Just another Friday at ABG Capital

Posted on December 27, 2013 by Natalie DeCario

We hope everyone enjoyed their holiday festivities and spending some quality time with friends and family. ABG Capital employees have been in and out of the office all week long spending time with their families. Instead of posting about things going on here at ABG Capital, we want to share some tips with everyone.

As the year dwindles down to it’s final days, the New Year’s Resolutions start to fill everyone’s minds. Some might want to go to the gym more, others might want to eat less chocolate while others might even want to change their whole attitudes.

These resolutions are created with such good intentions of following through and really making a lifestyle change. It is estimated that almost 40% of Americans make New Year’s Resolutions, but only 8% actually achieve their goals (via Forbes). Have you ever let your resolution fall by the wayside? Well make it your 2014 goal that you will stick to a resolution because we want to offer you some tips!

USA Today has posted an article with some helpful hits on making sure your goals stay achievable. Below is their list of ‘6 ways to make your New Year’s resolutions stick.’

Make changes to your behavior
Define SMART goals
Track your progress
Reward Small Achievements
Make it public
You are human

If you want more details on these tips, you can view the entire article here. Thanks for reading and have a great New Year’s celebration!

Just another Friday at ABG

Posted on December 20, 2013 by Natalie DeCario

Welcome back to our weekly Just another Friday at ABG Capital blog post! We have a few very exciting things to share with all of you today since we’ve had a pretty fantastic week. The first piece of news that needs to be shared is the donation we made to the Make-A-Wish Foundation this week. Every year we do various volunteering and fundraising events. All of the money we raise is matched by ABG Capital and then Donated to the Make-A-Wish Foundation so we can grant a child’s wish. This year though, was a little different. We ramped up our fundraising efforts and with the generous matching contribution from ABG Capital, we were able to grant two wishes this year! Giving back is such a huge part of our mission and values and we’re just ecstatic that we’ll be helping out two fantastic children who deserve to have their wishes granted. Here are a few pictures from the donation event:

ABG Capital at Make-A-Wish

We also want to mention that Kimmie Rivetti, the new employee we mentioned last week, is finishing up her very first week with us. Kimmie is working as our newest Billing Representative and we’re happy to have her as part of our team!

Kimmie in her ugly sweater for our ugly sweater party!

Since it’s right around the holidays, we decided to have a Pot Luck Lunch today along with an Ugly Sweater Contest! We also announced the winner of the Holiday Basket of Cheer today, which was Nick Jenkner. He wasn’t in the office today, but we couldn’t wait and had to call him to share the good news!

Last week we had our Annual Holiday Party and it’s safe to say that everyone had a fantastic time! There was great food, music, dancing and even some holiday trivia games! We announced our Annual Sports Awards and the recipient of our Gerard F. Tapolci Award. Randy Stegner has been with us since 2009 and since then he’s shown tremendous passion and dedication for the organization. Choosing him as the recipient of the Gerard F. Tapolci was a clear choice. Congratulations Randy and keep up the fantastic work! As for the Sports Awards recipients, each of these individuals let their talents loose and they shined throughout the games. Below is the list of awards and winners:

Bowling

· King Pin – Nick Jenkner

· Gutterball Guru – Sally Stewart

· The Striker Award – Jason Marshall

Kickball

· Golden Foot Award – Ari Sigalov

· Take Your Ball and Go Home Award – Ron Eggert

· Keeping the Peace Award – Lowell Smith

Softball

· MVP – Natalie DeCario

· The Slash Award (Cheerleaders/Scorekeeper/Photographer/Umpire) – Erica Penrod and Sara Warhold

· Best Fence Jumper – Dave Smith

Football

· MVP – Cameron Nutter

· Best QB – Jeff Linkowski

· Biggest Heart Award – Tyler Weimerskirch

· Brian Barnabei Hands of Stone Award – Brian Barnabei, since no one else could compete with his hands of stone.

Here are some other pictures from our Holiday Party:

Just another Friday at ABG

Posted on December 13, 2013 by Natalie DeCario

Happy Friday everyone! We know that today is Friday the 13^th, but we’ve had a great week so we’re not worried about the “bad luck” that usually surrounds this day. As you remember from our post last week, we ranked No. 6 on the 2013 Best Places to Work in PA list! This was such a huge accomplishment and we’re proud to share the news again! We were in the small to medium employers who have 25 to 249 employees. Last year we ranked No. 14 and it’s such an impressive increase for our entire organization! Here’s a message that our Management Team sent out to all the employees:

“Thank you for your individual time, passion, energy, and dedication in assisting with this effort! We are very proud and honored to have a culture of success and this award is a direct reflection of your hard work, commitment and overall engagement with in our company.”

