Just another Friday at ABG

Posted on November 22, 2013 by Natalie DeCario

We’re back again with another weekly ‘Just another Friday at ABG Capital’ blog post! We had a fantastic week filled with a ton of excitement. We first want to say that we had an amazing time playing football in our Annual Turkey Bowl last Friday. The memories were captured and you can relive them over and over and over again by checking out the pictures and videos that are posted on our Facebook Page and YouTube Channel.

Before we get to into the week’s events, we want to announce the holiday raffle that we’re doing to raise money for the Make-A-Wish Foundation. For this particular fundraising event, we’ll be raffling off a basket filled with all kinds of goodies. Tickets are $1 each and if you are local and would like to purchase one, please send an email to Natalie DeCario at natalied@abgcapital.com. If you are not local and would still like to support the Make-A-Wish Foundation, visit their website to make an online donation.

Today was a busy and exciting day for us at ABG Capital. We had our lunch Committee, Tim Linn, Jaime Doyle, Sharon Kolesar and Natalie DeCario, organized a great Thanksgiving themed Chinese food lunch. They had decorations and all kinds of great food!

After lunch was served, everyone stuck around so we could have a company meeting to make some announcements and recognize a few employees. For our employee recognition announcements, our ABG Capital Employee of the Month was Tom Cavey and Sara Warhold was our Honorable Mention. Another announcement is for Terri Sams who was presented with her 5 Years of Service Award. Congratulations to all of you!

Terri Sams and Jeff Tapolci

Tom Cavey and Sharon Kolesar

Just to make some closing announcements, ABG Capital is hiring! We’re looking for someone to join our Billing team and our Portfolio Companies are always looking for great people to add to their fantastic team of Customer Service Reps and Technical Support Specialists. If you are interested in any of the positions, please send an email to marketing@abgcapital.com. VoIP Innovations is specifically looking for a new Account Manager to join their growing Sales Team. If you are interested in this position, check out the detailed Job Description and apply online.

Last but definitely not least, we want to let you know that one of our employees will be featured on the TLC show, Four Weddings. Jed Blazanin got married in August and the episode featuring his wedding will air next Friday, November 29^th at 10pm EST. Set a reminder, set your DVR, do you whatever it takes to not miss it!

That wraps up this week’s Just another Friday at ABG Capital, have a great weekend everyone.

Just another Friday at ABG

Posted on November 15, 2013 by Natalie DeCario

Welcome back to your regular Just another Friday at ABG Capital Blog post where you get to hear all about the great things going on around the office. This week we got a visit from students who attend Canon McMillan High School. These students belong to the Entrepreneurial Program at the school and are made up of Freshmen all the way to Seniors. They got to learn about ABG Capital and its Portfolio Companies and the road that led us to success. There has been struggle and tragedy, but that is what made us and our Portfolio Companies stronger and more grounded. We’ve been able to create a culture that is unlike any other and the people we employ are what keep our business thriving. These students got to hear from different key members of the Executive Team who all offered a different perspective to portray to these students. If you want to read more about how this visit went, check out the blog post we published earlier this week. Here are some more pictures of their visit!

Today is the day that we take part in our Annual Turkey Bowl! We’ll all be leaving the office shortly and heading to field to enjoy a great football game. Don’t worry though, because members of our support staff will still be in the office to assist our customers with any issues. At ABG Capital we try our best to give back to our employees and show them that we really appreciate all the hard work they put in every day. Once a quarter we treat them to a half day of work and a half day of fun outside of the office. So far this year we’ve gone bowling, played kickball and had a game of softball. The Turkey Bowl will be the last game of the year, but then we’ll pick right back up again with another sporting event for the first quarter of 2014. Check out these pictures from past Turkey Bowls!

2008

2009

2011

2012

Canon-McMillan High School Students Come for a Visit

Posted on November 12, 2013 by Natalie DeCario

This morning we got to spend some time with students who are in the Entrepreneurship Program at Canon-McMillan High School. These students, who were made up of Freshmen all the way to Seniors, got to hear from a few members of our staff to get a better idea of who we are and what we do.

They had a detailed presentation followed by a tour of our brand new office space. The presentation focused on our company and Portfolio Companies, what life is like as a business owner, how things change as an organization grows and also what it’s like to work in a family owned business. We also touched on the struggles of overcoming the life changing tragedy of losing our founder Gerard Tapolci.

Since our culture is a huge part of our business, we had to explain how it was created and how we maintain it. Since we found the key to creating a lasting and unique culture, we’ve been able to keep our culture the same as we transitioned from one industry to another. The secret to keeping our culture is creating the perfect balance between giving employees freedom while still maintaining a certain level of productivity. It’s been working great for us for the past 21 years!

