Editor and publisher: Ron May, ron@themayreport.com, ronaldmay@aol.com, www.themayreport.com,
773-525-3944.

If you missed an article, go here:

Louis Brandeis: “Publicity is justly commended as a remedy for social and
industrial diseases. Sunlight is said to be the best of
disinfectants.”
_____________________________
***********************************
Chicago Programming, Java Script, Jquery, Ajax, HTML 5
Call
Backlinks Company – Mike Freud – 970-391-0632
www.BLcompany.com
- MikeFreud@gmail.com
**********************************

_____________________________

_________________________________

Subject: Re: Kevin, does the CEC have a holiday party this yr? I’m putting
a list together.
Date: 12/5/2011 11:59:16 P.M. Central Standard Time

From: kevin@chicagolandec.org
Reply To:

To: RONALDMAY@aol.com

Hey Ron – The CEC is hosting a 2012 Chicago Startup Forecast event next
Wednesday morning, 12/14, with a great line-up of speakers (details here: cecforecast.eventbrite.com/)
- and I’m taking my team out for a holiday dinner this Friday!

Thanks,
-kevin

On Mon, Dec 5, 2011 at 12:58 AM, <RONALDMAY@aol.com> wrote:

++++++++++++++++++++++++++++++

CEC 2012 Startup Forecast

Wednesday, December 14, 2011 from 8:30 AM to 12:00 PM (CT)

Chicago, IL

Dec 13, 2011

$10.00

$1.54

1 2 3 4 5 6 7 8 9 10 11 12 13 14 15 16 17 18 19 20 21 22 23 24 25 26 27 28
29 30

Enter promotional code

Order Now

Share this!Invite friends via emailShare on LinkedInShare on
Twitter.

Event Details

We are excited to invite you to the CEC’s 2012 Startup Forecast. We
have a line up of amazing speakers who will share their insights and forecast
for startup trends in 2012. Thanks to our sponsor J.P. Morgan Chase, the event
is being hosted at the Chase Auditorium.

Forecast Preview Video.

Date: Wednesday, December 14,
2011

Location: Chase Auditorium – Lower Lobby, 10 S Dearborn

Agenda:

8:30 – 9:00: Coffee & Networking

9:00 – 11:30:
Speakers & Panel

11:30 – Noon: Wrap-up &
Networking

Speakers:
•Howard Tullman, President & CEO at Tribeca
Flashpoint Academy: “Trends in Social Media”
•Harper Reed, CTO of Obama for
America: “Building Teams”
•Brett Goldstein, Chief Data Officer at City of
Chicago: “Innovations in Government”
•Matt McCall, Partner at New World
Ventures: “Capital: Venture and Angel”
•2012 Predictions from 4 Amazing
Entrepreneurs: Neal Sales Griffin- Code Academy, Brittany Laughlin-gtrot, Chuck
Templeton- OhSoWe and Matt Spiegel- TapMe. Panel discussion moderated by Kevin
Willer

The CEC will also have a couple of surprises to share along the
way! Be sure to attend this “can’t miss” event to wrap-up 2011 and get geared up
for an amazing 2012!

Registration: $10
(cecforecast.eventbrite.com/)

_______________________________

Subject: SEMPO Chicago Holiday Event on Thursday, December 15th
Date:
12/9/2011 5:25:01 P.M. Central Standard Time
From: bobtripathi@gmail.com

To: ronaldmay@aol.com

Join SEMPO Chicago for Annual Holiday event and arguably the most fun search
& social marketing event in Chi town! We have invited leading Search &
Social Media Marketers for an engaging panel discussion on “Search & Social
Trends in 2012″ on the horizon in 2012 and beyond.

Join us for a evening of free drinks, Hors d’oeuvres, networking, and
yes, plenty of marketing insights as we head into 2012.

sempo11.eventbrite.com/
–
Bob Tripathi
Chair, SEMPO Chicago

__________________________________

* Top events I know about next week:

Monday: MoMo planning party

Tuesday: Holiday parties for LES (lunch), SMCC, and the ITA

Wednesday: CEC 2012 Start-up Forecast

Beyond that, let me know.

