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."
Marc Sherman, CEO. 609-426-4666; fax, 609-426-4543.
Top Of Page
Melrich Road Sale
The 112 Melrich Road building housing FNS Logistics
Services has been bought by Dallas-based Crow Holdings. It was part
of a two-building $19.5 million transaction that also included 114
Melrich Road.
One of the largest stand-alone buildings in the Exit 8A marketplace,
the FNS warehouse has 245,528 square feet, 32-foot clear ceiling
heights,
and two drive-ins. Just before the purchase, Federal Express signed
a lease for 75,000 square feet in the 114 Melrich Road building, which
used to be a distribution center for a maker of body building
equipment.
FNS is a Korea-based firm that distributes the products for another
Korea-based firm, LG Electronics. Formally named Freight Network
Systems
Logistics Services Inc., FNS moved in last summer. Clark Kim, its
president, came from Korea last year. FNS will distribute the products
of LG Electronics (which has its United States headquarters in
Englewood
Cliffs) in the eastern United States. This location was chosen both
for its proximity to major highways and for its security — the
warehouse had been located in Avenel.
About 10 workers and 11 staff members work in the office. "Even
though we do business in freight forwarding for LG now, we may work
for other companies in the future," says Brandon Kim, the
assistant
manager. He came to this country when he was in high school and
graduated
from George Washington University in 2000 with a finance major. In
charge of human resources and purchasing is Todd Kim.
The investment came from the second of three funds owned by Crow
Holdings
Realty Partners, a $365 million real estate limited partnership
sponsored
by Crow Holdings, which directs the investments of the Trammell Crow
family. Crow bought the properties from the JP Morgan Special
Situation
Property Fund, a commingled pension trust fund managed by JP Morgan
Fleming Asset Management. JP Morgan had bought the first building,
114 Melrich, and built the second one, 112 Melrich. It was represented
by Gary Gabriel in the sale.
In the FSN lease, Robert Sager and Nick Kim of Insignia/ESG in Saddle
Brook (now CB Richard Ellis) represented the tenants, while Frank
Caccavo and Jason Goldman of Cushman & Wakefield represented the
landlord.
Brunswick Industrial Park, Monmouth Junction 08852. Clark Kim,
president.
609-409-0077; fax, 609-409-4496. Home page: www.fnsusa.com
Top Of Page
Elder Accounting
Hilly Berlin and Barbara Kady aim to take some of the
worries 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 is
in 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’s
financial affairs.
Berlin’s and Kady’s new company, Princeton Financial Care Services
LLC, can take care of the day-to-day bookkeeping and also provide
advice on longer-term negotiations with lawyers, stock brokers, and
financial advisors. They do not sign checks, and they do not sell
investments — but they promise to organize all the necessary
information
so that the elderly person or the geographically distant relative
can 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-written
brochure sent to assisted living homes, and they say the response
they 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 — also
caters to the senior community. "We do medical billing, and they
have other areas of expertise. Everyone has a different niche."
Berlin is an alumnus of Rutgers, Class of 1956, who was a partner
at Eisner and Tenenbaum in New Brunswick. Joined by Barbara Kady,
he opened his own firm, H Berlin CPA PA on Livingston Avenue in New
Brunswick 30 years ago. Berlin’s wife teaches elementary education
in North Brunswick, and they live in Princeton. Kady went to College
of New Jersey, Class of 1959, and taught school before joining Berlin
in his business. Kady’s husband, Robert Kady, is an architect,
formerly
at the Hillier Group and now at Thomas Associates, and they live in
Pennington.
They merged with two younger CPAs to form Schorp Collier & Berlin
so as to diminish the amount of their tax work, hectic during the
tax season. "In our practice we saw all the problems that the
elderly were having," says Berlin.
Their company can organize and review bills, arrange for direct
deposits
and monthly deposits, prepare and file insurance claims, meet with
attorneys and investment advisors on financial plans, reconcile bank
accounts and summarize broker account activity, prepare and submit
tax forms for household employees and caregivers, administer trusts
and estates, and manage rental properties.
Short-term projects might include photographing the contents of a
house for an electronic inventory, evaluating options for long-term
care insurance, evaluating options for selling a home versus renting,
evaluating the pros and cons of reverse mortgages, and arranging gifts
to children and grand children.
