Empowering Angels: Manny Ratafia
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These articles were prepared for the November 29, 2000 edition of
U.S. 1 Newspaper. All rights reserved.
Scholarship Online: Ira Fuchs
In 1996 Ira Fuchs, then Princeton University’s
vice president for computing and information technology, thought using
the Internet in higher education would more likely improve the quality
of education rather than reduce its cost. Now Fuchs has relinquished
his university post to be vice president for information technology
at the Andrew Mellon Foundation, and he is working on Internet-based
projects that do dramatically improve the quality of pedagogy.
At a free technology lecture at the Princeton Public Library on
Tuesday,
December 5, at 6:30 p.m., Fuchs will discuss some of the newest, most
intriguing resources for scholars. Call 609-924-9529 for information.
As a teenager in Forest Hills, Queens, Fuchs was a ham radio operator.
His mother owned and operated women’s clothing stores, and his late
father was a wholesale diamond dealer. He enrolled at Columbia
University
when he was 16 and did systems programming even as an undergraduate.
At 24, with a master’s degree, he directed the computer facility at
the City University of New York. There he co-founded BITNET, a tool
for liberal arts scholars to exchange messages that prepared the
ground
for today’s flourishing Internet E-mail system.
As Princeton University’s computer czar, recruited by then president
William Bowen, Fuchs opened the sluices of fast Internet connections
to every dorm. Now at the Manhattan-based foundation, which also has
an office on Alexander Street in Princeton, Fuchs oversees a series
of demonstration projects in the cost effective applications of
technology
to teaching large numbers of students in very basic subjects.
Chief among these is an electronic archive of scholarly journals,
known as Jstor, which make scholarly journals accessible on the web
— able to be searched and printed out at super-high resolutions.
Another Mellon project is photographing and digitizing art found in
caves in Dun Huang China, an almost inaccessible oasis on the edge
of the Gobi Desert. This artwork offers details of life in China over
a 1,000-year period that ended in the 14th century.
A third example that Fuchs will show in his library talk is the online
course for alumni that has been launched by Princeton University.
The "Walk in Rome" web course, devised by faculty member
John
Pinto, is a good example of what a high quality multimedia seminar
can be, says Fuchs. "It has the feel of a well-done PBS show,
and it uses a CD for low speed connection but is also online."
But Jstor is the Mellon Foundation’s pride-and-joy project. It is
now a not-for-profit organization headed by Kevin Guthrie, a
civil engineering major and varsity football player at Princeton
University,
Class of 1984 (U.S. 1, November 27, 1996). Based in New York City,
Jstor also has offices in Princeton and Ann Arbor.
"By scanning and doing OCR (optical character reading) we have
recreated one of the largest libraries of its kind," says Fuchs.
"You can completely search on the full text in any of the
journals;
you can pull up the page images and print them." In 1996 Jstor
had taken 15 journals that go back to the last century and put them
on the web. Now it has put up more than 120 journal titles, amounting
to 6 million pages. The expansion of Jstor has attracted more than
800 subscribing institutions in over 30 countries. Soon it will be
available in public libraries.
"What we have learned is, that what seems like a simple thing
to do, turns out to be not so simple," says Fuchs. "We have
learned about the whole process of turning a paper volume into a
usable
searchable accurate database."
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News Articles Online
While programs like Jstor bring scholarly journals
closer
to their audience, the public libraries are finding news for their
patrons to access back articles from daily newspapers. Now cardholders
at almost all the libraries in New Jersey can access and print
full-length
newspaper articles from four newspapers — the New York Times,
Washington Post, Philadelphia Inquirer, and the Bergen Record —
from their home computers. A three-year contract with the Gale Group
to add this service went into effect on November 1 for libraries in
Mercer and Middlesex counties.
The New York Times offers several months of archived articles, and
access dates back four years for the Philadelphia, Washington, and
Bergen newspapers. If you were going directly to the newspaper’s
websites,
you would be able to search the archives for free but would be charged
for the full text download.
Use a library card number to log onto these websites to get the
newspaper
articles:
Hightstown,
etc. (www.mcl.org).
Library,
or any library in Middlesex County, www.lmxac.org.
will have the four-newspaper archive in the near future.
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Empowering Angels: Manny Ratafia
Archangels are a new breed," says Daniel Conley
of Silicon Garden Angels Plus Investors (www.oncallcfo.com).
"Archangels
bring enough capital to the table to do good, big work," says
Conley, "but they also add value with their wise technical
counsel.
Other investors consider this `the smart money.’"
