1 and Aaron Road, North Brunswick 08902-9498. 732-422-5000; fax,

732-422-5514.

351, Hightstown 08520. Alan Vanderneut, plant manager. 609-448-5100;

fax, 609-448-0377. Home page: www.minutemaid.com

Top Of Page
Corigin Middleware

Eladio Alvarez says his company, Corigin Inc., has a

faster, cheaper way for programmers to extract data from mainframes

and export it to PCs or open system computers. "Today 70 percent

of the world’s data sits on mainframes," he says. "It is very

hard and expensive to get access to that data. It used to take 10

hours to get data from a mainframe to a PC, now we take two hours.

People can save millions of dollars."

Alvarez has moved the U.S. headquarters of the Israel-based company

from Saddle Brook to 100 Overlook. The firm is a one-year-old wholly

owned subsidiary of Corigin Ltd. Offering a way to extend the life

of legacy databases, its middleware technology delivers secure,

high-speed

data, while reducing data center operational costs. This mainframe

data acceleration software is particularly appropriate for financial

service, utility, and data communications companies.

A native of Caracas, Venezuela, Alvarez graduated from Simon Bolivar

in 1977 and also has a master’s degree from that university. He has

worked for Oracle, Sterling Software, IBM, and Ask Jeeves, and he

has built software divisions with revenues from $20 to $180 million.

He has lived in the Princeton area for 21 years and has the title

of president of Corigin’s North American operations.

Alvarez turned to his office manager at Corigin, Margaret Sproehnle,

for help in finding space for Corigin. Sproehnle was his executive

assistant 20 years ago, when he came to the United States in 1982

to work at Applied Data Research. She enlisted Jon Brush of Hilton

Realty to locate Corigin at Regus, a shared office company at 100

Overlook, and negotiate for the firm’s next location.

Main frame computers carry 70 percent of the world’s data, says

Alvarez.

Every Fortune 3000 company in the world has a main frame, and there

are more than 15,000 in the United States. "One reason why main

frames are so prevalent is that these companies have been in business

for a long long time," he says.

Alvarez notes that because running a main frame is much more expensive

than working on open systems, most IT departments favor doing

programming

on PCs, Unix, or Linux. But how to get access to the data? The largest

players in the software industry (IBM, EMC, and Hitachi) and such

smaller middleware providers as Boston-based Informatica use the

method

of extracting the data from the mainframe itself.

Alone among its competitors, Corigin retrieves data from the data

storage controller, the box outside the mainframe that corresponds

to the hard drive of the PC.

Corigin has an exclusive worldwide patent on this method, developed

by Michael Rothschild, and its business plan calls for it to market

its own products and also form partnerships. Current partners are

Hitachi Data Systems and Information Builders. Corigin also supports

all mainframe architectures.

"Our software provides access to the data on the mainframe. Any

programmer can get access to that data. They don’t need to know

anything

about the main frame," says Alvarez. Using system architecture,

the software can be used in Intel-based, Unix-based, or Linux-based

systems. "All new development can happen on the open side of the

house."

Corigin is a private company with stock held by the employees two

venture capital firms — Vertex Venture Capital, an Israel-based

fund, and Genesis Partners. It was founded under the name NewFrame

by Tsvi Misinai, who had previously founded Sapiens (Nasdaq: SPNS).

Officially launched in 2002 as an independent software vendor, Corigin

Inc. has a very aggressive growth plan. Alvarez, the first employee,

arrived in June. With six employees now, 10 or 12 employees by spring,

he expects to quadruple his business in 2004 and again in 2005.

— Barbara Fox

Princeton 08540. Eladio Alvarez, president of North American

operations.

609-375-2440; fax, 609-375-2740. Www.corigin.com

Top Of Page
Elder Guardianship & the Law

After working for the Office of the Public Guardian

for Elderly Adults of New Jersey, Nina Weiss and Anthony Serra

established

a private practice specializing in guardianship issues.

The state office, Weiss explains, is "the guardian of last resort

for people who have no family or friends." Referred to the office

by the courts, these individuals are often suffering from dementia,

and are often deemed no longer capable of handling their finances

or of making sound healthcare decisions.

