Scaling Back, But Living the Dream: Richard Speedy
Old Potato Barn Now an Office Park
Scriplogix Sells With High Tech
Corrections or additions?
These articles by Barbara Fox were prepared for the July 23, 2003
issue of U.S. 1 Newspaper. All rights reserved.
Gear 3 Technologies Challenges DSL
Bill Mavracic’s face lights up when he talks about
lighting
up a building. As a partner with Gear 3 Technologies LLC, he offers
high speed broadband Internet access plus other services to office
parks. The company occupies some of QLM’s former space in Research
Park and has five full-time and three part-time employees.
Targeting the small to medium-sized businesses that can get lost in
the shuffle by big telecoms, Gear 3 sells segments of the fiber line
to the tenants of a building or park. For instance, Mavracic says
that 80 percent of his neighbors at Research Park are Gear 3 clients.
Other client parks and buildings are Montgomery Knoll, 600 Alexander,
20 Nassau Street, and the Needleman building in Cherry Hill. “We
light up new parks every other week,” says Mavracic. Soon
Branchburg
Commons will be added to that list.
Using bandwidth from such providers as AT&T, Verizon, and
Intellispace,
Gear3 provides ethernet and brings in T-1 and fiber lines, most of
them underground, and its clients divide or share the service.
Mavracic
believes this service is less expensive than and superior to DSL
copper
wiring, which is usually on a pole. “We provide T-1 fiberoptic
type access at a cable price. On a T-1 line, all our speeds are
symmetric,
whereas DSL has different speeds in uploads and downloads, and by
distance.”
DSL-enabled buildings, in fact, are among his target customers.
“We
are always interested in parks with DSL, because with our technology
and service you get so much more. As long as it makes business sense,
we would have fiber run to your park.”
The Internet access can be accompanied by web hosting and E-mail (for
from $8 to $159). With Gear 3’s Express Net product, a shared service,
Internet for one computer is $69, 12 workstations are $350, and
30-plus
workstations are $500. “But the access is at much higher speeds,
768k and above.” Gear3 can also split off a dedicated bandwidth
for a larger company.
Mavracic compares that to dial up service: AOL’s unlimited access
dialup is $23.90 per month, then you pay $18 for the phone line. If
it is a business, the phone line will incur message units. For regular
surfing and E-mail, therefore, add about $17 more for a total of $59.
He compares that to $69 for high speed T-1 quality Internet service.
“The service comes with some free E-mail addresses, plus it’s
not DSL or cable, and has 99 percent reliability.” Mavracic has
a grim picture of the DSL service policy. “In a blackout, the
first thing the phone company will do is establish the T-1 lines.
The last thing they do is establish DSL.”
The partners — Mavracic, Mike LaMastro, and Pat LaMastro —
each have a dozen years technical experience, and the company can
provide technical services for both the Mac and the PC.
Bill Mavracic (accent on the second syllable) grew up in Feasterville,
where his father was an engineer, and majored in communications at
Temple University, Class of 1992. He worked at Kinko’s as computer
services manager and then in Manhattan as an IT manager before
starting
a home-based business, MacHeadz, doing IT for ad agencies. He and
his wife, who works for a mortgage company, have two preschool
daughters.
The LaMastro brothers grew up in Manville, where their father was
an automobile service manager. Pat went to Metropolitan Technical
Institute in Fairfield and worked as IT manager for the school board
in Watchung.
Mike went to Kean University for two years but graduated from an Ohio
school, the Recording Workshop, known for audio engineering. He
finished
first in his class and nabbed an internship at a big national
facility,
the Sound Track Group. Then he worked at the studio of the group Bon
Jovi and was assistant engineer for the Live From London CD, issued
in 1995. Now married (his wife works for a pharmaceutical firm), Mike
runs the financial end of the business and produces his own band’s
albums as well as some others.
“I was fresh out of school and working for less than I could
afford
but I had backing from my family,” says Mike. “Then I had
to go out and get a higher paying job. It ended up taking me to
Waltron
Ltd. in Whitehouse, where I worked on computers for water analyzers.
At the time my brother Pat was an IT director, and occasionally he
would bring me along for outside jobs. One day he said we could do
this on our own. We quit our jobs and started PC Services in 1998
in our house in Manville.”
MacHeadz merged with LaMastro PC Services, changed the company’s names
to Gear 3 Technologies, and the partners designed their own logo.
Their attorneys are Nee, Beacham, Gantner in Hillsborough, and they
have an accountant from H&R Block.
Here’s how to tell what your Internet speed is, says Mavracic. Check
your contract. If it is less than 768k you might want high speed
broadband.
“Property managers can definitely benefit from the services we
offer,” says Mavracic.