Two from this "new breed" of investor, Warren Bagatelle
of Loeb Partners and Manny Ratafia, an individual investor,
share the program at the New Jersey Entrepreneurial Network meeting
on Wednesday, December 6, at noon at the Doral Forrestal. The title:
"Archangels: When $1 Million Is Not Enough." Cost: $45. Call
609-279-0010 (www.njen.com).
Bagatelle made his reputation as a "workout" manager, someone
who takes over direct management of companies that are having
difficulties
and therefore has insight on how to analyze management and product.
The son of a professional photographer, he majored in economics at
Union College in Schenectady, Class of 1960, and has an MBA from
Rutgers.
He spent seven years with Arthur Andersen and 12 years doing workouts
for industrial companies in Rochester, New York. For this he was hired
by large investors, such as GE Capital, to be the operating officer.
"I did five or six," he says proudly, "and never lost
one."
Bagatelle left line management for Wall Street in 1981 and was CEO
of a small New York Stock Exchange member firm, and then became a
managing director of the venerable Loeb Partners, nearly 100 years
old. Personally, he has about three dozen investments, and the firm
has 10 times that number. For his personal investments, Bagatelle
says he generally chips in $50,000 to $100,000, along with one or
two of his partners, to a variety of small companies (U.S. 1, March
15, 2000).
Manny Ratafia led the angel round of investment for SealTech, an
incubator
company out of Stevens Institute (www.sealtech.com). "Because
it had a value-added angel — Manny Ratafia — contributing
a significant six figure amount, all the other cards in the deck
shuffled
together," says Conley. "Other investors followed the `smart
money,’ resulting in more than $1 million of equity investment and
over $5 million of capital."
Ratafia, an individual equity investor in startup companies, is based
in Woodbridge, Connecticut (E-mail: manny@commtechsoftware.com).
Growing
up in New York on the Lower East Side and in Brighton Beach, he comes
from a long line of entrepreneurs and always knew he wanted to be
one. His Polish grandfather owned apartment buildings, a bus service,
and a shoe factory, and his cousins currently have businesses.
An alumnus of Cooper Union, Class of 1971, Ratafia has two master’s
degrees in engineering from MIT, one from Harvard, and an MBA from
Dartmouth. He had a consulting firm, Technology Management Group,
that provided consulting and market research on biotech and medical
products, and he also has a software firm, Commtech.
Always a voracious reader and researcher, Ratafia created a niche
for himself by working around the clock to create special industry
reports that beat the competition by six months. Pharmaceutical firms
and venture capitalists paid $2,000 and $3,000 for three 1986 reports
— on a new cancer treatment, on the implications of AIDS research,
and on the impact of biotech on veterinary medicine. "There was
a great need for information on biotechnology in the mid ’80s, and
it wasn’t being fulfilled," he says.
From what he earned with these reports, he invested $500,000 in
SealTech.
Based in Parsippany, this company is making environmentally friendly
plastic film adhesives that do not expose workers to solvents.
"Right
now just one other company makes this kind of thing and it was founded
by Tim Peck, who now runs SealTech," says Ratafia. "The
downside
is very low, because we already have customers waiting for product.
It has a tiny sliver of the market in each area where we think we
have opportunities."
At the NJEN meeting he will discuss his experiences at SealTech.
"Angel
investors and entrepreneurs don’t have enough information," he
says. "It’s difficult to get quality information. Everyone has
their own ax to grind, which introduces biases into their advice.
I will tell how to try to make the playing field a little more
level."
He will also tell how a small investor can negotiate better deals.
"Venture capitalists would like to perpetuate the myth that they
hold all the cards and have all the power," says Ratafia. "At
almost every meeting I have gone to, they keep repeating that there
are so many deals out there, that whatever terms they want to set,
everybody else should go along with. That is not an accurate portrayal
of their relative power," he says, "because once they have
selected something they are interested in, they are not going to walk
away from it that quickly. The VCs are under great pressure to invest
the funds and invest them well, and if they have a good deal they
are not going to walk away from it because someone wants to change
something here and there."
Ratafia is a skilled negotiator and, in fact, negotiation classes
with Leonard Greenhaulgh at Dartmouth were among his favorites. As
the angel with the largest investment in SealTech he successfully
bargained with the lead investor (an institution) to make the deal
better for himself and the other angels. "We just insisted on
what was appropriate," he says, "and got them to change huge
numbers of things." Various agreements had been set up so that
larger institutions were favored in subtle ways, such as how those
with a certain percentage of ownership can make certain decisions.
His tips:
to talk only through my lawyer as opposed to me directly," says
Ratafia. "That is more difficult, less efficient, and more
expensive.