Sharing a similar philosophy, Weiss and Serra decided to set up a

practice around these issues. "We worked well together. We’re

both very rights oriented," says Weiss. "We try to preserve

the autonomy of the individual."

The cases in which Weiss and her partner are involved most often

involve

a hand off of the rights most people take for granted. The right to

withdraw money from a bank account, for example, or to choose where

to live. When there is a question of whether a person is able to make

competent decisions on these and other issues, courts can be called

on to rule on competency. In those cases, a guardian is appointed

to protect the rights of the person whose competency is in question.

While much of their work revolves around the competency of seniors,

Weiss and Serra also get involved in guardianship issues involving

children, or with young people who are not able to function well in

every adult task. Parents of an individual with a disability, for

example, are no longer automatically considered by the courts to be

their child’s guardian.

Weiss, who earned her J.D. from Fordham in 1995, and Serra, who earned

his J.D. from Seton Hall in 1988, represent both individuals and

families

caught up in what are nearly always wrenching decisions.

"There is a push in New Jersey for limited guardianship,"

says Weiss. This trend goes along with her own views on how elderly

people should be able to live their lives. "Guardianship should

be crafted around the needs of the person," she says. Maybe, she

gives as an example, an elderly person needs help with his checkbook,

but is making his own decision on whether or not to enter a nursing

home. All rights should not be taken away if it is not necessary.

In old age, the tables turn, and children often think they know what

is best for their parents. But the parents don’t always agree. When

that is the case, the family can end up in court, or perhaps in

mediation,

which sees as a growing trend.

— Kathleen McGinn Spring

Montgomery

Knoll, Box 8017, Princeton 08543-8017. 609-924-4818; fax,

609-924-4480.

E-mail: serraweiss@worldnet.att.net.

Top Of Page
Barrier Expands

Barrier Therapeutics, a pharmaceutical company that

has doubled in size in six months, moved from shared office space

at Regus in 100 Overlook to 600 College Road. It has 29 people at

this 11,000-square foot office (part of Cytogen’s former space) and

the phone and fax are new. Except for the chief scientific officer,

the medical director, and the general manager, who are working in

Geel, Belgium, the rest of the management team is in Princeton.

Sab Russo of CB Richard Ellis represented the pharmaceutical firm

and James Kinzig of Aegis Property Group represented the Peregrine

Investment Partners, the owner of the building.

The privately-held company works with dermatological drugs licensed

from affiliates of Johnson & Johnson. "Our philosophy is to focus

on dermatological prescription drugs that have a distinct advantage

to what is on the market," says CEO Geert Cauwenburgh (U.S. 1,

February 19, 2003).

"We hope to have another investor who will contribute to a second

round of investment by the end of this month," says Cauwenburgh.

Last year the firm raised $46 million in venture financing, led by

TL Ventures and JP Morgan, who are represented on the board of

directors

by Marc Ostro and Srinivas Akkaraju, respectively. Also on the board

is Drew Schiff of Perseus/Soros BioPharmaceutical.

Cauwenburgh, 49, was most recently vice president of technology

transfer

and external developments for J&J Consumer and Personal Care Products.

Anne M. VanLent, Barrier’s executive vice president and chief

financial

officer, has been executive vice president in charge of portfolio

management at Sarnoff and CFO for Liposome. Marcel Borgers, the chief

scientific officer, is former vice president of life sciences for

the Janssen Research Foundation. Chuck Nomides, chief operating

officer,

was R&D director of Ortho Neutrogena prescription drug development,

part of J&J.

Barrier’s clinical pipeline includes four products in or entering

Phase III trials to treat fungal infections, diaper dermatitis, and

seborrheic dermatitis. In June the company received orphan drug

designation

in Europe for liarozole, which can treat ichthyosis, a genetic

disorder

involving skin that looks like fish scales. Six earlier-stage clinical

products are in the areas of psoriasis, acne, skin inflammation,

fungal

infections, allergies, and wound healing.

Most recently it licensed a new Vitamin D3 derivative, Ecalcidene,

from the Research Institute for Medicine and Chemistry in Cambridge,

Massachusetts. Ecalcidene has a potential for treating psoriasis and

acne.

