Springdale

Road, Princeton 08540. 609-497-9093; fax, 609-497-9391. Home page:

www.geneformatics.com.

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New Business: WOW!

It is difficult to hear about Joe Parnett’s business

without saying its name. WOW Entertainment, a six-month old company

with offices on State Road, provides attractions to the IMAX theater

in Las Vegas, Ripleys in Atlantic City, and, mostly, to corporate

events and social affairs.

Hoarse after supervising a party the previous night, Parnett describes

one of the attractions he has purchased or licensed in travels around

the world. "It takes a picture and puts it on a boxing glove,"

he says. Friendly combatants, be they children attending a bar mitzvah

or sales reps at a team-building retreat, don gloves bearing each

other’s pictures and slug away.

If the mood is more love than war, the attraction might be a machine

that combines the facial features of lovers to project what their

offspring might look like. In another attraction, individuals enter

a phone booth and record a short message that is then transferred

onto a key chain.

Parnett, a 1991 graduate of Tulane University, worked at his family’s

business, Community Liquors on Witherspoon Street, until it was sold

in 1994. He then went to American Alpha in Monmouth Junction, a firm

in the entertainment attractions business.

"I started WOW Entertainment part time in 1997," Parnett says.

"I went full time last August." Already profitable, Parnett

has three fulltime employees, but goes up to 10 to 12 people on the

weekends.

Parnett says most of his business is in Manhattan, Long Island, and

Westchester. His business stationery just arrived and he is prepared

to start marketing in central New Jersey now. So far, most of his

bookings have come through relationships with event planners,

orchestra

leaders, and others in the business.

Striving to build an inventory of unique attractions, Parnett

frequently

travels to Europe and to Asia to scout out amusements others are

unlikely

to have.

Parnett lives in Montgomery with his wife, Nina, a native of the

former

Yugoslavia who holds a PhD. in chemical engineering, and their son,

Shon Aleksandar, 2. They are expecting another child in March.

Princeton

08540. Joe Parnett, owner. 609-279-1679; fax, 609-279-0391.

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Start-Ups

Princeton 08540. John Diehl. 609-252-9666; fax, 609-252-9633.

John Diehl opened a financial planning practice focusing on income

tax preparation and retirement planning. A graduate of Niagara

University,

Class of 1968, he worked for Coopers & Lybrand and spent 20 years

doing real estate banking in Miami, Florida. After moving to Princeton

for personal reasons he made a career change — working for another

financial planning firm before opening his own practice in December.

"Most of my clients are long-term investors," he says. His

advice: "Pay very close attention to your 401k, especially if

it is concentrated in your company’s stock."

608, Plainsboro 08536. Sriram Pasupuleti, owner. 609-750-9157; fax,

609-897-9593. Home page: www.friendlyconsultants.com.

Sriram Pasupuleti has worked as a programming consultant for such

firms as Paragon Consultants and Cambridge Research. The son of a

bank employee, he has a bachelor’s degree from Osmania University

in Hyderabad, India, Class of 1996, and he came to this country in

1998. He also has a brand-new firm, Vibgyor Solutions.

Friendly Consultants, which he founded with a friend, has six

programmers

working at customer sites in such languages as Java, Visual Basic,

and Unix. "We are filing for visas and are expecting to grow,"

he says.

Princeton 08542. Laura Gan, manager. 609-924-8225; fax, 609-924-8229.

Laura Gan, 38, made a career change to open the wireless phone sales

and service store with the help of a Manhattan-based silent partner;

she had been managing a Chinese restaurant and "wanted something

different."

A native of Canton, South China, she came to this country with her

family when she was a teenager. She studied at the Fashion Institute

of Technology, is married, and has two school-age children. Among

her brands are Voice Stream, MCI, Sprint PCS, Cingular (Cellular One),

and Nextel.

Top Of Page
New in Town

202, Princeton 08540. Hank Schoeffel, president. 609-951-9700; fax,

609-951-9125. Home page: www.cqassociates.com.