We hope that the Canon-McMillan High School students got a real sense of what goes on here at ABG Capital and also what it means to be an entrepreneur. We shared our stories of misfortune and hard times and how we overcame those struggles to ultimately to build a thriving business.

Below are a few pictures taken from their visit.

Just another Friday at ABG

Posted on November 8, 2013 by Natalie DeCario

Here we are again wrapping up another great week at ABG Capital. We have just a few things to go over and then it’s back to making your weekend plans. We first want to start off by saying that our open house was a huge success. The decorations for our wall came in on time and everyone was very impressed by how everything turned out. It was an overall great night that was shared with our friends, family and business associates. We hope to have everyone back for a visit soon!

Below are a couple pictures of our brand new office and office decorations. If you’d like to see more, stop by our Facebook Page. You might want to ‘Like’ the page while you’re there; we post some good stuff.

Now that November is here, we can start thinking about Thanksgiving. And since we’re thinking about Thanksgiving, we might as well be thinking about football! That’s right, our annual Turkey Bowl Football Game will be held next Friday. The two teams will go against each other in a fierce battle as they display their extreme skills in the mighty arena. Ok, maybe it won’t be that intense, but it’ll sure be a competitive game among co-workers! But as always, our support teams will be at your service! We’ll be posting some pictures from the game on Monday so make sure to check them out on our social media sites. Here’s an action shot of the game from last year:

As we wrap up this week’s Just another Friday at ABG Capital, we want wish a few people a happy anniversary and birthday. Here is the list of November anniversaries and birthdays:

Anniversaries
- Jason Marshall – 3 years on November 1
- Jed Blazanin – 12 years on November 6
- Lowell Smith – 6 years on November 12
- Matt Chapman – 12 years on November 15
- Ian Hambelton – 6 years on November 19
- Terri Sams – 5 years on November 26
- Tom Cavey – 3 years on November 30
Birthdays
- Natalie DeCario – November 1
- Tom Cavey – November 1
- Ari Sigalov – November 1
- Jed Blazanin – November 7
- Paul Frye – November 9
- Steve Korbett – November 28

Happy birthday and happy anniversary to all of you! While we are celebrating many more anniversaries for these employees, we do have one that is ending today. Matt Bartko, a porting specialist for VoIP Innovations, has been with us since 2011 and will be leaving the company to explore other opportunities. We wish you the best of luck in the next chapter of your life!

Just another Friday at ABG

Posted on November 1, 2013 by Natalie DeCario

Since we didn’t get a chance to tell you yesterday, Happy Halloween! Of course we celebrated the holiday in the office yesterday by throwing a Halloween Party complete with a Pot Luck lunch and costume contests. Right now, I’d like to announce our winners for these five costume contest categories:

Best Woman: Denise Breide as a witch
Best Man: Nick Jenkner as Ezio Auditore da Firenze from Assassins Creed
Scariest: Tom Cavey as Emperor Palpatine from Star Wars
Most Original: Steve Korbett as Gary King from The World’s End
Funniest: Joe Aponick as Jed Blazanin another ABG Capital employee

If you want to see some more great pictures of everyone in their costumes, visit our Facebook page!

In other news from this week, Brian Barnebei started on Monday as our new Legal Counsel. We mentioned last week that we gave him a warm welcome by giving him some decorations for his office. Unfortunately, he didn’t like all the Pitt Panthers memorabilia we filled his office with. He retaliated by dressing up as a Mountaineer (since his REAL favorite team is WVU Mountaineers) for Halloween. He was a great sport about the whole thing which is why he’ll fit right back in here at ABG Capital.

Our Executive Team has also arrived back from their Gazelles, Inc. Fortune Growth Summit in Las Vegas. Our CEO, Jeff Tapolci, had this to say about his time there, “As usual, the Fortune Summits validates a lot of what we are doing right, but also gives us a lot more to think about that we can be doing as a company. This particular event validated that we are doing the right things by focusing on our culture.” It’s always nice to be reassured that you’re on the right track to making your company as good as it can be.

Before we close out this week, we’ll be joined by our family, friends, clients, and associates for an Open House to show off our new office. We’ll enjoy a great evening filled with great company, light hors d’ oeuvres and refreshments.

On that note, have a great weekend!

Just another Friday at ABG

Posted on October 25, 2013 by Natalie DeCario

It looks like October is starting to come to a close and we’re finishing out the month with a bang here at ABG Capital! All week our Executive Team has been in Las Vegas at the Gazelles, Inc. Growth Summit working on their leadership and strategic planning skills. They’ve attended these summits twice a year for the past eight years, and they always bring new information that will help our people and our organization prosper. If you’re interested in how the first summit this year went, check out this blog post! We’ve also posted some great pictures of the speakers so make sure you visit (and “Like”) our Facebook page.

