Mary Ann Alger
Mary Ann Alger has over twenty years of experience in finance, small business consulting, and entrepreneurship. Ms. Alger moved to New Jersey in early 2005 and currently consults for early stage companies and technologies in process of commercialization. For the previous five years Ms. Alger played a key role in consulting for small, technology-based businesses in southeast Michigan, including several startup companies. She cofounded Velcura Therapeutics in Ann Arbor, MI and served as its chief financial officer, raising close to $4 million of early stage funding. Ms. Alger was a founding board member of the Great Lakes Entrepreneurs Quest, a statewide entrepreneurial network that conducts business plan competitions and provides entrepreneurs with targeted consulting and offering introductions to prospective investors. At the University of Michigan Business School, she taught an entrepreneurship course; frequently spoke at conferences; and served as an advisor to the Wolverine Venture Fund. Prior to that, Ms. Alger was the senior investment officer for Latin America with Environmental Enterprises in Arlington, VA, originating and structuring investments in small, emerging companies and serving in an interim senior management capacity for Empresas EESM, S.A. of Monterey, Mexico, and CPI, S.A. of Chillan, Chile. Before that time, Ms. Alger worked in corporate and international banking in Miami and Washington, D.C. [Top]

Tony Dimun
Mr. Dimun has served as Chairman of Nascent Enterprises, LLC, a medical device venture advisory firm, since May 2001.Nascent provides strategic advisory services to numerous medical device clients and portfolio companies. From March 1987 to May 2001, Mr. Dimun served as Executive Vice president & Chief Financial Officer of Vital Signs, Inc., a publicly held anesthesia, respiratory and sleep apnea medical device business. During the last 20 years he has been an investor and mentor to several emerging growth medical enterprises that have matured to commercial status and became publicly traded companies. Mr. Dimun has been a director of Vital Signs, Inc., Bionx Implants, Inc., Colorado MedTech Inc., Photomedix, ISS Surgerical Systems and numerous privately held companies in the healthcare industry. He also serves on the Board of Advisors of the Rutgers University Technology Center & the Biomaterial Institute of Rutgers University and through Nascent Enterprises provides the University of Pennsylvania with entrepreneurial assistance to commercialize Penn’s medical technology. Additionally, Mr. Dimun serves as a limited partner and medical industry advisor to Tri-artisan Partners, an M&A investment bank. Prior to 1991, Mr. Dimun held positions as a Certified Public Accountant with national accounting firms and served as Senior VP for an international merchant banking firm. [Top]

Jim Gunton
Jim Gunton, General Partner, NJTC Venture Fund has served the technology industry for nearly 20 years, initially in Silicon Valley as a rapidly promoted manager at Oracle Corporation, then subsequently in an investment capacity. In 1994, Jim joined Edison Venture Fund and as Vice President and Principal, led its investment activity in New Jersey. Jim represents NJTC Venture Fund at seven portfolio companies and is a Board Governor of The National Association of SBICs (NASBIC). Jim received a BS from Stanford University and an MBA with distinction from Duke University’s Fuqua School of Business. [Top]

James Lynch
James F. Lynch, PhD, MBA Dr. Lynch has spent 20-years in the pharma industry in a variety of entrepreneurial and operational roles within start-up (Reliant), large pharma (Sandoz, Pfizer) and consulting businesses. Expertise includes specialty pharma startu-up; business development and licensing; new product commercialization; corp. strategy assessment and planning; drug development project mgt; manufacturing and distribution; outsourcing strategy; and organizational growth. Dr. Lynch joined Savient Pharmaceuticals in March 2005 as Vice President, Global Business Development. Dr. Lynch identified over 20 potential partners for out-licensing programs, one potential divestiture, 18 compounds for in-licensing/acquisition, 3 co-promotion and 7 potential companies for acquisition by Savient. He directed development & implementation of a strategy to expand Savient’s European liquid business into the US market via strategic partnerships. In 2000, Dr. Lynch was a founding member of Reliant Pharmaceuticals, LLC, a start-up specialty company. Dr. Lynch joined as Executive Director of Business Development and within 6 months helped to identify and negotiate Reliant’s first 2 major product deals with aggregate annual sales of approx. $269 million. In 2002, Dr. Lynch was promoted to Vice President of the newly-created Commercial Operations department to establish Reliant’s contract manufacturing & distribution operations. From 1986, Dr. Lynch spent 9 years at Sandoz Pharmaceuticals Corporation (now Novartis) where he held a variety of operational positions including Project Lead for CV/Diabetes drug development, new products financial forecasting & licensing and drug development process re-engineering. Dr. Lynch was a Managing Consultant within the pharmaceutical practice of PA Consulting Group, a UK-based technology consulting firm, where he directed global projects for major pharma clients (including Pfizer) focusing on strategic portfolio planning, drug development harmonization, capacity/capabilities assessment and outsourcing. Dr. Lynch earned a Bachelor of SCIENCE (BS) degree in chemistry at Siena College, Masters (MS) and Doctoral (PhD) degrees in inorganic chemistry at Seton Hall University and a Masters in Business Administration (MBA) at Columbia University. Dr. Lynch is an active member of Licensing Executives Society, Venture Association of New Jersey, Biotechnology Council of New Jersey and the Crohn’s and Colitis Foundation of America. [Top]