Princeton 08540. Geert Cauwenbergh, CEO. 609-945-1200; fax,

609-945-1212.

Www.barriertherapeutics.com

Top Of Page
Expansions

Southfield

Shopping Center, West Windsor 08550. Evan Rector, manager.

609-799-8525;

fax, 609-799-8523. Www.abandccomputers.com

ABC Computers flourished in relative obscurity in

Hightstown

for 11 years and then followed the "Go west, young man" advice

to open a storefront at the Southfield Shopping Center. The company

expanded from 1,200 square feet to 2,200 feet. Evan Rector, and his

wife Lori Daume’ (dowMAY) run the business along with some consultants

and investors. They sell custom-built computers and services all makes

and models, including Macintosh.

Rector notes that in the 11 years his company has been in business,

most of his competitors have gone out of business. "Just look

at the pages of your newspaper," says Rector. "Every page

had a computer store advertisements, and where are they now? Gone.

Because they weren’t servicing their customers." When his

attention

is called to some computer companies that are, indeed flourishing,

he points out that his is the only one now located in a retail

shopping

center.

Another differentiating factor: the store has a mascot, Harry the

brindle terrier, whose friendly wag to reduce the anxiety that comes

with a frozen hard drive. "We get people walking in crying because

they never backed up," says Rector. "Almost half our business

is service and upgrades — reconfiguring the computer systems."

What makes his business different, he says, is that he sells only

hardware — no software, and no training — and that he has

the equivalent of an "open kitchen." Like restaurants who

let diners see into the kitchen, his employees do their work in front

of the customers, not in a back room. "Customers are able to see

computers torn apart. They are allowed to ask question," says

Rector. "It’s like seeing your car being brought up onto the lift.

`Do you see the burnt chip here?’ People like coming into the work

area."

Says Rector: "It’s a location-specific business, and our new

location

is demographically better."

1 South, Princeton 08540. Paul B. Miles, president. 609-524-4050;

fax, 609-524-4051. Home page: www.ja.org

As planned, Junior Achievement moved its offices — the main one

in Mountainside, and a satellite office at HQ in Forrestal Village

— to the former Summit Bank building on Route 1 South (U.S. 1,

July 9, 2003).

Princeton

08542. Keith Barclay, sales manager. 609-688-1662; fax, 609-688-1664.

M&T Mortgage, a subsidiary of Buffalo, New York-based M&T Bank, has

moved from 23 Route 31 in Pennington to a larger space on Nassau

Street.

Keith Barclay, sales manager in charge of this office, says that his

four-person branch specializes in unusual or hard to obtain

residential

mortgages. Among M&T’s products is a rehab loan through which a

borrower

can purchase an older home and roll renovation costs into the

mortgage.

The firm also does construction loans and refinancings.

Sayreville 08872. 609-860-1922.

After 10 years at Center Point Industrial Park, Intimate Resources,

a privately owned lingerie firm, opened an additional distribution

center on 500 Kennedy Drive in Sayreville 08872. Its location at 3

Fitzgerald Avenue was closed for a time, but it has now reopened.

The headquarters is in Manhattan’s garment district.

Top Of Page
Forrestal Incubees — Two Years Later

Two years ago, recent graduates of Princeton University

were working on advanced power conversion technologies with Ed Zschau,

a faculty member at Princeton University, as their mentor and

landlord.

Their company, Princeton Power Systems, was one of two Zschau

companies

that debuted that year. Onclave, a software firm, was on the cover

on April 5, 2001, and Princeton Power Systems was featured on November

28, 2001.

Four engineers on the Princeton Power Systems crew employed a patent

held by the father of one of the four, Rudy Limpaecher. They were

working on software for an uninterruptible power supply (UPS) device,

intended for brief power flickers and uneven current. Later they

progressed

to making motor controllers, wind turbine converters, and grid-tied

inverters.

Now Princeton Power Systems has landed a significant contract with

Worldwater Corp., a public company based at Pennington Business Park,

to help develop a more reliable and cost effective method for

converting

electric power cleanly (www.worldwater.com). For Worldwater, Princeton

Power’s technology will help to control the interaction between the

electric grid, solar power, and an electric motor.