While our Executive Team was off learning tools and techniques to bring back to the organization, the rest of the ABG Capital employees were learning some new skills of their own. Maria Gross Gray, our Health and Safety Specialist from Cintas, spent the day teaching our staff about CPR, First Aid and Safety. If you want to see some more pictures, CLICK HERE!

I have make a quick announcement about the FANTASTIC lunch that our October Lunch Committee put together. They went with a soup and salad bar and it’s safe to say that it was a hit around the office. Especially since we were seeing snow this morning!

Now that we filled you in on what went on all week at ABG Capital, let’s share some exciting things that we have going on next week. To start, we’ll be welcoming Brian Barnabei as our Legal Counsel. Although it is Brian’s first day, he isn’t a new employee. Brian used to work for us from 2007 to 2011 and now we’re excited to have him back in the office! We thought we’d give him a warm welcome by filling his office with a few decorations that remind him of his favorite sports team.

Brian is actually a huge WVU fan…

Also next week we will be having our annual Halloween Party and Pot Luck lunch. Everyone is encouraged to wear their best costume and compete in our costume contest. Of course we’ll be taking pictures all day so make sure to keep up with us by following our social media sites.

As most of you know, over the past few months we’ve been working on an office expansion project. ABG Capital is growing and our office is growing with us. Next Friday we’ll be holding an Open House to show our brand new office space to our family, friends, clients, and associates. If you’re interested in finding out more about our upcoming events, please contact to our Office Administrator, Sara Warhold.

That wraps up this week’s Just another Friday at ABG Capital, so make sure to follow us on all of our social media sites as well as subscribe to our blog so you never miss a post.

Have a great weekend!

Just another Friday at ABG

Posted on October 18, 2013 by Natalie DeCario

Happy Friday! We’re hoping everyone had a fantastic week. We’ve been keeping busy here at ABG Capital with visitors and planning sessions and conferences all week. Let’s tell you a little more about all this.

On Tuesday and Wednesday, GlobalPOPs held their annual planning session in our new conference room and on Thursday and Friday VoIP Innovations held theirs.These sessions are designed to create a yearly and quarterly plan for the companies so they can stay ahead of their competition and continue pleasing their customers. Here are some pictures of the two planning sessions:

The GlobalPOPs Team

The VoIP Innovations Team

On top of all the strategic planning that was going on this week, InspiraFS had a few visitors in the office this week too. They were just in time because our build-out project is almost complete! There are only a few small final touches that need to be finished up, include the wall designs that we have being printed right now. We’re looking forward to showing off the office in two weeks for the big unveiling at our Open House.

This week our HR Manager, Sharon Kolesar, spent a few days out of the office at the Pittsburgh Human Resources Associations (PHRA) 2013 Annual Conference and Exposition. This year was their 65th anniversary and they celebrated by hosting another fantastic HR convention. Some of the topics they covered were creating an inclusive culture, healthcare, decreasing stress, analytic tools that can help any HR professional, and even health and wellness topics.

The last thing we need to mention is that it’s that time of the year when our Executive Team will be heading out of the office for the second Gazelles summit of the year. The first summit they attended this year was in Orlando and focused on growing leadership within the organization. This summit is in Las Vegas and will be centered around growing the entire organization. The members of the Executive Team who will be attending are Jeff Tapolci, Jason Tapolci, Ron Eggert, Dan Ravenstahl, Sebastian Kiely, Pete Littlejohn, Nick Medina and Corey Potts. We can’t wait to see what this summit has in store for everyone at ABG Capital!

We hope you have a great weekend. 🙂

Just another Friday at ABG

Posted on October 11, 2013 by Natalie DeCario

It’s safe to say that our office will be receiving a face-lift very soon. We’ve been mentioning that we put together an office decoration committee and we’re happy to announce the materials for phase one of the whole office redecoration project have been sent off to the printer. We’ve gone through tons of ideas and edits and then more edits on top of that. The next step is to get the materials from the printer and start placing them on the walls. We are going to have three huge pieces and then some smaller things ready to go for our open house on November 1^st. Since that dates getting close, we can give you an idea of what these three huge pieces are going to be. One is going to be a giant clock that represents the 12 Chimes of Life. The second one is a giant tree that will highlight employees and other things that matter at ABG Capital. The last, and probably the most exiting piece included in phase one, is a giant (26ft long) timeline that walks you through the lifetime of ABG Capital. These things are going to look amazing in our office and we can’t wait for them to be finished.

This week we also had a visit from Robin at Sunnybridge Natural Foods. She gave a great presentation on how health and wellness can be achieved through nutrition. The session was topped off with lunch and Sunnybridge gluten-free bakery treats, which everyone said were yummy!