* 100 things to tell your mother: Well, I made it to #32 after more hours
than I can count.

I arrived at 744 N. Wells very early on Wednesday, since I just got through
with my doctor’s appointment with Dr. Diekevers, my podiatrist, and I did not
want to go home and then have to leave in an hour or two. We’ve been bandaging
my right foot since mid-September now and it is looking very good. But with
diabetes, healing takes a long time but my doc has now put me on a visit
schedule of every two weeks instead of every week. I arrived at a 2:30pm and Les
Teichner (lteichner@aol.com ) who has been on the
judging panel for Funding Feeding Frenzy both in May and November of this year,
met me at the door. I’m lucky he happened to be there. Les took me around back
to get into the building and guess what? Les owns the building at 744 N. Wells
and he is the person backing the Culver gang on their VentureShot efforts. I was
really lucky he was there because Culver, Nadler and Bock did not show up for at
least two hours. They had been running around buying lots of beer and hard
liquor and plenty of food for the party, and they also bought poinsettias en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Euphorbia_pulcherrima

and other flowers and festive things. There is no doubt that the atmosphere
was festive. Of course, they had their gnomes.

During that two hour time, Les and I got to talk and we discussed
everything — his business history including his focus on strategic consulting
and how that died out about 2000, his educational background, his two Princeton
educated daughters who are both lawyers, one in New York and the other one
graduating from Chicago Kent law school after studying aeronautical engineering
(I believe) as an undergrad. Les’ daughter in New York gave up a lucrative job
at a major law firm to work with those less privileged. Les is rightfully proud
of his daughters. He got a EE from UIUC (he did a year at Michigan to start) and
an MBA from Chicago — in the sixties.

Les did clear up one thing I reported recently. The deal for funding www.imdorse.com
is not done yet and Les and David Beazley are still in negotiations with the
firm. Imdorse is looking to tie branding to social media photos and so forth.

We did not discuss Imdorse in detail but we did talk about the role of
social media in trust and gee, Len Bland and his attempts to raise a fund and
the name of Stefania Aulicino whom Les recalls from years ago even came up. I
told him that I had wanted tob go to the final Stefania Aulicino/Jim Conrad
party at their condo (held on Nov. 4th this year since they’re selling their
condo, but my time was poorly managed since that was the day Groupon went
public.)

Here are some of the things I learned at this information rich event which
did draw in excess of 70 people. Although they went around the room doing
introductions, a number of people filtered in after the introductions. My
estimate is that there were close to 80 people throughout the evening. I left at
9:30pm.

1. Josh Metnick happens to have an office on the 2nd floor of 744 N. Wells,
the same building that now houses the Culver gang which has the first floor and
some space on the 2nd floor.

2. As I wrote, the building is owned by Les Teichner who has had it for
many years and who used to run a consulting firm called The Chicago Group out of
that building with about 25 people. Les even used to own the building that my
brother and I had office space in at 730 N. Franklin which he sold in 1980 to
Gary Goodman. Les also had a dot com for a while which was started about ten
years ago but he got tired of how mercenary and disloyal the developers were and
decided to get out of that biz.

3. David Culver, Andy Nadler and Bob Bock have obviously cut some deal for
space with Les and they have various pricing schemes for that space. Culver said
that about 20% of the firms there will be true start-ups, even pre-revenue and
about 20% will be at the next level with about $200K or more in annual revenue
and maybe $1MM in assets. To tell the truth, while Culver was talking, I was
half listening because I was doin my biz collectin cards — know what I mean
Jean? Culver stresses that this is not a real estate deal but that it is about
synergy and fostering collaboration.

4. Bob Bock tells me they have a few folks actually signed up and the rate
sounded good enough for me to consider it. He mentioned $299 a month — but that
is an introductory offer.

