Past Meetings

Wednesday, December 12th, 2007

What's Your Plan?

Meeting Overview

Looking for an business exit strategy?  Then this meeting is for you.

Whether you're a start-up, small growing business or a larger, rapidly growing business and looking for the perfect exit strategy, this panel discussion will guide you through the possible solutions available to get you there.

Topics For Discussion

• Business Succession
• Your Four Possible Exit Scenarios
• Options for Selling Your Business, Sale to Managers, and
• Options for Selling To Employees

We know you will enjoy hearing from this panel in a very informative and interactive way.

Bios

Richard W. Munkelwitz of Vermont Small Business Development Center has spent his career fostering the growth of emerging businesses.  As an investment banker and venture investor, he has provided financing for companies from startups to Fortune 50 companies. He also ran part of Amoco Computer Services, the software development arm of Amoco Corporation.

As a co-owner of a mergers and acquisitions firm, he has assisted small and middle market companies in acquisitions and divestitures. He has significant experience assisting Japanese technology companies to invest in domestic companies.

Richard is especially experienced in working with high-growth technology companies, but he has had clients in a wide variety of businesses. He is experienced in planning and strategy development, marketing, financing and valuation. He is dedicated to job creation in Vermont, and in fostering a vibrant entrepreneurial culture. He has counseled over 200 local companies in the last year. Richard has a BS from MIT and an MBA from Columbia University, and is married to a software developer specializing in cash management systems.

Giles Willey graduated from the University of Vermont in 1981 with BA in Political Science and began his career in computers the following year as a software trainer/installer for a banking software company that his father and three others started in southern Vermont.  Giles worked in this capacity until 1985 when his father and he split from that company to form Vermont Systems. 

They continued to support Vermont and New Hampshire banks over the next few years, but interstate banking made this a tough business as more and more banks consolidated further from Vermont. They changed directions in 1987 and became a VAR for a municipal software company from Maine.  The municipal market allowed them to focus their attention and develop their own applications specific to the recreation field and this ultimately became their niche market.  Today their family operation has expanded to 80 employees (eight of whom are family members).

They deal exclusively with recreation departments on the municipal side and MWR/Services departments on the military side.  Their software is used in over 800 municipalities around the country and at all Army, Navy, Air Force and Marine bases in the world.  Over time Giles' role has changed from development to admin and sales to keep pace with our growth.

Paul Dandurand, President and Founder of PIEmatrix, has a strong background in starting and growing companies. His extensive enterprise project management experience comes from Ernst & Young (now Cap Gemini) and Siebel Systems. Prior to starting PIEmatrix, he was co-founder of FocusFrame where he held multiple roles including director and co-president. He created new services and established product process methodologies fostering the company's market differentiation. He also helped build relationships with major partners and started the European practice. FocusFrame was sold to Hexaware in 2006.

At PIEmatrix, Paul leads the team by encouraging cutting-edge thinking and delivering customer value. He holds a Bachelor of Arts degree in Economics from the University of California at Berkeley.