Micheal Orrico
Michael Orrico has 18 years experience in the development of medical device and biotech products at Fortune 500 and start-up companies. Currently, he is Director of Technology Development at Stryker Corp., following an acquisition in December 2005 of his previous employer, PlasmaSol Corp., an R&D company in Hoboken developing sterilization technologies. Prior to joining PlasmaSol in 2004, Mike worked as Principal Engineer at the CardioVations Division of J&J. He was also Product Development and Marketing Director at Aastrom Biosciences in Ann Arbor, a pioneering company in tissue engineering. Earlier in his career, Mike held management positions in R&D and Operations at Stryker and Cordis Corporation. Mike is a member of the Healthcare Council of the Gerson Lehrman Group (NY), an advisor to Lang Center for Entrepreneurship at Columbia University and a mentor to MIT’s Design That Matters organization. He has also been co-investigator on an NIH bioengineering grant in robotic heart surgery at NC State University. He holds an MBA from Columbia Business School, an MS in Biomedical Engineering from MIT and a BS from Michigan State. [Top]

Glenn Rockefeller
Glenn Rockefeller specializes in technology strategy, licensing and commercialization. He has over 14 years of consulting experience helping companies and universities improve and extract value from their tangible and intangible assets. His experiences lies primarily in applied science and engineering, and he has significant experience in specialty and fine chemicals, lubricants, gases, and engineered equipment and devices. Glenn’s current clients include large corporations such as Saint-Gobain and BP, as well as leading universities such as Rutgers University and NJIT. For Rutgers University, Glenn is driving technology transfer efforts for technologies in oxygen separation, ceramic-to-metal bonding, and environmental remediation. Earlier in his career, Mr. Rockefeller held leadership positions at two of the world’s leading technology and management consulting firms. At Accenture, he was an Associate Partner in both the chemicals and energy strategy practices, and was recipient of the Firm’s Kenneth R. Ernst award for outstanding thought leadership contributions for his work in the area of technology alliances. At McKinsey & Company, he served as an engagement manager and let strategy and technology consulting teams for several of the Firm’s largest clients. In addition, Mr. Rockefeller was the Director of Business Planning for BOC Gases where much of his work centered on new technology assessment and commercialization. He began his career with the Ingersoll-Rand Company where he held several technical and engineering roles. Mr. Rockefeller holds a bachelors degree in engineering from Stevens Institute of Technology and masters degree in both energy management and government administration from the University of Pennsylvania. While attending the University of Pennsylvania he was distinguished as a Samuel S. Fels Fellow. Mr. Rockefeller has authored articles for several industry publications including The Petroleum Economist and the Oil and Gas Journal. He also holds a faculty appointment at The Wharton School of the University of Pennsylvania where he lectures on management communications at graduate and executive level. [Top]

Raymond P. Thek
Raymond P. Thek advises tech and life sciences companies in all aspects of corporate finance, including financing, acquisitions, divestitures and strategic alliances. He has extensive experience in mergers and acquisitions and private equity financings including venture capital investment, tech transfer and strategic partnering. Mr. Thek is a member of the firm’s Corporate Department and the Tech Group. Mr. Thek has been featured in the Star-Ledger and other publications as “perhaps New Jersey’s leading technology transfer lawyer.” In 2004, NJBiz likened his arrival at Lowenstein Sandler to “the Yankees getting A-Rod from the Texas Rangers.” Mr. Thek provides tactical and strategic advice to many sectors of the business world, including start up companies, acquirers seeking value in acquisition transactions, sellers seeking the intersection between speed and value preservation, and lenders and financiers seeking to maximize, preserve or recover assets. Representative clients include Dun & Bradstreet, VNU (the parent entity of ACNielsen), NJIT, Chromocell, Genestim, Iridian Technologies, among others. Mr. Thek was formerly a Senior Partner in the Princeton office of Hale and Dorr. Previously, Mr. Thek practiced at Cleary Gottlieb in New York City, concentrating on M&A and private equity. [Top]

Lou Wagman
Lou Wagman is a principal in Technology Management Associates, a management consultancy focused on advising and providing interim management services to early and expansion stage technology ventures in the areas of general management, IP, marketing and operations. Mr. Wagman has over 30 years of management experience at the general management and CEO level of technology companies ranging in size from start-ups to divisions of Fortune 500 companies. He has a history of executing successful liquidity events for investors, including one oversubscribed IPO, the sale of a venture capital financed company and three company spinouts. Most recently, Mr. Wagman wrote a business plan for Stevens Institute of Technology based on their fiber optic sensor technology and was appointed the CEO of Castle Point Scientific, the new company formed to commercialize this technology. Mr. Wagman advised Sarnoff Corporation on the business viability of its advanced telecommunications components technology and co-authored a business plan that led to the $48 million venture capital financing and launch of Princeton Lightwave, a company in which Mr. Wagman became VP of Operations and Chief Operating Officer. He then led the sale of the primary assets of the company to the Trumpf Group and became the head of the new subsidiary company, Trumpf Photonics. Prior to this, Mr. Wagman ran AMP Corporation’s active optoelectronic business, was COO of an angel investor financed advanced optical materials company and was CEO of a venture capital financed digital camera business. Mr. Wagman has a BSE-electronics from George Washington University and an MBA with distinction from the University of Michigan. He is the president and member of the board of the New Jersey Entrepreneurial Network. He is also a member of the George Washington University School of Engineering and Applied Science National Advisory Council, the Stevens Institute of Technology Advisory Board for Microelectronics and Photonics and has been on the management advisory boards of three early-stage technology companies. Mr. Wagman is an arbitrator for the National Association of Security Dealers and the Better Business Bureau and a mediator for the Lawrence Township Municipal Courts. [Top]