Career Quest Associates, an 18-person career consulting and executive

marketing firm, moved into 2,300 square feet on Alexander Road last

fall. Greg Gichan, vice president and co-founder, is a graduate of

Fordham University (Class of 1985).

According to Gichan, the firm is "the opposite of a

recruiter."

It works as an agent for individuals seeking new jobs, managing their

marketing efforts. Career Quest serves individuals in every industry,

Gichan says, ticking off law, accounting, finance, and information

technology. Lately, he says, the firm has been seeing a number of

executives "who were in very high positions in E-commerce."

1171, Plainsboro 08536. Robert Taylor, eastern sales manager.

609-716-1100;

fax, 609-716-6800.

The branch office of the firm based in Ceritos, California, takes

orders for flavors and fragrances. It opened here last year.

Road, Princeton 08540. Anne D. Kravitz, director of operations.

609-452-0990;

fax, 609-452-8965.

Business Insurance Services International, endorsed by International

School Services, moved into offices at 15 Roszel Road last year.

Founded

by Howard Kravitz, who holds a business and accounting degree from

the University of Indiana (Class of 1966) and an MBA from the

University

of Maryland, the company sells employee benefits and business

insurance

to schools around the world that educate both American expatriates

and local students.

Kravitz’ wife, Anne, a 1970 graduate of William Paterson University,

is director of operations. She says the company, with clients

"wherever

there are American schools," including Europe, South America,

the Far East, and Africa, is now moving into a new business area —

offering employee benefits to local companies with overseas-based

employees.

Square, Pennington 08534. Fred Bastedo, owner. 609-730-1850; fax,

609-730-0577.

Fred Bastedo moved Living Improvement, his water treatment company,

into space in Pennington Square last year. The business, which

performs

water testing and sells and services water treatment units for homes

and businesses, is a second career for Bastedo, a retired vocational

education teacher. A graduate of Trenton State (Class of 1976),

Bastedo

taught automotive repair at the Mercer County vocational schools for

25 years. He founded Living Improvement in 1993.

Street, Princeton 08540. 609-430-9404; fax, 425-928-9290.

Robert Barlow opened this office last fall. His firm brokers services,

including insurance and banking services, for homeowners and condo

associations.

Building B, Cranbury 08512. Siva Annaparedy, president. 609-409-4255;

fax, 609-409-4256. Home page: www.procti.com.

Pro Commerce Technologies Inc., a software consulting and development

company, moved into 2,500 square feet on Route 130 in Cranbury last

fall. Siva Annaparedy, founder and president, says the company, which

also has an office in India, employs five or more part-time employees

depending on the project. While most of Pro Commerce’s business now

comes from consulting, according to Annaparedy, who holds a PhD in

computer science from the India Institute of Science in Bangalore,

the company also has software products.

Its first product, a business-to-business tool, enables employees

to communicate with one another via the Internet regardless of their

physical locations. This software is undergoing testing. A second

product, software that authorizes different degrees of website access

to different categories of users, is under development.

Robbinsville

08691. Tom O’Hara, sales manager. 609-890-4646; fax, 609-890-4674.

Tom O’Hara opened a sales office last fall for a Whippany-based

manufacturer

of packaging materials. The company is 60 years old.

Top Of Page
Expansions

08520-0011.

Van Delfino, owner. 609-371-1554; fax, 609-371-7133. Home page:

www.abs-sports.com.

Anton Zevenbergen sold his bicycle seat-making business to a retailer,

Van Delfino, who took over last month. The seat company moved from

Windsor Corporate Park to Delfino’s location, the Bicycle Rack, on

Route 33 in Hightstown.

Zevenbergen still owns the patent to the special saddle seat, but

he sold the name, name, website, inventory, customer list for an

undisclosed

price. The special anatomically correct seats that he invented are

particularly important for those with prostate sensitivity, because

they don’t crush the arteries in the groin. The seats are being made

in the Netherlands, as before, and Delfino is selling them wholesale

and retail. Retail cost is $100.