Gear 3 Technologies LLC, 470 Wall Street, ResearchPark, Princeton 08540. Bill Mavracic, CEO. 609-252-1155; fax,609-252-9660.Home page: www.gear3.comTop Of PageScaling Back, But Living the Dream: Richard SpeedyRichard Speedy’s first business location could not havebeen more humble — a garage with no plumbing and no phone behindAndy’s Tavern on Alexander Street. Then he and his partner, TobyRichards,moved their commercial corporate photography studio to an old stonebarn at the corner of Sherbrooke Drive, across from the Acme ShoppingCenter in Princeton Junction. Now he has moved to a home studio, aconverted factory building, in Hopewell and has a new phone, fax,and web page. He saves on rent, and this gives him time to pursuehis passion — photographing the mountains and people of Mexico.”Many of our projects are location projects and we didn’t needthe big facility,” says Speedy, telling why he decided todownsize.”And we had zero walk-in business.”The move did, unfortunately, eliminate the convenience of being closeto the train station. “We hire models, makeup people, photographicassistants, artists, background painters, and many of those peoplelive in New York City,” he says. “They didn’t walk, we justpicked them up. We still pick them up, but it’s a little more of aride now.” But no matter how many taxi fares he has to pay, it’sstill less than the rent. “A whole lot less,” says Speedy.He and his partner, Toby Richards, are hired by advertising agencies,design firms, and corporate communications departments to shoot adcampaigns and annual reports. Clients tend to be pharmaceutical, hightech, and financial companies. Richards shoots most of the annualreports and Speedy focuses on the ads, and about half their work isdigital. Their only staff member is an offsite bookkeeper, and theyhire a host of freelancers, sometimes for a period of several months.”There is a good network of talented people around here and wetry to help each other out these days,” says Speedy.Speedy grew up in Princeton, where his father wrote manuals and didfundraising for the Boy Scouts of America headquarters. (At age 93,his father just published a memoir, “Coming of Age at 90.”)After graduating from Princeton High, Speedy spent a year a collegein Ohio, then took photography courses in Manhattan, which led himto Brooks Institute in Santa Barbara, California. After graduatingin 1972 he worked as a photographer’s assistant in Manhattan. In 1980he encountered his future partner at an exhibit in the gallery atBristol-Myers Squibb. The two photographers were standing side byside, admiring each other’s photos, and then they introducedthemselves.They opened a studio later that year.Since they had zero clients, the going was hard. “We had a garagebehind Andy’s Tavern (now Soonja’s). We had no plumbing and no phonefor nine months. Our clients would have to go to the tavern to usethe facilities. And I would go to the tavern and sit at the bar andmake sales calls. When we found our clients in high-heeled shoeswadingthrough the mud we realized we needed to move.” After six yearsin the garage, the studio moved to the barn in 1986.Speedy is passionate about his personal photography project —creating his own treasures of the Sierra Madres. He rides or hikesinto the mountains of northern Mexico four times a year to photographthe landscape and the culture of the Tara Humara Indians. On one ofthese trips he met his future wife, Mara, and they have aneight-year-oldson.”It’s very exciting, very fulfilling,” says Speedy. “Thebeauty of having a low overhead and a minimal staff is that it givesme more time to work on personal projects. They may not create a hugesource of revenue, but they feed the artistic side and get me up inthe morning. And that’s why I got into photography in the first place.After all these years I am living that dream.”Richards and Speedy Studio, 53 Railroad Drive,Hopewell 08525. Richard Speedy. 609-466-9669; fax, 609-333-0359. Homepage: www.richardspeedy.comTop Of PageOld Potato Barn Now an Office ParkIt’s an atypical building for offices — a150-year-oldstone barn across the street from a shopping center. Once it was usedto dry potatoes on the Dey Farm. Then, for 17 years, it was occupiedby Richards and Speedy photography studio. An addition was added in1986, and it is currently divided into five tenant spaces. It isleasedby Charles P. Kaempffer of the Freehold-based KMK Realty Group, theleasing agent for offices in Twin Rivers and nine other properties(732-625-1055; fax, 732-625-1060).Early tenants are Mr. Handyman (609-799-2346), which moved into 600square feet two months ago, and Stein Construction, which has 2,400square feet. Three spaces ranging from 1,000 to 2,200 feet remain.Stein Construction, 61 Princeton Hightstown Road,CDNJ Plaza, Princeton Junction 08550. Scott Stein, owner.609-799-7977;fax, 609-799-7743. Home page: www.stein-services.comStein Construction does construction management and generalcontractingfor commercial buildings. Scott Stein, the founder, has an economicsdegree from University of South Florida. In 1992 the firm was knownas Interior Renovation and did corporate interiors.It merged with a drywall company and became known as InteriorContractingCorporation, but it has been operating under the Stein name for about18 months. The firm moved from North Brunswick to the barn two monthsago. “Now we do both — corporate interiors, retail or office— and we also do some ground up work,” says Elaine Stein,Scott’s sister. Recent clients include a 6,000 square foot jewelrystore in Manalapan and a retail strip in Marlboro.Top Of PageScriplogix Sells With High TechVasant Kumar Ramaswamy sees the need to marketpharmaceuticalsusing both old and new methods. “The most effective isbelly-to-bellyselling,” he says. “Many companies try to replace that withtechnology, but we use technology to enhance the face-to-facetime.”Aiming to use technologies that are