5. Josh Metnick (fka Schneider) has a new application that www.chicago.com
just launched. It is a bit complicated, but now they provide email addresses.
The complicated part is that in the past they have had email addresses and
Josh’s email is and has been josh@chicago.com . Josh stuck his head in the
meeting just when they were going around the room for introductions and Culver
put him on the spot to tell us what is up. Josh seemed very tentative because he
was not prepared to make comments and Josh is not a pound your chest kind of guy
anyway.

Josh said that quite unexpectedly they have gotten some major national
publicity, as in an article in the New York Times.

6. Here is the article which was written by Jim Warren of the Chicago News
Cooperative. It may have happened by accident but my instinct is that when
Howard Tullman, master impresario, is being quoted at length, it’s no
accident.

The people who have existing chicago.com email addresses have been clearing
through gmail until now, if I understood Josh correctly.

+++++++++++++++++++++

James Warren writes a column for the Chicago News Cooperative.

A nonprofit, nonpartisan news organization providing local coverage of
Chicago and the surrounding area for The New York Times.

Connect With
Us on Twitter

Follow @NYTNational for breaking news and headlines.

Twitter List: Reporters and Editors

If Amy Rule needs a Hanukkah present for her spouse-mayor, I have a loving
idea: buy him an e-mail address, rahm@chicago.com.

It will soon be available. But so will barack@chicago.com, forrest@chicago.com, aviva@chicago.com, zambrano@chicago.com, kogan@chicago.com, mellody@chicago.com and a conservative
estimate of 25,000 other first names and 88,000 surnames in the Chicago area.

What will the market be? The answer may interweave intriguing notions of
scarcity, status and the extent to which self-identity is tied to location.

The person most interested sat in a Bridgeport cafe Wednesday morning,
discussing the imminent transformation of a prized piece of digital real estate:
chicago.com.

Josh Metnick, 38, is a bright and self-effacing north suburban native, a
techie and an Internet entrepreneur who was writing computer code for a game
called Mario’s Pizza by age 9 and cutting seven-figure deals by 24. During his
senior year at the University of Illinois, where he majored in finance, he
started an Internet service provider with three friends, including Jared Polis,
who is now a Colorado congressman.

He and two others invested $5,000 each, while Mr. Polis invested $40,000.
They sold it four years later for $20 million.

In 2001 Mr. Metnick beat out The Tribune Company and bought chicago.com for
$500,000 from Karl Swartz, a California man who had acquired it for nothing from
the nonprofit group that administers the domain system. Mr. Swartz used it as a
home page, replete with photos of his dog, and Mr. Metnick has since spurned
many offers to sell.

He makes money off it, but it’s limited and utilitarian, like many such
city sites. Most owners coast on inherently potent brands and don’t invest much.
And while Mr. Metnick is not a content producer, possibilities for enhancing
chicago.com would seem ample.

Now his four-person operation is retooling the site to offer e-mail
addresses with chicago.com domains.

He has sold a few names to friends and prominent businessmen whose
identities I agreed not to disclose. Businesses include Lettuce Entertain You
Enterprises, the restaurant chain, which bought lettuce@chicago.com, and Seyfarth Shaw
L.L.P., a big law firm, which got seyfarth@chicago.com, and he’s in talks
with Microsoft.

As a result, Mr. Metnick believes that individuals and companies may be
willing to spend substantial sums. Initial pricing for individuals’ names will
be $295 for a year, $735 for three years, $975 for five years and $1,750 for 10
years. A buyer will have right of first refusal when its time expires.

Just as many people crave vanity license plates – Mr. Metnick prefers the
word “identity” to “vanity” – they may desire a personalized chicago.com
address. As for the maximum 26 addresses using a letter of the alphabet, he
thinks they could fetch $250,000 each.

Regardless, you can imagine the business potential of smartly exploiting
subject addresses like @hotels.com if you’re a hotel chain or @ford.com if
you’re a local dealership. Maintaining a relationship with an addressee would be
crucial.

