New in IT Recruiting: JobReq.com
Corrections or additions?
These articles were prepared for the December 6, 2000 edition of
U.S. 1 Newspaper. All rights reserved.
Jamieson Disperses
After a decade that saw big firms from Pennsylvania
— Fox Rothschild, Morgan Lewis Bockius, Reed Smith, Buchanan
Ingersoll,
and Dechert Price & Rhoads — gaining firm footholds in Princeton,
smaller firms find it difficult to offer competitive salaries to their
associates. That’s the chief reason why Jamieson Moore Peskin & Spicer
decided to sell out and merge with a bigger firm, says Thomas P.
Weidner,
one of the partners.
Pepper Hamilton, a 400-attorney firm based in Philadelphia, is leasing
Jamieson Moore’s Alexander Park office building and will add 18 of
the firm’s attorneys to its staff. Meanwhile 13 attorneys from
Jamieson
Moore will join the 120-attorney New York-based firm, Windels Marx
Lane & Mittendorf, which on January 1 will open an office at 104
Carnegie
Center (Suite 201, 609-720-0005; fax, 609-720-0070).
Associates will get better pay and more varied assignments under the
new arrangements, to take effect on January 1. The change is expected
to cut down on the administrative workload for the partners, who
retain
ownership of the Alexander Park building.
This is not the first time Jamieson Moore had entertained a sale;
Pittsburgh-based Reed Smith Shaw & McClay had tried to buy Jamieson
Moore in 1994. Windels Marx had been negotiating to buy Jamieson Moore
this summer but that deal was reportedly supplanted by Pepper
Hamilton’s.
One of the firm’s prestigious alumnae is Deborah T. Poritz, now New
Jersey Supreme Court Chief Justice and a former state attorney
general.
Thomas C. Jamieson Jr. is the son of one of the founders of the
73-year-old
firm.
Windels Marx already has an office in New Brunswick, led by its
principal
for New Jersey, Anthony Coscia, who is also the chairman of the New
Jersey Economic Development Authority. "Our firm has had a growing
practice in New Jersey, and Princeton is a location we have wanted
to have for some time because of our expanding corporate and
technology
business," says Coscia.
Coscia explains his pick: "This was an opportunity for us to
acquire
a very profitable component of an existing firm, a group that in our
view represented the heart of one of Princeton’s strongest practices.
We feel we have created a middle market firm with a regional presence
and a dual hub — New Brunswick and Princeton. This group will
be financially viable from the start."
Weidner is at the top of the list of attorneys who will move to the
new Windels Marx office, and he will be on the executive committee.
Weidner went to Princeton, Class of 1969, and the University of
Wisconsin,
and he focuses on insurance regulation.
"We saw the advantages of a larger firm of 120 lawyers, which
would enable us to triple our litigation capacity, offer higher
associate
salaries, and provide contacts on both the Democratic and Republican
side of New Jersey politics," says Weidner. One Jamieson Moore
partner, Samuel G. Destito, was in charge of Governor Christie
Whitman’s
reelection campaign.
Windels Marx has an existing office in New Brunswick with about two
dozen attorneys and is known for having good Democratic connections.
"At the same time, the culture of Windels was close to the culture
that we have at Jamieson Moore — open doors, first name basis,
informal, and friendly. It’s the difference between a 450-attorney
firm and a 120-attorney firm," says Weidner. "And Windels
offered us a seat on the executive committee without our even asking
for it."
Other shareholders moving to Windels Marx and their specialities are
Ross A. Lewin (environmental issues), Timothy J. O’Neill (employment
litigation), and Robert A. Schwartz (corporate work and IPOs). Also
moving are Charles M. Fisher, Karen M. Spano, David F. Swerdlow, Julie
R. Tattoni, Jared M. Witt, Elizabeth Boyd, Marcy Silva, and Tara A.
Jones.
Founded in 1890, Pepper Hamilton has 10 regional offices including
one in Cherry Hill. It has apparently been quietly testing the
high-tech
Princeton market by dispatching its attorneys to speak and network
at various technology meetings and conferences (www.pepperlaw.com —
Warning: this site does not allow for easy transfer back to the
original document.)
In addition to Jamieson, the following lawyers will join Pepper as
partners: Dennis R. Casale, Edwin Leavitt-Gruberger, Thomas M.
Letizia,
Michael J. Mann, Jonathan M. Preziosi, Mark A. Solomon, John W.