DelFino opened his own shop in 1983. He has a full line of bikes

including

Univega, Diamondback, Giant, Mongoose, and Bianchi.

16, Pennington 08534. Matthew J. Doherty, investment representative.

609-333-1363; fax, 877-222-6361. Home page:

edwardjones.com.

Matthew Doherty nearly doubled his space with a move from 680 square

feet at Pennington Point to a office at Pennytown previously held

by another Edward D. Jones representative. It is a branch of the St.

Louis based brokerage with 5,500 offices in 50 states.

Doherty, whose late father was a manager for the Port Authority,

graduated

in 1996 from the College of New Jersey and worked as a public

accountant

for J.H. Cohn on Lenox Drive. "When my father passed away,"

he says, "I had a friend who helped our family with all the

unexpected

details and I liked what he was able to do for us. Now I can help

others with their business and personal financial goals."

200, Princeton 08540. Richard A. Maloy Jr., president CEO.

609-987-0221;

fax, 609-987-0490. Home page: www.insurehitech.com.

Early in January Rick Maloy moved his web-based insurance business

from 2,500 square feet at 228 Alexander Road to 26,000 feet at the

building formerly occupied by Bovis Construction in Forrestal Village.

His fully functional web platform connects the broker with the

customer

and the insurance company.

Though many portals geared to small business will take online

applications,

Maloy insists on having one of his agents interview each applicant

and to fill out the application. "We are dealing with very

sophisticated

companies with sophisticated technology risks," he says (U.S.

1, August 16, 2000).

Building

1, Suite J, Lawrenceville 08648. W. Thomas Garland MD, principal.

609-895-1492; fax, 609-895-0274.

The pharmaceutical product/consumer product testing and evaluation

company has become a Radiant Research clinical testing site. W. Thomas

Garland is a native of Berkeley Heights who earned a bachelor’s in

chemistry in 1974 and a medical degree in 1978, both from Tulane

University.

Top Of Page
Management Moves

08540. Boris Fridman, president. 609-734-0300; fax, 609-734-0346.

Home page: www.broadbeam.com.

Sri Sridharan, former COO of ServiceNet, has replaced R. Barry Borden

as the president and chief operating officer for Broadbeam

Corporation,

the wireless application infrastructure provider formerly known as

Nettech. He will manage Broadbeam’s aggressive growth and rapid global

expansion and will report to Boris Fridman, chairman and CEO of

Broadbeam.

Borden will be a consultant to Broadbeam.

In 1985 Sridharan had co-founded and managed an IT Services firm,

Global Technology Limited. At IBM, starting in 1995, he developed

and executed the business plan for IBM’s Network Based Applications

on a subscription basis, and he also had responsibility for market

for IBM Network Services. As COO of ServiceNet, owned by Accenture

(previously Andersen Consulting), Sridharan’s responsibilities

included

managing 180 professionals worldwide and overseeing eight global ASP

sites.

Top Of Page
Deaths

priest, he was on the faculty at Princeton University until 1995.

He had been manager of the plastics division of General Motors in

Ewing.

at the New Jersey Bankers Association on Harrison Street.

chimney

repair company in Pennington.

from Lockheed Martin on Princeton Hightstown Road.

NASA-certified

wirer at EMR Photoelectric.

supervisor for Techne Inc. on Alexander Road.

accountant

with Deloitte & Touche and taught at Rider University.

supervisor at the New Jersey Manufacturers Insurance Company on

Sullivan

Way in West Trenton.

year she worked for the Lakeview Childcare Center.

carpenter

at Princeton University.

retired

senior research engineer and physicist at Princeton University.

buyer with Educational Testing Service.

a manager with Federal Express on Sloan Avenue.

Trap Rock.

of urban planning at Princeton University.

Corrections or additions?

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