Decrying the lack of planning that causes confusion when it comes
time to execute a will, they note that sometimes executors appointed
at the time a will was prepared become incapable of performing the
services needed, and they offer their services as executors.
The price depends on the type of work and frequency of work. To write
15 to 30 checks once a month will probably cost $125 a month, says
Berlin. That includes going to the senior citizen’s home to pick up
the bills and discuss the work and then paying the bills, probably
using Quicken, Microsoft Money, Quickbooks, or Peachtree software.
"Based on what we have seen, $30 to $35 an hour is a fair
fee,"
says Berlin. "On certain cases we can charge a flat fee."
That may seem like a lot of money for someone who can write their
own checks, but the target client is the elderly person who no longer
has the ability to do it correctly — and who doesn’t have a nearby
relative willing to do it. "We have witnessed situations where
duplicate payments were made, insurance coverage lapsed, and dividend
checks were not deposited," says Kady. "We have observed
seniors
making inappropriate investments, such as tax shelters and unsuitable
annuities."
If Berlin and Kady are helping other people to slow down, what will
happen to their clients when they retire? "We have a younger CPA
who is willing to work with this," says Berlin. "We hope to
have this so well organized that we can bring in younger people and
just do the supervision."
Franklin
Avenue, Straube Center, Pennington 08534. Hilly Berlin CPA and Barbara
Kady. 609-730-0067. E-mail: princecare@aol.com Home page:
Top Of Page
Senior Care Moves
Senior Care Management moved last month from 23 Route
1 North in Pennington to 261 Upper Ferry Road in Ewing, where it can
more easily serve clients in Bucks County as well as in Mercer and
Hunterdon counties.
"We are still a small business, and we cater to individual needs
to help elders age in place," says Jan McCurdy, a partner in the
tk-year-old firm along with Barbara Bristow. Founded in 1990, the
firm offers professional care management (services and counseling)
for older adults and their families. It has a certified home health
division providing long-term services for older adults. The partners
are members of the National Association of Geriatric Care Managers,
the National Guardianship Association, and the National Association
of Social Workers.
08628. Barbara Bristow, partner. 609-737-8398; fax, 609-737-1220.
Home page: www.seniorcaremgt.com
Top Of Page
Grants Awarded
Princeton
08542. Alexander G. Fraser, president. 609-497-7337; fax,
609-497-7335.
Fraser Research has received a five-year collaborative award from
the National Science Foundation for a project called "100 Megabits
per second to 100 Million Households." It will be conducted by
investigators from Fraser Research, Carnegie Mellon, Stanford, Rice,
University of California at Berkeley, and Internet2.
Alexander "Sandy" Fraser set up the not-for-profit research
organization to provide research in science and technology in support
of a national communications infrastructure (U.S. 1, August 6, 2003).
Fraser predicts that domestic access to 100 megabit-per-second
Internet
access will dramatically affect daily life, "but only if the
network
is much more reliable, anticipates applications not yet envisioned,
is economically sustainable for the long run, is easier to use and
operate, and is more secure than the Internet is today." The
project
will design blueprints for this near-future network by applying
principles
from security, economics, and network research.
At Cambridge University, Fraser had written the file system for the
Atlas 2 computer, England’s first time-sharing system. With
collaborators,
he invented the Universal Receiver Protocol and INCON, a cell-based
network that operated at two megabits per second on home telephone
wire. By 1994 he was associate vice president for information science
research, 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 research
as AT&T’s Chief Scientist in 1998, retiring to found the research
firm.
Princeton
08542. Alexander G. Fraser, president. 609-497-7337; fax,
609-497-7335.
Top Of Page
Grant for Autism
Linda Brzustowicz, an associate professor in Rutgers’
department of genetics, has a five-year, $3.7 million National
Institutes
of Health (NIH) grant to investigate the genetic basis of autism.
According to the American Medical Association, autism today is about
10 times more prevalent than it was in the 1980s. New Jersey reports
a jump from 1,042 autistic children in 1994 to 3,984 by 2001. No cure
is known for the disease, which is connected to a early brain
development
and is usually diagnosed in the first three years of life.
Brzustowicz and her colleagues at the University of Medicine and
Dentistry
of New Jersey (UMDNJ) will select 150 families for study. They are
specifically looking for families that have an autistic member and
other nonautistic relatives who exhibit traits associated with the
illness such as problems with language.