intuitive, he suggests that eventhe stethoscope might be developed into a tool for communication.Ramaswamy founded Scriplogix simultaneously in New Jersey and NewDelhi two years ago. He has moved eight employees into 2,400 squarefeet at 300 Alexander Park (the Hillier “treehouse”), andhe has 17 employees in India. (Scriplogix shares the space withFortunaTechnologies, see story below).”We keep the quality of experience high. If we have to choosebetween experience and functionality, we always choose experience,so patients and doctors walk will away saying `that was easy, thatwas cool.’””First we show the sales force that our tablet PC will not replacethem. Then we help them manage the attention of the physician witha few taps on the screen, and we show the physician that the tabletPC makes him look better with the patients.”For example, his company prepares an animated sequence on an earproblem.Tapping the screen elicits a sequence illustrating the problem andshowing how to administer the medication. Then the doctor gives theparent and child a CD to play at home and link to WebMD. “We makeit fun and games, so the children learn,” he says. “One devicewill not cut it. It has to be a combination of online andoffline.”Ramaswamy says he is in the business of attention management, managingthe attention of physicians and patients, and he offers productmarketingstrategies, economic models, and working hardware and softwareproductsfor life sciences companies.”Our `go to market strategy’ is that we help you weave in creativestrategies in marketing and patient communication to alter the averageimpact,” says Ramaswamy. “We say to the physicians, here areways to communicate with patients and here are some technologyenhancementsto make compliance better.” His goal: to build a patient andphysicianrelationship, moving from technology to nontechnology to technologyagain.Ramaswamy, 40, is married to an art curator and writer, and they havea school-aged son. The son of a business executive, Ramaswamy majoredin mathematics and economics at the University of Madras, is acertifiedaccountant, and has a business degree from Delhi University. Mostrecently he was vice president of strategy and CIO for RanbaxyPharmaceuticalsInc., which has its headquarters in New Delhi but has a U.S. branchat 600 College Road.Ramaswamy’s previous job as an economist for the World Bank in NewDelhi and Washington gave him a good perspective on what he callsthe “economics of information.” “That was macro economicpolicy. At Ranbaxy, I practiced translating some of those conceptsto an India-based company that was going global,” he says.”ThenI realized if I took the idea of economics of information, and appliedit to life sciences, using technology to do so, we had a propositionthat was valuable.”Ranbaxy Pharmaceutical’s vice president of business development, ChuckCaprariello, says that Ramaswamy played a pivotal role in thestrategicplanning for Ranbaxy. “He was instrumental in identifying SAPas the system that would bring the global regions together tocommunicatewith one software tool. He coordinated the implementation of theentireoperation from beginning to end, and this allowed us to be competitivein the global marketplace. He is very highly regarded in ourorganization.”Ramaswamy will use his company’s location in India to do some workless expensively, but he is careful to say that only part of the work— the repeatable part, not the creative part — will go there.For instance, he will create a program for acne that works forteenagersand doctors in the United States and then adapt that for repeatabledeliveries in other countries. “After crafting the strategiesto understand the market here, then a piece of it can be translatedat lower cost.”Scriplogix LLC, 300 Alexander Park, Suite 201,Princeton 08543. Vasant Kumar Ramaswamy, CEO. 609-806-3200; fax,609-806-3500.Www.scriplogix.comTop Of PageAlso Here: FortunaVasant Ramaswamy has another company under his wing,a business and technology computer consulting firm named FortunaTechnologies.He has been with the company for two years. Fortuna and Scriplogixhave eight employees each, and they share 2,400 square feet atAlexanderPark.”It has been a Silicon Valley company, and I saw there weresynergiesbetween the two,” says Ramaswamy. “They had no particularexpertise in life sciences and were interested in someone who couldhelp them grow. I opened the office on the east coast.The 10-year-old firm has 200 employees in the U.S. and 50 employeesin India, Europe, and Malaysia.Fortuna Technologies Inc., 300 Alexander Park,Suite 201, Princeton 08540. Ravi Suri, business development manager.609-419-0532; fax, 609-419-0162. Home page: www.fortuna.comTop Of PageExpansion at ETSAs he vowed to do last year, Kurt Landgraf, the CEOof Educational Testing Service, has started his expansion programat the Rosedale Road campus (U.S. 1, November 13, 2002). Planssubmittedto the Lawrence planning board call for an additional 800 employeesto be added to the current 1,650 workers on this campus. To bedemolished:the two-story Conant Hall, the cafeteria, and the library, BrighamHall. To be built: three buildings and a five-level parking garage.If the plans are approved, two of the buildings and the garage couldbe built by 2005.In an interview last year Landgraf spoke of his plans for a $100millioncapital expansion program and noted how expensive it would be toretrofitthe 1950s buildings for energy efficiency. “It’s not like we areworking in a hovel, but the best way to rehabilitate these buildingsis to put new ones up,” he said then. “And they are notconduciveto an interactive work space.”Educational Testing Service, Rosedale Road,Princeton08541. Kurt F. Landgraf, president. 609-921-9000; fax, 609-734-5410.Home page: www.ets.orgPrevious StoryCorrections or additions?This page is published by PrincetonInfo.com— the web site for U.S. 1 Newspaper in Princeton, New Jersey.
