Honoree Raul Valdez-Perez

WHO: Jeff Tapolci and Ron Eggert

WHAT: 2013 Outstanding Entrepreneur of the Year luncheon

WHERE: Fairmont Hotel

WHEN: Tuesday, June 11, 2013

Jeff and Ron attended this awards luncheon to help honor Bill Newlin and Raul Valdes-Perez. Bill is the Chairman of the Newlin Investment Company and Raul is the Co-Founder and former Chairman and CEO of Vivisimo, Inc. Here is an excerpt about these two taken from the PVCA:

“As this year’s Lifetime Achievement Award recipient, William R. Newlin’s contributions to the business and entrepreneurial community of Pittsburgh are many. Twice named as one of “The 100 Most Influential Lawyers in America,” he served as chairman and chief executive officer of Buchanan Ingersoll for nearly 25 years, where he was a pioneer in providing legal and business counsel to the region’s technology start-up companies. He was a founding director of the Pittsburgh Technology Council; a co-founder of the CEO Venture Funds, which were among Pittsburgh’s first native venture capital funds for developing technology companies; and a co-founder of the Pittsburgh Biomedical Development Corporation, Pittsburgh’s first pre-seed fund for life sciences companies. In addition, he has served as chairman of the board of directors of Kennametal, Inc., and executive vice president and chief administrative officer of Dick’s Sporting Goods, as well as a director of such companies as Plextronics, Etcetera Edutainment, Calgon Carbon, and Black Box Corporation.

As the 2013 Outstanding Entrepreneur, Raul Valdes-Perez’s list of achievements include: authored 50 academic articles and book chapters, received seven research grants from the National Science Foundation, did his PhD under Nobel Laureate Herbert A. Simon, and, most notably, co-founded Vivisimo, a company that was acquired by IBM in 2012. He has been named a regional Entrepreneur of the Year by Ernst & Young and was twice a finalist for CEO of the Year by the Pittsburgh Technology Council.”

WHO: Jeff Tapolci and Ron Eggert

WHAT: The Sounds of Summer Client and Colleague Reception

WHERE: Heinz Hall Grand Lobby and Garden Plaza

WHEN: Tuesday, June 11, 2013

Marty Dorfner, Ron Eggert and J. Bianchin

This event was held by Clark Hill Thorp Reed who is welcoming a new identity. Jeff and Ron were invited to attend this event so the firm could show their appreciation to them as well as their other clients and colleagues. Along with showing their appreciation, they wanted to kick off summer by connecting Thorp Reed contacts with the new Clark Hill Colleagues. While they were there, they got to meet up with Marty Dorfner, Managing Director at Resources Global Professionals, and J. Bianchin SVP, Senior Relationship Manager at Wells Fargo Bank. Overall it was a great networking event for Jeff and Ron. After the event, they stopped over at Cioppino’s for some cigars and relaxation. For pictures, check out the ABG Capital Facebook page!

Life at ABG Capital has been pretty good this week! We started a new office initiative that involves getting away from your desk and we closed out the week with some golf.

Our newest office initiative is designed to boost productivity and get people away from their desks. No, you didn’t read that wrong, studies have proven that leaving your desk for short periods of time will give your body the ‘recharge’ it needs to make it through the day without feeling stressed or overwhelmed. We’re calling our new program “Tend to You at 10 and 2”. We’ll be asking all of our employees to get up from their desks for 10-15 minutes at 10 a.m. and 2 p.m. and go do something. We are encouraging employees to bring in their own things like hacky sacks, basketballs, baseballs and mitts to add to the Frisbees, footballs, and other sports equipment ABG Capital will provide. We’ll be walking some laps around the lake, stretching our muscles with gentle yoga poses and becoming a fitter crew while recharging our brains! We’re officially kicking off this initiative next week so stay tuned for details on how it goes.

Jeff, Ron and Ben Witsberger

Lastly, Jeff Tapolci and Ron Eggert have been out of the office playing in golf outings yesterday and today. Yesterday they were at the ACG outing with Sean Andreas from Wells Fargo and Justin Bertram from Incline Equity Partners.  They took 3^rd place! Great job guys! Sean joined them again today in the Wells Fargo outing and Ben Witsberger, also from Wells Fargo, was there as well. For more pictures of their golfing adventures, check out our Facebook page.