"Our strategy is to examine the hereditary patterns of the
individual
characteristics that make up the spectrum of behaviors that constitute
this disorder," says Brzustowicz, who is also a psychiatrist and
associate professor of psychiatry at UMDNJ. "In doing so, we
hope to be able to more easily find the genes that are linked to
specific
components, one at a time."
Brzustowicz and her colleagues will also obtain 850 sets of previously
collected and stored "trio" samples, consisting of genetic
material from autistic individuals and their parents. This genetic
material will be analyzed and compared — a child’s to each of
the two parents’ — to more precisely define genes linked to
autism.
The trios will be drawn from the Autism Genetic Resource Exchange
(AGRE) and the NIMH Human Genetics Initiative samples, both of which
are contained in the Rutgers University Cell and DNA Repository, a
storehouse of cell lines cultured from blood samples donated by more
than 40,000 people around the world. For information about the study,
E-mail: autism@biology.rutgers.edu.
Top Of Page
High Tech & Biotech
Ten Princeton-area companies — ten percent of the
total number of exhibitors — will get to meet and greet angels
and venture capitalists at the Mid-Atlantic Venture Fair and Bio-Forum
East, set for Monday to Wednesday, November 17 to 19, at the
Philadelphia
Convention Center.
Since the market for almost everything but biotech is depressed, the
Greater Philadelphia Group made a smart move — it invited the
BIO VentureForum East to join the non-biotech companies for this
event,
for a total of 100 companies. The fair is expected to attract more
than 1,100 including 200 investors from the region.
The fair runs on two tracks — for high tech companies and biotech
companies. For the general public the reception on Monday, November
17, at 6 p.m. costs $275 if you are registered, more if you are a
walk-in. Daily registration for Tuesday and Wednesday is $650, and
walk-ins pay $1,500 for the three days. You can call 215-790-3695,
but the organizers prefer website registrations (www.mavc.com
or www.bio.org/bvfeast).
On Tuesday Chris Sugden of Edison Venture Fund on Lenox Drive
speaks on a Venture Bootcamp panel entitled "An Insider’s Guide
to Increasing Your Hit Ratio." Keynote speakers include Stephen
Oesterle, senior vice president of Medtronic, and Dean Kamen
president of DEKA Research and Development Corporation and inventor
of the high-tech wheelchair being marketed at Johnson & Johnson.
Battery
powered, with tiny electronic gyroscopes, the $29,000 wheelchair can
climb stairs and elevate itself.
Among the biotech companies to exhibit:
Development and marketing of dermatological products based on
intellectual
property in-licensed from Janssen and other J&J affiliates.
(U.S. 1, October 8).
from Medarex. www.medarex.com
molecular
biology of taste signaling for the flavor industries.
(U.S. 1, September 10).
Princeton.
Oncology solutions, including a cytoprotective drug discovery platform
developed at Fels Institute, Temple University. www.onconova.com
Research and development of interferons and other cytokines for the
treatment of cancer. www.pblbio.com (U.S. 1, August 28, 2002).
Research
on drug delivery for lung disease. www.transaveinc.com (U.S.
1, April 11, 2001).
management systems for Internet businesses — wide area network
management services. www.quantiva.com
Software applications that automate restricted stock equity
transactions,
licensed to financial services organizations and public organizations.
www.rssgroup.com (U.S. 1, July 2).
Real time investment advice to institutional equity money managers.
application
service provider for Internet-based retirement planning services.
www.expertplan.com (U.S. 1, January 2).
Top Of Page
Deaths
prolific
author of books on cycling, he had worked as a mechanic at Kopp’s
Cycle Shop in Princeton.
playwright,
known for "Miss Lydia, "One Monkey Don’t Stop No Show,"
"Showdown,"
and "Spooks," he was a professor at the College of New Jersey
and founded Trenton’s first black theater group.
designer, he had been art director at the New Jersey Department of
Environmental Protection.
Mercer College, he had worked as a bridge inspector with Michael Baker
Jr. Inc. on College Road.
care administrator at RWJ University Hospital and Helene Fuld Medical
Center, and a sales associate with Coldwell Banker.
Educational Testing Service.
Corrections or additions?
This page is published by PrincetonInfo.com
— the web site for U.S. 1 Newspaper in Princeton, New Jersey.
Facebook Comments