When I mentioned Thorstein Veblen, Mr. Metnick smiled. He knows well the
economist-sociologist (and University of Chicago professor) Veblen’s “Theory of
the Leisure Class,” which proffered the notion of “conspicuous consumption,” a
link between status and the products we buy or associate with.

Forces shaping a person’s identity, Veblen said, may often be genetic,
cultural and social, but they can also include the surrounding physical
environment. We may see ourselves as a city or country person or specifically,
say, as a Chicagoan.

Mr. Metnick attended Glenbrook North High School and has just moved to
Israel – he owns illinois.com as well as telaviv.com – and is typical of his
world. There have been other successes, like selling guitar.com, but far more
failures. He has spearheaded a worldwide association of city sites too, though
the joint sales effort he envisioned sputtered and is split into two groups.

“The reason I love Josh is that he is the living embodiment of iteration,”
said Howard Tullman, a Chicago lawyer turned entrepreneur who is Mr. Metnick’s
friend and mentor.

Mr. Tullman runs Tribeca Flashpoint Media Arts Academy, a two-year
for-profit vocational school for digital production and design.

“He’s never at rest and is always asking how can this be cooler, faster,
easier, etc.,” Mr. Tullman said. “Whatever ‘this’ is.”

And if you buy an address, Mr. Metnick will ask one thing in return: the
name of your favorite Chicagoan.

It will tell him a bit about you and prompt a monthly communication – and,
he hopes, “the start of a lifelong relationship.”

jwarren@chicagonewscoop.org

++++++++++++++++++++++++++++++

May again. The article leaves out ePrairie and Midwest Business.com, as
well as venture funded Epigraph. I was surprised to learn that Josh has moved to
Israel.

I also want to take issue with Jim Warren on the use of the word
“self-effacing” to describe Josh. Josh is not a grand stander or chest pounder,
but he is not lacking a healthy ego. His personal manner is just low key and
somewhat mild mannered.

He is almost masterful at behind the scenes puppeteering and creating a
mystique and aura of mystery.

I recall the parties from years ago that Josh and ePrairie paid for but
Josh was not there personally. That was part of his schtick. he was like the
Wizard of Oz, the man behind the curtain. He had everyone talking about him
“Where’s Josh?” or “Why isn’t Josh here?” people would whisper. Josh knew how to
create the buzz.

7. Ted Widen stopped by early on. I had the sense that he was there to meet
up with Josh Metnick and/or David Beazley. Ted told a not so funny story to
about five of us who were there about how his wife opened a clothing store in
Wilmette recently (they live in Winnetka which amazes me since Ted paid for that
with revenues from the parties he throws and his pub, www.chicago-scene.com
.) Ted is holding his eleventh New Year’s Eve party this year at the Drake
Hotel. Incidentally, it turns out that David Beazley called Ted after reading
about his site www.boatsharedirect.com
in this report. The more I think about it, the more likely it is that Ted wanted
to meet with Josh about his chicago.com email launch. Also, as you may recall,
Josh did a short stint of a few months consulting for www.affluence.org
and David Beazley was involved with those guys before he resigned last December.
Blake, one of the main developers for affluence.org, was brought to the party by
Josh, I believe, or was it the other way around?

But just to finish the Ted Widen story, on the very first day that Ted’s
wife opened the Wilmette store, three women came in and made a purchase but the
first two credit cards were rejected. They finally gave Ted’s wife a gift card
which did work. But they also stole his wife’s purse along with her credit
cards. By the time the ensuing spending spree down Michigan Avenue was halted,
the three women thieves had racked up thousands of dollars in expenses. There
was NO charge to the Widens. But Ted is ticked that the stores did not ask for
photo IDs and he and his wife don’t use cards that have the signature on the
back so the stores are supposed to ask for IDs.