Verlaque
and Audrey D. Wisotsky. Michael F. Spicer, a name partner of the
Jamieson
firm, will be of counsel to Pepper. The Jamieson Moore associates
joining Pepper are Michael J. Canavan, Monica N. Mardikian, Daniel
G. Murray, Michael G. Petrone, Donald R. Readlinger, Ian W. Siminoff,
Angelo A. Stio, III and Nancy J. Truesdale. Nine legal assistants
and approximately 20 other employees also will join Pepper from
Jamieson
Moore.
"The Jamieson firm has an outstanding reputation, and there is
a very good fit between our firms professionally and culturally,"
said James L. Murray, Pepper’s executive partner. "We have been
interested in Princeton for some time. We already have a number of
clients in the area."
Adds Tom Jamieson: "Our clients have increasingly complex needs
that can better be met by a larger firm, and we are excited and
challenged
by the breadth and depth of Pepper. The areas in which our lawyers
practice — corporate, real estate, financial services and banking,
trusts and estates, employment and litigation — will mesh
immediately
with Pepper’s practice, and our clients will benefit from the expanded
and integrated services.
"We have talked with many firms," Jamieson says, "but
the people and practice at Pepper made this combination an easy choice
for us. The institutional sense of the Jamieson firm will continue
because Pepper shares the same values."
— Barbara Fox
Park, CN 5276, Princeton 08543-5276. 609-452-0808; fax, 609-452-1147.
Home page: www.jamiesonmoore.com.
Top Of Page
New in IT Recruiting: JobReq.com
In 1986 Ken Peterson named his computer personnel
recruiting
firm after two of his favorite statesmen from the past: Winston
Churchill
and Averell Harriman. Now his Research Park-based firm has spun off
a new kind of recruiting firm for the future. Named JobReq.com Inc.,
this company is intended to recruit and manage the IT consultants
of the future. It is Internet-based.
Edward Zimmerman is president and CEO of JobReq.com Inc., which has
4,000 square feet and seven employees so far at 244 Wall Street. The
company from which it sprang, Churchill & Harriman, has 2,000 square
feet and 12 in-house staff members, plus consultants at client sites.
It still does some recruiting but most of its business is consulting,
and it is a service provider for JobReq.com.
Zimmerman calls JobReq.com an Internet-based staffing exchange that
hooks up hiring managers with consulting companies nationwide. "We
will process the open job requirements, provide them to consulting
companies, screen the candidates, do Internet-based testing, and
provide
only the top candidates back to the hiring company. We do the
screening
process for them and manage the vendor relationships with the
consulting
companies," he says.
The cost for the JobReq service is paid by the providers — the
consulting companies. This comprehensive service can save the
consulting
companies money, says Zimmerman, by eliminating the need for
salespeople
and marketing costs. "They receive the job requisitions as we
get them, and our service is the single point of contact."
Panasonic
is the anchor client of the seven-month-old firm.
The client specifies, in the job requisition, how much it is willing
to pay a consultant. Often, says Zimmerman, clients can hire
consultants
for 15 percent below market rates, in part because many consulting
companies have signed on to use his service. "It is almost like
a reverse auction," he says.
JobReq offers clients a single source for billing and management
reporting.
Another value-added service that JobReq provides for clients is
Internet-based
testing of consultants’ skills, and the testing is done by a third
party source.
Only one other small company — Vivant, in Texas — is doing
what JobReq does, says Zimmerman. Bigger competitors, such as Kelly
and Volt, have programs that are still managed manually, he points
out, and the 900-pound gorilla, Monster Board, lacks JobReq’s focus
on customer service.
Zimmerman grew up in Livingston, where his parents had small
businesses
— exporting clothing and a neighborhood shoe store. He majored
in computer science at the University of Maryland, Class of 1979,
and then moved from Mathematica to Digital Equipment to Nynex Mobile.
Ken Peterson, 45, the son of a General Motor executive, studied law
and justice at Glassboro State (Rowan University). In 1982 he went
into white collar recruiting with Jarvis Walker Group in Florham Park,
then with Cal Roberts Associates in Union, before founding Churchill
& Harriman Inc. He is married to Megan Peterson, a graphic artist
at Princeton University who is the former president of Princeton’s
McIntosh user group.
With a staff of 25, Churchill & Harriman is considered a boutique
agency, yet it has such clients as Johnson & Johnson, Panasonic,
Intel,
and their affiliates. "In the early 1990s my clients said, `if
you can take the standard of quality that you have demonstrated to
us on a recruiting basis and migrate that to a consulting company,
we are here as your clients,’" says Peterson.
"Our `value add’ is that we actually do what we say we are going
to do," says Peterson. "In an age of smoke and mirrors, that
distinction is becoming more beneficial."