Worldwater holds the prime contract from the New Jersey Board of

Public

Utilities under its new REED (Renewable Energy and Economic

Development)

program. This program aims to stimulate the renewable energy industry

in New Jersey and to make New Jersey the new "Silicon Valley"

for renewable energy economic development.

"Our patented AC-link technology offers the potential for reducing

the current control subsystem cost by more than 50 percent,"

explains

Darren Hammell, president and CEO of Princeton Power Systems. AC-link,

says Hammell, uses simpler, more reliable components and incorporates

advanced algorithms for controlling various aspects of the electric

power, which allows the use of less complex, less expensive hardware

to achieve precision power control.

AC-link will be integrated into WorldWater’s proprietary solar pumping

system, which controls power flow from a solar photovoltaic array

and dynamically interacts with the utility grid and/or uses it to

run an AC motor to power water pumps, compressors, etc. The system

will be designed and a prototype developed, installed and tested at

Rutgers University’s Snyder Farm test-bed facility.

Princeton Power Systems is also working with the Office of Naval

Research

to determine the feasibility of using its products to power large

shipboard propulsion drives and other electrical systems.

Three of the four founders — Hammell, Erik Limpaecher, and John

Mark Holveck — are still with PPS, and a fourth, John W. Lerch,

has left to found Proximities, at 501 Forrestal Road, which is

developing

radio frequency identification wristbands for entertainment

venues(www.proximities.com U.S. 1, May 14, 2003).

PPS has hired three new people for a total of six. "Those guys

have really done a masterful job," says Zschau. Onclave, the other

firm that started under his wing, has not had similar success. It

offered a software product for PR firms that was endorsed by a trade

group and was beginning to service customers, but the corporation

was dissolved last year. "In this climate, we couldn’t raise the

money to continue to operate until we could become profitable,"

says Zschau.

Forrestal Campus, Princeton 08540. Darren Hammell, CEO. 609-258-5994;

fax, 609-258-7329. Home page: www.princetonpower.com

Pennington

Business Park Building B, Pennington 08534. Quentin T. Kelly, chairman

and CEO. 609-818-0700; fax, 609-818-0720. Www.worldwater.com

Top Of Page
Name Changes

Park Plaza, Princeton 08540. Kenneth Seibel, president. 609-799-3279;

fax, 609-987-0185. Www.seibelgroup.com

The 31-year-old printing company has changed its name

from Easy Graphics Creative to the Seibel Group. "New clientele

would hear `Easy Graphics’ and think we were a quick print shop, when

we are a mid size commercial printing company. Everything else is

the same," says Kenneth Seibel, who has been with the company

since it was founded by Newton Milner and his wife. He bought the

business 10 years ago, and it does graphic design, printing, mailing,

and fulfillment services with an emphasis on corporate communications.

"It did start out as a quick print shop but has evolved to a

16-person

firm," he says. "With our on-staff art department and

fulfillment

capabilities we can take a project from soup to nuts, Most printing

companies don’t have an agency-caliber design staff, they have only

a prepress department. We can go one step further — take the job

before it is designed and do it all for them."

Seibel’s pride and joy is a five-color printing press, a Heidelberg

Speedmaster 74, with an aqueous coding system that seals the ink to

the paper. "It is a lot faster and a lot less expensive than other

processes."

Top Of Page
New in Town

Princeton

08540. Andrew Janoff, executive assistant/office supervisor.

609-430-1100;

fax, 609-430-9995. Home page: www.celator.ca

Celator Technologies, a Vancouver-based

biopharmaceutical

company, has opened an administrative office at 1 Airport Way. The

company, founded in 2000, named former Elan executive Andrew Janoff

chairman and CEO in 2002. Janoff, a Yardley resident, divides his

time between this office and the company’s headquarters.

Karen Simmons, executive assistant and office supervisor, is also

from Elan, as is Christine Swenson, head of pre-clinical development.

Rounding out the administrative staff in this location is the head

of pharmaceutical development and the chief medical officer. Lab

facilities

are located in Vancouver.