BTW, Ted should read this article in Doug Schaaf’s site, www.theslingshot.com
which has the best of the best blogs on the net since it has a topic near and
dear to his heart. Doug was also there.

There are no natural breasts at Ted’s party at The Drake — or for that
matter in own house!

8. It is now 4:35am Thursday morning and I better quit at 5:15am to get
this out so I can prepare to go to dialysis.

Ron Kirschner was there and he told me that the deal I reported that he was
close to doing is not done yet and he said he has been waiting for the
financials from the firm for four months. I told A. J. Noronha to talk to
Kirschner about his biomedical firm.

9. Bruce Montgomery and A. J. Noronha attended a Health 2.0 event on
Tuesday night at the Merchandise Mart (?) with about 60 people, they told me. A.
J. has a biomedical firm called www.citricsbiomedical.com.

10. The BNC Venture Capital Group meeting Tuesday night drew 37 people and
the firm that won the votes (19) was www.psylotech.com,
followed by www.supply-vision.com/
(12 votes) and followed by www.noirwomanadnetwork.com/
(4 votes).

I see that Psylotech is hiring. They are a nanotech equipment firm in
Evanston.

+++++++++++++++

Psylotech is seeking self-motivated people who are eager and willing to
accept multiple responsiblities in a fast growing technology company.

The candidate should have at least 10 years of business experience or an
MBA, as well as experience with negotiations. A scientific or engineering
background is also important. Responsibilities include identifying opportunities
that bring significant customer benefits and effectively connecting with key
decision makers within those companies. Contact careers@psylotech.com.

We are looking for a creative engineer to design novel mechanical
structures for sensors. He or she should have willingness to understand the
electromagnetic aspect of our products. Knowledge of CAD and FEA are critical to
the position. Contact careers@psylotech.com.

Programmer responsibilities involve interfacing electromechanical sensors
to clients’ preferred data acquisition system. The candidate should have the
Ability to select and program microcontrollers and peripheral components,
including experience with CAN, I2C, RS232, RS485, USB, C++, machine language and
a familiarity with electronic CAD. Contact careers@psylotech.com.

A technician would help in assembling and automating the assembly process.
The ideal candidate would work well in a fast paced environment and excel
without constant supervision. Example of responsibilities: assembling test
frames; cutting printed circuit boards to size; putting together and installing
software on a computer; drilling and tapping holes in metal. Experience
machining metal and assembly of printed circuit boards (PCBs) is desired. Part
and full time positions are available. Contact careers@psylotech.com.
++++++++++++++++++++++++++++++

11. No question about it, the most interesting person I met Wednesday night
was Mitch Schneider who refused to give me either his name or his card because
he thought I was rude. Guilty as charged, I guess. Eventually, just before he
left, he did give me his first name. This does happen with people I’ve never met
before.

Mitch is intellectually very active and he has no shortage of opinions or
arguments. He had a successful dot com years ago which was funded by www.docomocapital.com/
and the firm was successfully sold. While Mitch did tell me his first name, I
had to ask around for his last name.

Mitch has lived in Chicago for eight years now and this was his third
networking event. He has two firms that are stealth right now, but he did
discuss them quite a bit. One firm is geared toward commoditizing the patent
process and the other is www.kauzu.com.

12. The car on demand service uber.com
just launched in their first international city, Paris France. They are
somewhere between a cab and a limo.

13. Dave Carman said that the BNC is not holding a Holiday party this year.
They have had one for the BNC After Party (or is it Work?)group in the past.

14. Rod Rakic is with Sears Holdings, more specifically, the online
business unit at Sears. He says they are hiring front-end developers, UE folks,
Visual designers. Check out careers.sears.com. Well, that does not work so try
this: www.searsholdings.com/careers/opportunities/ecommerce.htm

Rod told me that Uki Lukas just left Sears Holdings to do his own thing.
That’s pretty big news.

