Mr. Rick Smith
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Mr. Smith has been involved in all aspects of private equity for all of his 20-year career. Most recently Rick was a managing director at Palomar Ventures, a $500 million early-stage technology-oriented venture capital fund with offices in Santa Monica, Palo Alto and Orange County. Before Palomar, Rick was a managing director at SunAmerica, where he originally was hired to assist in all aspects of strategic acquisitions in financial services. Rick also founded the venture capital arm of SunAmerica, which evolved into a $750 million fund to invest in direct deals and other venture firms. Before SunAmerica, Rick help found a boutique, Los Angeles-based merchant and investment bank, which bought Steinway Piano Company and Selmer and merged the two companies together prior to an IPO. Before Kirkland Messina, Rick was one of the initial associates in the corporate practice in Los Angeles for the New York-based firm Milbank, Tweed, Hadley & McCloy, where he represented several clients involved in leveraged buyouts of middle-market companies. Rick graduated from Harvard Law School with a J.D., and from the University of Illinois, Urbana-Champaign, with a B.S. in Finance. He’s involved with a variety of charities, and serves on the board of trustees of the Children’s Bureau in Los Angeles.
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Mr. Peter Knapp
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Peter Knapp is the Managing Director for Alternative Investments and compliance at Navellier & Associates. Peter has twenty years experience in the securities industry. At Navellier, Mr. Knapp is responsible for ensuring the firm remains compliant with all SEC rules and regulations. Mr. Knapp also coordinates the firm's alternative investment research and product development activities. Prior to joining Navellier in 1998, Mr. Knapp was a Managing Member of White Rock Capital Partners, a closely held hedge fund. Mr. Knapp began his post-graduate career with Coopers & Lybrand as a Senior Tax Specialist.
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Mr. Ron Reed
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Mr. Reed is Managing Member of Endurance Ventures a firm that provides value to its portfolio companies in the form of business development activity. Endurance Ventures manages the Strome Endeavor Partners and Strome Endeavor Partners II funds. Currently Mr. Reed sits on the boards of Fullscope, Inc., 7th Online, Aegis Broadband and the advisory board of Pennell Venture Partners. Mr. Reed was the co-founder of Fullscope Inc., a leading provider of collaborative commerce solutions automating value chain in mid-market manufacturing businesses. At Fullscope, he led merger activity and fund raising. Prior to Fullscope, Mr. Reed was General Partner of Endeavor Capital of Westport, CT. At Endeavor, he led investments in technology companies including Harbinger, CareerSite.com, and Online Technologies. He became deeply involved with the operations of several portfolio companies including Supply Tech where he led strategic acquisitions and business development that resulted in the development of Harbinger Corporations, one the of the largest public eCommerce/EDI businesses. Before Endeavor, Mr. Reed was a General Manager for Emerald Intelligence, where he managed the business through a turnaround, to position to serve vertical markets in the expert systems market.
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