609-921-8142; fax, 609-924-2314. Home page: www.jobreq.com.
Princeton
08540. 609-921-3551; fax, 609-921-1061. Home page: www.chus.com.
Top Of Page
Name Changes
Laporte, a British conglomerate with three specialty
chemical companies, opened its North American headquarters at 22
Chambers
Street three years ago. Now its president, Michael J. Kenny, has a
new boss — New York-based Kohlberg Kravis Roberts & Co. (KKR).
KKR bought out the three chemical companies from Laporte —
AlfaGary
Cop., Southern Clay, and CSI Chemical Specialties — for $1.175
billion. The trio employs a total of 3,000 workers and had about
$600,000,000
in sales last year, which amounted to about 40 percent of Laporte’s
total sales.
Among KKR’s other holdings are shares of Primedia (in Hightstown),
Borden, RJR Nabisco, and Fleet Bank.
Kenny, 54, has been president of NL Chemicals in Hightstown and of
Rheox, an NL subsidiary, and he has also run the chemicals business
for Church & Dwight on Thanet Circle. While he was president of the
specialty products division at Church and Dwight in 1995, he launched
a technically challenging application for sodium bicarbonate —
to use it to impregnate Scott Paper’s Cottonelle toilet paper. He
came to Laporte’s chemical business when it moved to Princeton from
Charlotte, North Carolina.
Street, Suite 201, Princeton 08542. Michael J. Kenny, president.
609-430-1199;
fax, 609-430-1524.
Top Of Page
New in Town
Princeton
08540. Rudy Frank, partner in charge. 609-750-9590; fax, 609-750-9575.
Mechanical engineers, based in New York, have divided their former
office in Mount Laurel between Princeton and Philadelphia.
Robert C. Lijana, vice president technology. 609-409-7050; fax,
609-409-7053.
Zink and Triest, an importer and exporter of vanilla beans, is a
division
of A.M. Todd Group in Pennsylvania. Here it is opening a center for
the design of unique flavors.
Boulevard,
Suite 200, Princeton 08540. Fred Rappaport. 609-951-4270; fax,
609-987-9750.
Www.qusiontech.com (This website does not allow for easy transfer back
to the original document).
Formerly known as Advanced Integrative Photonics, this software
company
is due to move to 33,000 square feet in South Brunswick in first
quarter
of 2001.
200, Lawrenceville 08648. Carl J. Thompson, general manager.
609-844-7608.
Home page: www.callatg.com.
Carl J. Thompson has opened the Mercer County office for a
telecommunications
company based in Santa Rosa, California. It is a facilities-based
integrated communications provider (ICP) that targets the underserved
middle-sized business markets. It offers one-stop shopping —
digital
networks including DSL technology, local exchange, high speed data
and Internet services, and domestic and international long distance.
For now, it is located at Office Concierge on Lenox Drive.
Thompson went to University of Notre Dame and has an MBA from the
University of Chicago. He spent 17 years at AT&T Network Systems
(Lucent
Technologies) in business development, market management, customer
service, and sales. Then, as president and COO, he took North American
Wireless into the PCS Entrepreneur market. Before moving to ATG he
had been vice president for Daleen Technologies Inc., a
telecom-billing
software development company in Florida. Here he is responsible for
sales, customer service, and operations for a territory that includes
most of greater Princeton.
Top Of Page
Management Moves
Princeton
08540. Timothy Andrews. 609-371-7700; fax, 609-371-7879.
Primedia named Timothy M. Andrews CEO of Intertec Publishing (its
B2B division) on Friday, December 8. Andrews is already president
and CEO of IndustryClick, Primedia’s online web of B2B sites, and
is moving that firm from Twin Rivers to Forrestal Village. This
additional
job will make Andrews the point person for both the publishing arm
and the Internet arm of Primedia and represents Andrews’ push to
integrate
the traditional business with new media business.
At IndustryClick he is creating vertical online communities targeted
at specific industries (U.S. 1, July 5). His most recent launch is
TelecomClick, a business-to-business online site for the
telecommunications
industry that covers broadband, IP telephony, ICPs, wireless,
satellite,
Internet, cable and network support. (www.primedia.com). Before
joining IndustryClick, Andrews was founding CEO of Dow Jones Reuters
Business Interactive (Factiva).
Top Of Page
Deaths
Princeton Plasma Physics Laboratory.
Joann A. Branzelli Farr, 55, on December 11. She had worked
at ETS.
Corrections or additions?
This page is published by PrincetonInfo.com
— the web site for U.S. 1 Newspaper in Princeton, New Jersey.
Facebook Comments