15. Carman asked me for the top five start-ups I’ve seen this year and
we’re not counting Groupon or Grub Hub, but true start-ups. Mark Lawrence of www.spothero.com
was standing there and he suggested a firm I’ve written about, www.scenetap.com
. I met the founder Andrew Nieman at the CEC awards dinner and he told me
he’d raised $1.7MM. The trouble is that they have to buy cameras to get the real
time coverage of bars and restaurants, but Mark argued that many of those
restaurants and bars already have the cameras in place. He checked his smart
phone and said that Vertigo has 70% guys right now so why would he go there.
That is one of the key uses of the technology. It is real time and if you’re out
for the night, it can be useful in deciding where to spend your time chasing
women — or men.

When I talked to Andrew Nieman on October 6th, I believe he said that they
had installed his system in about 50 locations thus far.

6. Mark Lawrence says that SpotHero has expanded the number of locations
they have parking available at and he told me to peruse their site, www.spothero.com.

17. Back to Mitch Schneider a minute. He was telling David Carman that he
checked out www.noirwomanadnetwork.com/
after attending the BNC Venture Capital Group meeting Tuesday night and found it
wanting.

He went into detail about how poorly their SEM and SEO was set up and many
other things.

18. Steve Veach is a managing partner at www.clarityperformancealliance.com

which is essentially in the efficiency expert biz. He calls it HPT for
Human Performance Technology. Remember the motion studies guys from the
1920s?

Steve gave me an interesting example from another firm in his business. A
company that has been in the business of shipping hard to ship items was having
trouble with profits, even though they had plenty of revenue. The HPT guys took
a look at it and found that the company was taking four times the time it should
take to load the items on the planes.

The crews were having to reconfigure the insides of the planes to the items
to fit for shipping.

The solution turned out to be a change in the way the company did sales.
The salesmen now carry job cards and show prospective customers the dimension
and sizes that the planes can handle.

This improves efficiency and the load times are now much better. For $250K
in consulting fees, the shipping company saved $8MM in the first year.

Steve.Veach@clarity-p-a.com and
773-704-9661.

19. Lev Slavin who is graduating from ChicagoBooth this year wrote on the
back of his card two things he’s involved in.

www.panzanzee.com
which is a social enterprise incubator and www.theimpactengine.com,
a social enterprise accelerator.

20. Jennifer Thomas is a hottie. That is all ye know on earth and all ye
need to know.

Aside from that, she’s the founder of www.travel720.com,
a travel site for young people which will be in Beta in two weeks. She has 75
people signed up so far.

The revenue model is subscription, and I think she said $10 to start — is
that per month? She has about five years of more traditional experience before
starting this four months ago, I believe she said.

21. Bruce Montgomery may have a new endeavor, if we judge by his
card.

773-410-0608

Bruce is the VP of Business Development.

22. Bernhard Kappe told me that Bootstrappers’ Breakfast did not meet in
November and will not meet in December since Griffin Caprio is on his honeymoon
– did I hear that right? Bernhard’s colleague Todd Wyder who was years ago CEO
of Rhumbtech was also there. He attended FFF on Nov. 2nd. Both Wyder and Kappe
are involved in the Lean Start-up Circle.

23. Christopher Whitaker works for the Illinois Department of Employment
Security. Why on earth was he there? He wants to start a business that does a
better job than the state of matching people with jobs.

christopherpaulwhitaker@gmail.com
and @govintrenches

23. Brendan Teague moved here from the Atlanta area. I think he’s a
business coach. 818-292-0463. bteague@cydcor.com. I called him and we
talked Friday morning.

Brendan moved here from the Atlanta area because Chicago is a real city,
unlike Atlanta which is a network of suburbs, he told me.

Cydcor is an outsourced sales organization and that is his day job which
pays the rent.

But his real reason for going to the
VentureShot event was his start-up,
www.myhometownfaves.com.

People crave food from their home towns. Lou Malnati’s www.loumalnatis.com/
does this in Chicago, but not many businesses do it.