Angels who are putting in $50,000 — no way they can justify
spending
$10,000 on lawyers. As an entrepreneur I wrote my own contracts,
rarely
used lawyers to help me, and if I did they would come in at the very
last stage."
to representing my own $500,000 investment, I also represented the
others and had quite a bit of leverage." If smaller investors
assert themselves, he says, it is "not that difficult" to
make the agreements fairer. "Even someone putting in as little
as $25,000, if they can represent all of the angel class, they can
have quite a bit of clout."
to get what you want than if you present one long list. "I said
that here is something I had a little bit of a problem with, and once
they have agreed to one list of terms, each additional term is just
one more little item."
never know until you try. As an entrepreneur I did lots of things
that the rule books say you can’t do. It helps you stand out. As an
angel, I have an unusual style of negotiation, tough and
creative."
in SealTech feel we have a really good deal and a really good
company,"
says Ratafia. "It is very important to create the feeling that,
in the end, we are all on the same side and are working together."
— Barbara Fox
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Corporate Angels
Prevent Child Abuse-New Jersey honored Steven
Rosenthal,
co-CEO of Epix, as Man of the Year. Deborah C. Brittain,
president of the Association of Junior Leagues International, received
Woman of the Year award. Epix is the Woodbridge-based professional
employer organization (PEO) that Rosenthal founded less than 10 years
ago. It now has over 50,000 worksite employers and is the nation’s
largest PEO.
The state headquarters of the social service organization is in New
Brunswick. The annual dinner, at which Rosenthal was honored, raised
more than $107,000 — a record amount.
Leslie "Bud" Vivian Award for Community Service at the
community
service on Thanksgiving Day in the Princeton University Chapel. The
award comes with $2,000 to be donated to a nonprofit organization
of the recipients’ choice.
Bryan was instrumental in the development of Princeton Community
Village,
Elm Court, and Griggs Farm, and has also been honored with a U.S.
1 Helping Hands award. Vial was the first president of Princeton
Community
Housing and urged early efforts to end racial discrimination in
Princeton’s
housing.
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The Chamber’s Walk
The New Jersey Chamber of Commerce solicits sponsorships
for the 64th annual "walk" to Washington, set for Thursday,
February 1. The walking is done on a special Amtrak train that takes
business people and politicos to the nation’s capital. So many people
want to go that this year the chamber will send two trains — one
bustling, the second one more quiet. The Capitol Steps, a troupe of
Congressional staffers-turned comedians, will entertain at a dinner
at the Marriott Wardman Park. In previous years, the newly elected
president has consented to speak at the dinner.
Advertisements in an "attendance book," which is placed on
every train seat, start at $250 for a quarter page, and similar ads
are available fro the "Congressional Directory" to be
distributed
at the dinner. Call Kevin Friedlander at 609-989-7888. Tickets
for the train ride, reception, and dinner cost up to $565 for those
who are not chamber members.
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Participate Please
New Jersey high school seniors can win Future
Technologists
Awards granted by the New Jersey Technology Council and sponsored
by Vega Consulting Solutions in Parsippany, u.1 net of
Marlton, Dathil in Trenton, and NJTechNews, the house
organ of NJTC. Other sponsorships are available at from $2,500 to
$15,000.
These awards have the purpose of encouraging students to stay in New
Jersey and to expose them to technical careers. One award is for
web-based
information technology and another for life sciences and
bioinformatics.
Student applicants should be planning to attend a New Jersey college
or university and to major in a high-tech subject. They may enter
as individuals or as a team of two or three from the same high school,
and they must do a project that shows skills in critical thinking,
leadership, communications, presentation, and collaboration. The
deadline
for submitting the project is March 30, 2001. Those who make the first
cut will be given a final interview on May 23.
Bob Carullo (of the Lakehurst Naval Air Station) and Ray Ingram
(of Dathil) co-chair the NJTC’s technology workforce committee, which
developed the scholarship program, along with the Technology Educators
Association of New Jersey and a design team lead by Ingram and NJTC’s
Sara Lee Pindar. Call Pindar at 856-787-9700.
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Donate Please
Dave Collins, one of the DJs for the WNJO morning
show, is camping out in the parking lot of Lawrence Toyota on
Route 1 South and will stay there until the 18-wheeler trailer from
Princeton Moving and Storage is filled with canned goods. The
food will be donated to the Community Food Bank of New Jersey and
Second Harvest in Hillside New Jersey. Live updates will be aired
on 94.5, the oldies station. Supporting this "WNJO’s Camping for
Cans" effort is Applebee’s Neighborhood Grill and Bar.
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