Again, congratulations to everyone at ABG Capital who helped to create the fantastic culture that we’ve come to love!

We have another great announcement to make today that involves a new hire! Kimberly (Kimmie) Rivetti will be the newest member of our ABG Capital family and will be joining our team as a Billing Representative. Kimmie is joining us from Sincerely Yogurt where she handled all accounting activity in her role as Office Manager for the organization. Her prior experience stems from Four Points Sheraton Pittsburgh Airport where she managed the overall billing functions on all accounts. Kimmie earned her Associates in Specialized Business Degree in Hospitality Management Administration from Boyd School, a division of PTI, in October of 2001. We’re looking forward to welcoming her to the office on Monday, December 16!

We have just a few more Holiday themed announcements to make and that’s it. We’re half way into December and that means that time is almost up for you to buy raffle tickets to our Giant Holiday Basket Giveaway! Remember that tickets are $1 and all of the proceeds will go to the Make-A-Wish Foundation. We’ll pull the winning name on Friday, December 20. If you’re interested in buying tickets, please send an email to natalied@abgcapital.com. If you are not local and would still like to support the Make-A-Wish Foundation, visit their website and you can easily donate from there.

The night is finally for our Annual ABG Capital Holiday Party! This party has been going on for years now and it’s always a great time. Everyone gets to hang out and enjoy the music, award announcements and overall fantastic atmosphere of the night.

Over the past few weeks, we’ve been running a contest to name some signature cocktails for the night. There were tons of great submissions, but here are the winners:

Barry’s “Flaming Stache” in 1st Place
Erica’s “Erica’s Evil Elf” in 2nd Place
3rd Place was a tie between the following people who will be entered into a drawing to receive the last prize!
- Jed’s “adbase1234”
- Paul’s “The GlobalPOP”
- Jessica’s “3Amigarita”

Last but not least, here are a few pictures of the Christmas decorations we put up in the office.

Sara decorating the tree!

ABG Capital Christmas Decorations

The VoIP Innovations VI Guy was even helping out!

Sara and Sharon working on the tree!

Just another Friday at ABG

Posted on December 6, 2013 by Natalie DeCario

Welcome back to the Just another Friday at ABG Capital weekly blog post! We hope that you were able to have a fantastic Thanksgiving with your loved ones. We started this week by having one of our Portfolio Companies, InspiraFS, announce their 2014 Annual Plan. Inspira has seen tremendous growth this year and we’re excited to see what they have in store!

The rest of the week was spent getting things ready for the Employee Appreciation Party that we held today. We love our ABG Capital employees and to show them that they do make a difference in our organization, we wanted to treat them to something more than their typical Free Lunch Friday (but we still provided a great lunch from Sunny Bridge Natural Foods). Once that delicious lunch was over, we brought in desert… We had a chocolate fondue fountain and trays stocked with strawberries, bananas, Oreos, pretzels and more! There was a ready to go ice cream sundae bar will all sorts of great toppings, including the fondue. We continued the celebrations by announcing the winners of our Chinese auction and then concluded with our traditional Scotch Friday. Overall, it was a great day, focused on showing our employees that we truly do appreciate everything they do.

As you know, the holiday season is upon us and with that comes changes in office hours. ABG Capital will run on a normal schedule for the rest of the month, but the office will be closed on Christmas Day and New Year’s Day. We’ll also be having our annual ABG Capital Holiday Party next Friday, and we all can’t wait for that!

The last note that we’ll make about the holiday season is about the Holiday Raffle Basket that we’re selling tickets for. If you want to know more information on how you can get a ticket, where the proceeds go, or what’s in the basket, visit this blog post. Just remember that we’ll be drawing the winning ticket on December 20.

And now… Drum roll please… We are thrilled to announce that ABG Capital has ranked No. 6 in the 2013 Best Places to Work in PA list! Last year we ranked No. 14 and from feedback we took away from the surveys we were dedicated to making our organization better. We’re proud to say that we achieved that goal!

On that excited note, have a great weekend everyone.

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!

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Just another Friday at ABG Capital

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

Canon-McMillan High School Students Come for a Visit

Just another Friday at ABG

Just another Friday at ABG

Just another Friday at ABG