Brendan comes from Cincinnati and the food he loves from Cincinnati is
Skyline Chili skylinechili.com/.

I mentioned being from St. Louis and he mentioned Imo’s Pizza imospizza.com/.

We talked about freezing foods and how you can ship on dry ice for 48
hours.

He said that Omaha Steaks does it.

There are logistical issues that need to be worked out and most of the
businesses that would this service are small.

Brendan’s wife works for Walgreen’s and he works from home. He got to
VentureShot which was only his second networking event here by way of meeting
David Culver at the Crain’s Grub Hub event (www.grubhub.com)
on Monday night which drew 200 people to the Ravenswood Center. The event
featured, as you would expect, Matt Maloney and Mike Evans.

The moderator was Chris Gladwin of www.cleversafe.com.
Brendan said that Chris did a good job of not just asking questions but also of
injecting humor and loosening Matt and Mike up.

24. Glenn Gottfried was there. I told him he is slated for an end of year
award for his brutal assessment of one of the presenters at the Nov. 2nd FFF
event. Glenn told the presenter in no uncertain terms that he should invest one
more dime in his venture which was some sort of alarm clock. Glenn says he said
what needed to be said. But I was there and Glenn minced no words. I felt bad
for the guy who was a very nice elderly gentleman. Glenn saved him dollars but
did not spare his feelings in the process.

One thing about Glenn. I don’t know how many deals he’s done, how much
money he has, etc., but he does seem to get the genuine respect of
entrepreneurs. I think that is for two reasons. 1. Glenn is willing to dedicate
time to really sit down and talk to entrepreneurs about their businesses. 2.
Glenn tells you what he really thinks. But while he tells it like it is, he also
tries to see the silver lining, if there is one. As a panel judge, he often
splits the difference. When other judges just say “Keep fishing” or “You’re
fundable,” Glenn will often say “You’re fundable but on a few conditions” and
then he lays out what they need to do.

Glenn’s genuine interest comes through and he does not sit on a high horse
as some investors tend to do.

25. Jeffery Smith has a property management software firm called www.propertypanda.com.
I asked him how his firm is different from every other Tom, Dick, and Harry
company in the space. He said that Property Panda has a holistic approach. BTW,
I see on his card that he is at 200 S. Wacker, 15th floor. So he’s at Tech
Nexus. Might he be considering a move to 744 N. Wells?

26. Julian Pretto (www.chicagomicro.com)
who is hiring told me Thursday on the phone that he already got a resume from a
sales guy from the event. We talked about the space a bit since Les had given me
a tour. The way the offices lay out is more like shared office space than an
incubator, but as Julian noted, he could put five sales guys in one of those
offices. Julian is close to closing on 3-4k sf of office space downtown nearby
Olgilvy.

Julian knew some of the people there, including Andrea Moran. Let me ask
you, what is not to like about Andrea Moran? She is smart, very personable, good
looking — the whole deal.

As people were going around doing the introductions, quite by coincidence,
one of the guys standing very close to Julian said he had been in Julian’s
offices in Arlington Heights just the day before. Julian did not know him but of
course he knows the person the guy saw.

27. Speaking of going around the room with introductions, some folks need
to be singled out as people who need help in their marketing skills.

a. Craig Bradley who is a lawyer, now with Edwards Wildman, did mention
Wildcat Angels from Northwestern.

But he failed to note that they have funded five companies. With all the
entrepreneurs in the room, one would think that Craig might have sold Wildcat
more than he did.

b. Eyal Amir is an entrepreneur running www.faspark.com.
He has a Ph.D from Stanford in computer science. And he is an assistant
professor at UIUC in computer science.

Does he mention any of that?

NO.

Is he overly modest?

YES.

Did Jeremy Smith of SpotHero tell me that Eyal is a brilliant guy whose
algorithms are very sophisticated?

YES.

I understand, Eyal is an academic, but he has entrepreneurial
ambition.