Celator received $6.8 million in its first round of venture capital

funding in late-January. The company, a spin-off of the British

Columbia

Cancer Agency, is developing new technology for targeting synergistic

combinations of rationally selected chemotherapeutic agents

to sites of disease. This approach seeks to modify the existing cancer

chemotherapy discovery process by fixing the ratios at which drug

combinations act to kill tumor cells.

Tim and Janis Ketchmark, owners. 609-243-0006; fax, 609-243-0008.

Home page: www.maidpro.com

Tim and Janis Ketchmark have opened a home and office cleaning

franchise,

one of more than 30 businesses franchised by the Boston-based firm,

MaidPro. Tim Ketchmark, a 1981 graduate of Loyola University in

Chicago,

had worked for 18 years for Siemens Medical. When the business unit

moved from Iselin to Malvern, Pennsylvania, he decided to go into

his own business. Until now, Janis had devoted herself to the couple’s

three school-aged children. They have eight employees so far, and

their territory covers the greater Princeton area, including all of

Mercer County.

"The people who do our cleaning are employees of our company,

so we are responsible for bonding and insuring them," Ketchmark

says, "and we are paying the proper payroll taxes. After a week’s

training, our employees earn $10 an hour, and full-time employees

can accrue vacation and sick time, but unfortunately not health

insurance."

Established in 1991, the company was rated 419 among the top 500

franchisers

by Inc. Magazine.

08536. Andrew Narine, manager. 609-275-9UPS; fax, 609-275-9897.

Home

page: www.theupsstore.com

Renu Singal opened the UPS Store at Plainsboro Plaza, one of more

than 3,000 in the chain of mailing and office services stores. It

offers full service packaging, mailbox and postal services, black

and white and color copying, document finishing, office and packaging

supplies, notary services, and passport photos. Singal had been a

reference librarian at the Princeton Public Library and the East

Brunswick

library.

08902.

732-422-4141.

So-Deep, a company based in Manassas Park, Virginia, has opened an

office in North Brunswick. The 100-person company, founded in 1981,

provides information to project designers and owners on the existence

and location of underground utilities. The company, which has 13 other

offices, lays claim to creating subsurface utility engineering as

a specialty.

The company employs engineers, land surveyors, and geologists,

supported

by CADD and field technicians and by utility records and coordination

specialists.

08558.

Ken Pizzico, manager. 609-613-5300; fax, 609-613-5310.

Www.yellowbook.com

Yellow Book, which competes with phone companies for advertising in

its phone directories, has opened an office in Skillman. Ken Pizzico,

manager of the office, says he has 20 sales reps. The office sells

ads to companies throughout the state, but is primarily responsible

for Mercer, Somerset, and Hunterdon counties.

Top Of Page
Contracts Awarded

Princeton 08543-5300. Satyam Cherukuri, president & CEO. 609-734-2000;

fax, 609-734-2040. Home page: www.sarnoff.com

Sarnoff Corporation has signed onto a three-year, $8 million project

on video compression for DSL. Half of the money is coming from the

commerce department through the National Institute of Standards and

Technology. The remainder is coming from DSL equipment maker Alcatel;

set-top box maker Thomson; SBC, a Baby Bell that is the largest

national

provider of DSL, and Sarnoff.

Sarnoff plans to use old copper wire lines to deliver two

broadcast-quality

video streams, so one family can watch two different programs.

East, Suite 2100, Princeton 08540. Dipak Chattaraj, managing director.

609-720-9200; fax, 609-720-1155. Home page: www.ranbaxy.com

Ranbaxy Pharmaceuticals has received tentative approval from the U.S.

Food and Drug Administration for a generic version of Zocor, the

cholesterol-lowering

drug in the statin class that is made by Merck. Zocor is the world’s

second-largest selling drug, and Merck’s patent on it is expected

to expire in 2006.

Top Of Page
Deaths

supervisor at the Medical Center of Princeton.

she worked at Deborah Heart and Lung Center and Bayada Nurses Home

Care.

for CNA Insurance Company as a regional warehouse coordinator.

Testing Service and Creative Playthings and was active in the

Princeton

and Rockingham historical societies.

Corrections or additions?

— the web site for U.S. 1 Newspaper in Princeton, New Jersey.