LAUGHLIN, Nev., Feb. 1 /PRNewswire/ -- Debbie Griesinger has joined Horizon Outlet Center in Laughlin, Nevada as General/ Marketing Manager. Debbie will be responsible for managing the daily ...operations of the center, including property management and marketing.
Scotus recorded what Jon Brezenski called "the best goal of the year" when the Shamrocks passed the ball to each other until Chris Herdzina sent a through ball to Jake Staroscik, who finished it off ...in the 43rd minute -- Goals-GICC: None; Scotus: Nick Zarek 2, Billy Kurtenbach, Jake Staroscik. -- Assists-GICC: None; Scotus: Danny Zach, Chris Herdzina.
When Harry met Larry Eastwood, Alison
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Journal Article
In 1987, after the departure of his first partner, Zarek brought in another: Cyril Baldachin, who became Compugen's chairman. Six months later, with a dozen people on the payroll, Zarek suggested ...that Cyril's son, Larry, come to work for them. Zarek liked Larry's combination of I.S. background and sales drive. (In fact, the younger Baldachin had neither to any large extent: an arts graduate, he became an I.S. manager because, "when you graduate with an arts degree, you pretty well have to take whatever's out there.") Thrilled to get the job -- and still enthusiastic about it -- Larry still has Harry's letter of offer, dated July 1987. He was promoted to COO in 1996 and, starting Jan. 1, 1999, will head up Compugen Professional Services Group, located in downtown Toronto (see News, page 13). An intense man whom Zarek describes as "very passionate, tremendous energy, very creative, hard driving, tenacious, with a tremendous focus on customer satisfaction and building strong customer relationships," Larry is worried about making the new business pay for itself, but perhaps not as worried as he is about bonding with his eight-week-old daughter. "I get home and the baby's already tired and cranky. We look at each other and she looks at me and starts to yell and scream. I hand her back."
He adds that Norigen was merely a "passive inventor" in the company. "They didn't mismanage the business," Harry Zarek says. "They weren't involved at all, which was good." The Norigen opportunity ...never really panned out because it was a victim of poor timing - entering the market, Zarek says, in a period "when there was just no appetite for the telecom business; in any other reasonable market they would do phenomenally well." Strapped for capital and without the massive installed base of competitors like Bell and Telus, Norigen foundered. Zarek notes that in the space of a year Compugen/Norigen acquired 1,400 customers but says the sales cycle was expensive: every deal took a long time to close. Right now, Compugen Services shares are in the hands of PWC, charged with the responsibility of "maximizing the value of the asset." Says Zarek, who's happy to have his old job back at Richmond Hill, Ont.-based Compugen: "There's no huge rush."
Like Allen, too, Zarek was once the kid, the renegade, among a bunch of slick old-timers: you know, the System-houses and ComputerInnovations' of the world. Now he's one of the veterans, a tag that ...makes him a tad uncomfortable (try asking his age and see how far you get). After 21 years in the VAR business, he can hardly elude such a label. Plus, everyone knows who he is. Zarek might come across as low-key compared with some of his outgoing peers, but don't be fooled into thinking he's a neophyte at self-promotion. As we all know, his high-tech integration firm rakes in $250 million annually, and yes, he has a PR agency. Born and bred in the heart of Toronto, the middle of three boys, Zarek now has four children of his own -- aged between 10 and 18 (the eldest is at Ryerson) -- and resides in bourgeois Thornhill, north of Toronto. His parents, who emigrated from Poland, "had no formal education," Zarek says. "They can't believe I've been successful. I was the son they were most worried about." He won't say why; perhaps they considered him too restless, or too independent. Whatever he was like as a child, by the time Zarek was in his 20's he'd completed both undergraduate and postgrad degrees in physics at the University of Toronto, never straying far from his birthplace. Nor has he once deviated from the line of work he chose in 1981.
As Vice President of Sales in Alberta, Brian Gibson will lead the Norigen sales teams in Calgary and Edmonton. Brian brings over 25 years of telecom experience to Norigen and has led sales, marketing ...and customer service departments within the wireline, data and wireless areas. Gibson has held executive positions with Edmonton Telephone and Telus. "Harry Zarek, John, Brian and Larry Baldachin bring tremendous leadership and industry know how to the Norigen team," says Bill Baines, President and Chief Operating Officer, Norigen. "The convergence of Norigen and Compugen provides businesses with the option to outsource their communications and IT needs to a single- source provider using a simplified, one bill, one point-of-contact solution. Norigen Communications Inc. is a subsidiary of Norigen Communications Group Inc. a privately held Canadian integrated telecommunication provider offering a complete portfolio of services for the business community. Headquartered in Toronto, Norigen offers services in Toronto, Montreal, Calgary, Vancouver, Edmonton, Ottawa and Hamilton. Norigen Communications Group Inc. also owns Compugen Services Ltd., an IT systems integrator and Liberty Technology Services Inc., a web-portal services company. For more information, visit the Norigen Web site at www.norigen.com.
Alexander: I don't necessarily buy this theory that we have an image problem in terms of attracting people to this industry. If we do, it's because we've marginalized it. If you think Bill Gates is a ...herd and you don't wanna emulate that, you don't wanna become that, and you see all the kids in the computer club and you don't wanna become them, well, realistically, that's what we do. But even if we came up with all these training programs, the colleges churn out people who have a 10-year-old skill set. Because that's where their infrastructure, their tools and their curriculum are designed. And that's not really what we're about. Dixon: Clearly we have to take the lead in sorting that out because they don't do this all the time; we do. But most of the time we don't know all the answers when we start the contract, so part of it is to recognize, here's how we're going to go about finding the rest of the answers, here are the other decision points and the other optional places where we can make decisions. We make it as pragmatic and realistic as we can, rather than, 'Let's see if I can screw you so that you lose on the contract,' and you say, 'Okay, well, I'll just see if l can under-deliver so that I don't.' That's not a very good way to do business. Zarek: On the manufacturing side, the speed at which the industry's consolidated from a hardware platform point of view. If you're not in the top three, you're dead. This past year it's really come along with a vengeance. Someone was in from a Japanese company saying they wanted to sell a laptop. I almost threw the guy out. Get outta here! He won't stand a chance. I don't care how much money he's going to spend. It's finished. Most of us won't spend any time with any new vendor.
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Compugen was kept at arm's length, according to Harry Zarek, who saw Norigen more as an investor. "They didn't want to merge it with Norigen, they kept it on a standalone basis," he says. "We ...continued to operate in the marketplace as though it were a single firm."
Harry Zarek's first partner left early on and was replaced in 1987 by business manager Cyril Baldachin. "Back then, Harry was somewhat inexperienced," says Baldachin. "He hadn't been through the ...discipline, I guess, that a large corporate environment provides. I had. It was a good match." When Baldachin started with Zarek, the company had a staff of 10. By the time he retired in 1999, there were 250 working in nine offices.
