computer, England’s first time-sharing system. Withcollaborators,he invented the Universal Receiver Protocol and INCON, a cell-basednetwork that operated at two megabits per second on home telephonewire. By 1994 he was associate vice president for information scienceresearch, focusing on electronic commerce for digital audio, billing,broadband access and home networks. In 1996, after AT&T’s divestiture,he set up AT&T Labs Research and then went back to doing researchas AT&T’s Chief Scientist in 1998, retiring to found the researchfirm.Fraser Research, 182 Nassau Street, Box 1569,Princeton08542. Alexander G. Fraser, president. 609-497-7337; fax,609-497-7335.Top Of PageGrant for AutismLinda Brzustowicz, an associate professor in Rutgers’department of genetics, has a five-year, $3.7 million NationalInstitutesof Health (NIH) grant to investigate the genetic basis of autism.According to the American Medical Association, autism today is about10 times more prevalent than it was in the 1980s. New Jersey reportsa jump from 1,042 autistic children in 1994 to 3,984 by 2001. No cureis known for the disease, which is connected to a early braindevelopmentand is usually diagnosed in the first three years of life.Brzustowicz and her colleagues at the University of Medicine andDentistryof New Jersey (UMDNJ) will select 150 families for study. They arespecifically looking for families that have an autistic member andother nonautistic relatives who exhibit traits associated with theillness such as problems with language.”Our strategy is to examine the hereditary patterns of theindividualcharacteristics that make up the spectrum of behaviors that constitutethis disorder,” says Brzustowicz, who is also a psychiatrist andassociate professor of psychiatry at UMDNJ. “In doing so, wehope to be able to more easily find the genes that are linked tospecificcomponents, one at a time.”Brzustowicz and her colleagues will also obtain 850 sets of previouslycollected and stored “trio” samples, consisting of geneticmaterial from autistic individuals and their parents. This geneticmaterial will be analyzed and compared — a child’s to each ofthe two parents’ — to more precisely define genes linked toautism.The trios will be drawn from the Autism Genetic Resource Exchange(AGRE) and the NIMH Human Genetics Initiative samples, both of whichare contained in the Rutgers University Cell and DNA Repository, astorehouse of cell lines cultured from blood samples donated by morethan 40,000 people around the world. For information about the study,E-mail: autism@biology.rutgers.edu.Top Of PageHigh Tech & BiotechTen Princeton-area companies — ten percent of thetotal number of exhibitors — will get to meet and greet angelsand venture capitalists at the Mid-Atlantic Venture Fair and Bio-ForumEast, set for Monday to Wednesday, November 17 to 19, at thePhiladelphiaConvention Center.Since the market for almost everything but biotech is depressed, theGreater Philadelphia Group made a smart move — it invited theBIO VentureForum East to join the non-biotech companies for thisevent,for a total of 100 companies. The fair is expected to attract morethan 1,100 including 200 investors from the region.The fair runs on two tracks — for high tech companies and biotechcompanies. For the general public the reception on Monday, November17, at 6 p.m. costs $275 if you are registered, more if you are awalk-in. Daily registration for Tuesday and Wednesday is $650, andwalk-ins pay $1,500 for the three days. You can call 215-790-3695,but the organizers prefer website registrations (www.mavc.comor www.bio.org/bvfeast).On Tuesday Chris Sugden of Edison Venture Fund on Lenox Drivespeaks on a Venture Bootcamp panel entitled “An Insider’s Guideto Increasing Your Hit Ratio.” Keynote speakers include StephenOesterle, senior vice president of Medtronic, and Dean Kamenpresident of DEKA Research and Development Corporation and inventorof the high-tech wheelchair being marketed at Johnson & Johnson.Batterypowered, with tiny electronic gyroscopes, the $29,000 wheelchair canclimb stairs and elevate itself.Among the biotech companies to exhibit:Barrier Therapeutics Inc., College Road East, Princeton.Development and marketing of dermatological products based onintellectualproperty in-licensed from Janssen and other J&J affiliates.www.barriertherapeutics.com(U.S. 1, October 8).KeyCell Therapeutics, State Road, Princeton. A spinofffrom Medarex. www.medarex.comLinguagen, Eastpark Boulevard, Cranbury. Research inmolecularbiology of taste signaling for the flavor industries.www.linguagen.com(U.S. 1, September 10).Onconova Therapeutics, Lenox Drive shared office,Princeton.Oncology solutions, including a cytoprotective drug discovery platformdeveloped at Fels Institute, Temple University. www.onconova.comPBL Biomedical Laboratories, Ethel Road West, Piscataway.Research and development of interferons and other cytokines for thetreatment of cancer. www.pblbio.com (U.S. 1, August 28, 2002).Transave Inc., Deer Park Drive, Monmouth Junction.Researchon drug delivery for lung disease. www.transaveinc.com (U.S.1, April 11, 2001).The high tech, non-pharmaceutical firms exhibiting:Quantiva Inc., Village Boulevard, Princeton. Performancemanagement systems for Internet businesses — wide area networkmanagement services. www.quantiva.comRestricted Stock Systems Inc., Wall Street, Princeton.Software applications that automate restricted stock equitytransactions,licensed to financial services organizations and public organizations.www.rssgroup.com (U.S. 1, July 2).Bullrun Financial, Franklin Corner Road, Lawrenceville.Real time investment advice to institutional equity money managers.www.bullrunfinancial.comExpertPlan, Millstone Road, Cranbury. Web-basedapplicationservice provider for Internet-based retirement planning services.www.expertplan.com (U.S. 1, January 2).Top Of PageDeathsRichard Edward Victor Swann, 85, on September 6. Anprolificauthor of books on cycling, he had worked as a mechanic at Kopp’sCycle Shop in Princeton.Donald T. Evans, 65, on October 16. A director andplaywright,known for “Miss Lydia, “One Monkey Don’t Stop No Show,””Showdown,”and “Spooks,” he was a professor at the College of New Jerseyand founded Trenton’s first black theater group.Dilip Vasudeo Kane, 50, on October 16. A freelance graphicdesigner, he had been art director at the New Jersey Department ofEnvironmental Protection.David J. Der Arakelian, 27, on October 22. Enrolled atMercer College, he had worked as a bridge inspector with Michael BakerJr. Inc. on College Road.A. Robert Potocny, 65, on October 26. He had been a healthcare administrator at RWJ University Hospital and Helene Fuld MedicalCenter, and a sales associate with Coldwell Banker.Elizabeth J. Thompson 62, on October 25. She worked atEducational Testing Service.Previous StoryNext StoryCorrections or additions?This page is published by PrincetonInfo.com— the web site for U.S. 1 Newspaper in Princeton, New Jersey.