That’s all we have for you today folks, have a great weekend!

It was a pretty nice week for us at ABG Capital, how was yours? Our Executive Team spent most of the week planning and strategizing ways that they can implement the things they learned from the Leadership summit. They got tons of great information from the summit and now their biggest challenge is sifting through it all to figure out what can work best for their departments and their teams.

Yesterday there was a VM and SAN Technical Demo meeting where members of our staff got together to discuss all things technical. From the name of this meeting, you would think that it would be filled with technical lingo and tutorials that introduced our staff to a whole wealth of technical information. From my perspective as the Communications Specialist, it seemed like this meeting revolved more around this:

Why computers seem female:

• No one but the Creator understands their internal logic.
• The native language they use to communicate with other computers is incomprehensible to everyone else.
• The message “Bad command or file name” is about as informative as, “If you don’t know why I’m mad at you, then I’m certainly not going to tell you.”
• Even your smallest mistakes are stored in long-term memory for later retrieval.
• As soon as you make a commitment to one, you find yourself spending half your paycheck on accessories.

As you know, today is Friday and that means another great lunch for the ABG Capital employees. Today is also the day where one of our lunch committees had to prepare the lunch for us. This month’s committee was made up of Heather Halpern, Lowell Smith, Bobby Taylor, and Paul Frye who have decided to whip us up some meatball hoagies!

Today is also the day when we’re taking a half day so we can do some volunteer work at the National Cemetery of the Alleghenies. We’ll be cleaning headstones in order to help make everything look nice for their Memorial Day celebrations. I’ll be taking pictures and videos along the way so make sure you’re keeping up with us on Facebook!

I also wanted throw in another Around Town with Jeff post today since he was at an event last night.

WHO: Jeff Tapolci and Ron Eggert

WHAT: The Second Annual Simpson & McCrady, LLC Coktails and Cigars Event

WHERE: Cioppino Cigar Bar

WHEN: Thursday May 16, 2013

Jeff and Ron were invited to this event by Don Balla who is a friend and business associate who they have known for a few years now. Jeff said that this was a great networking event where they got to hang out and socialize with people who have similar interests. Don is a Managing Principal at Simpson & McCrady, LLC in Pittsburgh. He specializes in helping his clients manage their employee benefits programs as well as other things related to that area.  Check out this picture of Jeff and Don from the event!

When we wrote last week, we were telling you about the sound system that was installed that would play the sounds of a shotgun, distressed geese, and coyotes every 10-15 minutes to scare away the ducks. This week, we’re going to tell you how that didn’t work. It wasn’t long before these geese figured out our little charade. They kept coming back and getting closer and closer. Eventually they realized that there was no Elmer Fudd hiding in the bushes waiting for them and they resettled back into their home. After a while, our geese were comfortable with the sounds and they wouldn’t even flinch when it went off. On the other hand, we noticed another group of geese eyeing up the pond. Since they weren’t accustomed to the sounds they would fly off and never be seen again. It was comical to us because we realized that our geese were using those sounds as their own form of a home security system!

These geese are here to stay. They have made this place their home just like we have and they plan on staying here no matter what we throw at them. Whether it’s the good times or the bad times, our office wouldn’t be the same without them. We remember watching them learn to fly and saving them from Fight Clubs gone wrong and then we remember the other things that happen AFTER they grow up. The constant games of chicken between goose and car, running around and chasing them through the parking lot trying to get them to move out of the way, stepping in their crap, and the everlasting screaming battles between us and them.

We live with these geese every day and maybe that’s why we have such a love hate relationship them. You don’t always get along with the person/people you live with, right? That’s the same situation we go through with these geese. It all goes back to seeing those baby geese take their first steps and watching them learn to fly. It makes everything else worth it. Even if you don’t like the cute baby geese, you still might end up with an interesting story that goes something like this, “so I was leaving for work today and you wouldn’t believe what happened with this goose!”

As we bring this post to a close, we want to mention that it is that time of year when the geese are laying eggs. It’s bringing anticipation for the cuteness, but also concern for our legs and umbrellas as we fear the angry mother geese that we might run into. We’ll continue to write and take pictures and videos to keep you updated with the Geese of ABG Capital.