Patricia Palmer Chairman and CEO

Patricia Palmer brings more than 25 years of general management, sales/marketing, financial and operational experience in leading technology companies, together with financial experience developed more recently at Littlebanc Advisors, Morgan Stanley, and Oceana Partners. Ms. Palmer has led technology start-ups as well as units/brands for some of the most respected companies in the world. Her technology experience has included leading a Silicon Valley software start-up group, XSoft, which sold over 9 million licenses,  and executive roles as: Northeast Regional Sales Manager for Dell Corporation; COO, Global Telecommunications Group for Unisys Corporation; Vice President/General Manager of Publishing Software for Xerox Corporation; and over 15 years with IBM Corporation where she held management roles in sales, marketing, and finance, including the role of Senior Manager of Worldwide Marketing & Product Management for the IBM PC and Branch Manager of a $400+ million sales office. Ms. Palmer is a member of the Advisory Board of the Florida Institute for the Commercialization of Public Research.

Michael Margolies Director

Michael Margolies has more than 25 years of capital markets experience. During his long career, Mr. Margolies has been involved in hundreds of transactions as both a seller and a buyer of company equity and assets. Mr. Margolies started his career on the floor of the New York Stock Exchange before moving up to manage long/short discretionary accounts worth hundreds of millions of dollars for both Oppenheimer and Company and M.A. Berman & Co., a boutique money management and brokerage firm. In 1995, Mr. Margolies founded Avalon Research Group, Inc., one of Wall Street’s top-rated independent research companies with more than 100 hedge fund and mutual fund clients. In addition to being founding member of Investorside Research Association, a non-profit trade association of investment research providers not engaging in investment banking, Mr. Margolies served as CEO of Avalon until its sale in 2004. Currently, Mr. Margolies serves as CEO of Littlebanc Advisors, a boutique investment banking firm he founded in 2009.

Menachem Kranz Director

Mr. Kranz has worked for over a decade in the securities and finance industry, most recently as vice president in the PIPEs practice at Ladenburg Thalmann & Co.  Prior to joining Ladenburg, Mr. Kranz leveraged his extensive contacts and relationships within the hedge and mutual fund communities in a variety of contexts, including as a hybrid trader with RBC Capital Markets and a senior vice president of institutional research sales at Avalon Research Group Inc. where he was instrumental in the rapid growth and development of the firm.  Mr. Kranz’s educational background, Rabbinical College of America, laid the foundation for sound analytical-minded process and affability.

E. Harold “Hal” Gassenheimer Director and Chief Financial Officer

Jack Sullivan Jr. Director
Since 2003, Jack Sullivan has been the President/CEO of the Florida Research Consortium (FRC), a strategic partnership between Florida’s universities, research institutes and business community; focused on enhancing progressive research programs in Florida to promote quality economic growth.  In the last seven years, Florida has levered approximately $1 billion in research infrastructure investments into billions of direct funding for research.  Jack came to the FRC after 18 years as a business owner, where after a successful sale he became VP Acquisitions and Planning for the acquiring convenience retailer.  The company expanded five fold in four years to reach sales in excess of $810M.  Today, Jack maintains ownership and manages a portfolio of commercial and agricultural real estate in Florida and Georgia and serves on the board of Powers Device Technologies, an early stage device company based on university intellectual property.

Jack’s past volunteer service includes the Executive Committee of the Georgia Chamber of Commerce as Vice-Chairman for Economic Development and other state and local economic development leadership positions.  He is a graduate, former Program Chair, Board of Trustee’s member and Chairman of the selection committee for Leadership Georgia.  Jack served on the Board of First State Bank and Trust on the Finance Committee in Valdosta, GA.   Recognized for his role in the only successful removal of an Air Combat Command Facility from 1991’s BRAC, Secretary William Perry invited Jack to DOD’s Joint Civilian Orientation Conference.

Current volunteer service includes the Boards of BioFlorida, Florida Lambda Rail and the University of Florida’s External Advisory Board for the “Science Masters Program in Translational Biotechnology”. Jack earned a B.A. from Davidson College and an MBA from Vanderbilt University.