On Monday we welcomed a new employee, Trichelle Barish, to the ABG Capital community. Trichelle was hired as the new Provisioning Representative for VoIP Innovations. Everyone help us in welcoming Trichelle!

The next piece of news that we have to share is about Halloween. We’re looking forward to the costumes and candy that are going to fill the office on our Halloween Party! Not only are we going to have a Pot Luck lunch, but we’re holding costume contests. There will be a prize for the best woman, best man, scariest and funniest costumes. There will definitely be pictures of the winners along with all of the other festivities that we’ll have going on.

If you remember from last week we were cheering on our Pittsburgh Pirates as they were making their way through the series against the cardinals. Unfortunately, our excitement didn’t last much longer because last night’s game proved to be the end of truly great season. It was a sad night in Pittsburgh, but it’s safe to say that this season was legendary. See you next year Buccos!

Just another Friday at ABG

Posted on October 4, 2013 by Natalie DeCario

Happy Friday from ABG Capital! Before we get into any company updates, we just have one thing to say… LET’S GO BUCS! If you haven’t heard, the Pittsburgh Pirates made the playoffs for the first time in 21 years. Needless to say, it’s an exciting time for Pittsburgher’s. There was even a guy who was so excited after the Buccos won the wild card game, that the only way he could express that excitement, was to jump off the Clemente Bridge! The second playoff game in St. Louis starts at 1:07 today and you’ll probably be able to catch some employees watching the game in our new conference room!

Now that we got that out of the way, we can start talking about some ABG Capital news. Since it’s the beginning of Buctober… oops… we mean October (had to sneak another Pirates reference there :)), we want to give a shout out to all the October birthdays and anniversaries. For birthdays we have Tim Linn on October 6th and Jacob Crisman on October 24th. For anniversaries we have Sebastian Kiely celebrating 7 years on October 19th and Randy Stegner celebrating 4 years on October 26th. We want to wish these employees a happy birthday and happy anniversary!

Jason Tapolci, Jeff Tapolci, Cameron Nutter

Speaking of anniversaries, our newest employee Cameron Nutter just got to spend his one month anniversary at the Rivers for lunch with Jeff and Jason Tapolci. Cameron is working with VoIP Innovations as a Technical Support Representative. Congrats on hitting your one month mark Cameron!

In other news, the build-out project is starting to come to an end. We’re starting to look like a real office again! We mentioned the office decoration committee last week, and we’re glad to announce that things are in the works to start making their way onto our walls. Very soon we’ll have an office that represents the ABG Capital culture and we couldn’t be more excited. Here are a few pictures of the newest places in our office:

Our brand new vending machines.

The TV and lounge area in our new conference room. This is where you’ll see us watching the Pirate game today!

Our new storage closet.

The future copy center.

One of the new offices that’s almost ready for its’ owner to move in.

Just another Friday at ABG

Posted on September 27, 2013 by Natalie DeCario

Happy Friday! October is right around the corner and that means that we have some announcements to make from our Month End ABG Capital Meeting that was held today. We first want to congratulate Jake Crisman on being voted the Employee of the Month for August. Here’s what the team had to say about Jake:

When you hire a new employee the biggest issue you have upfront is how long is it before that employee can start to contribute. Well when Jacob Crisman, started he “hit the ground running” and never looked back. He started to contribute from day one and continues to both please and amaze us. Early in his start here, he helped the IT Services with our implementation of the Office 365 deployment. He has been well received by both staff and management and has greatly helped Steve with the day to day IT tasks.

In our meeting today we also discussed some of the exciting training sessions we have coming to the office this fall. Here’s the list of things we have to look forward to:

Sunny Bridge Natural Foods will be coming to do a workshop on health and wellness.
We’ll be having CPR training for people who need re-certified and also for those who want to become certified.
Halloween is coming up so that means we need to think of costume ideas for our costume contest and pot-luck lunch.
We’re getting ready to plan our annual Turkey Bowl Flag Football Game in November.

The build-out project is getting to close to complete and our office decoration committee is working hard to come up with ideas to make our office reflect our culture. The committee is planning come HUGE things and since we’re planning for our Open House to be November 1, you’re going to start seeing some pictures of the design process soon! That wraps up this weeks rendition of Just another Friday at ABG Capital and we hope you have a great weekend!

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Author Archives: Natalie DeCario

Just another Friday at ABG

Just another Friday at ABG

Canon-McMillan High School Students Come for a Visit

Just another Friday at ABG

Just another Friday at ABG

Just another Friday at ABG

Just another Friday at ABG

Just another Friday at ABG

Just another Friday at ABG

Just another Friday at ABG