Kathryn Born, Eyal and I ate lunch together on Nov. 2nd at the FFF event.
Kathryn met Eyal through the Bootstrappers’ Breakfast email list, not that
either has been to the breakfast.

We talked about what goes into Eyal’s real time algorithms for parking
spaces and his background. He’s Israeli and I wanted to introduce him to someone
else who knows Hebrew who was at both the Nov. 2nd event and the VentureShot
event. That person is Matt Deutsch, CPA — if my memory is right.

Eyal’s algorithm takes into account whether there is a store or a bar at
the corner of the street.

Anyway, Eyal needs improvement in the self-promotion category. Here is a
list of some of his publications and his Ph.D. thesis won an award for being the
best of the year.

++++++++++++++++++++

Eyal Amir – Papers and Publications

—————————-

Theses
E. Amir, Dividing and Conquering Logic, Ph.D. Thesis, Stanford
University, Computer Science Department, 2001 (Postscript, PDF). Awarded the
Arthur L. Samuel Award for best thesis in the Computer Science Department,
Stanford University, 2001-2.
E. Amir, Souslin Absoluteness, Uniformization
and Regularity Properties of Projective Sets, Ms.C. Thesis, Bar Ilan University,
Mathematics and Computer Science Department, 1994 (Postscript, PDF).
Journal
Papers and Book Chapters
E. Amir, Approximation Algorithms for Treewidth,
(submitted for publication), 2002.
E. Amir, Interpolation Theorems for
Nonmonotonic Reasoning Systems, (submitted for publication), 2002.
E. Amir
and S. McIlraith, Strategies for Focusing Structure-Based Theorem Proving,
(submitted for publication), 2001. (PDF, PS)
E. Amir and P. Maynard-Reid II,
Logic-Based Subsumption Architecture, Artificial Intelligence journal, accepted
for publication, 2003. (PDF, PS)
E. Amir and S. McIlraith, Partition-Based
Logical Reasoning for First-Order and Propositional Theories, Artificial
Intelligence journal, accepted for publication, 2003. (PDF, PS)
E. Amir,
Towards a Formalization of Elaboration Tolerance: Adding and Deleting Axioms,
book chapter in Frontiers of Belief Revision, M. Williams and H. Rott eds.,
Kluwer, 2000. (PDF, PS)
E. Amir, Object-Oriented First-Order Logic,
Electronic Transactions on Artificial Intelligence, vol. 3, Section C, pp.
63–84, 1999. (PDF, PS)
E. Amir, Souslin Absoluteness, Uniformization and
Regularity Properties of Projective Sets, book chapter in Contributors, BEST
conference proceedings, T. Bartoszynski and M. Scheepers eds., 1996. (PDF, PS)

Papers in Refereed Conference Proceedings
E. Amir and S. Russell, Logical
Filtering, in 18th Intl’ Joint Conference on Artificial Intelligence (IJCAI’03),
2003.
E. Amir and B. Engelhardt, Factored Planning, in 18th Intl’ Joint
Conference on Artificial Intelligence (IJCAI’03), 2003.
B. MacCartney, S.
McIlraith, E. Amir, and T. E. Uribe Practical Partition-Based Theorem Proving
for Large Knowledge Bases, in 18th Intl’ Joint Conference on Artificial
Intelligence (IJCAI’03), 2003.
E. Amir, R. Krauthgamer, and S. Rao Constant
Factor Approximation of Vertex-Cuts in Planar Graphs, in 35th Annual ACM
Symposium on Theory of Computing (STOC’03), 2003.
E. Amir, Interpolation
theorems for nonmonotonic reasoning systems, 8th European conference on logics
in artificial intelligence (JELIA’02), 2002.
E. Amir, Projection in
Decomposed Situation Calculus, 8th International Conference on Principles of
Knowledge Representation and Reasoning (KR’2002), 2002.
S. McIlraith and E.
Amir, Theorem proving with structured theories, 17th Intl’ Joint Conference on
Artificial Intelligence (IJCAI’01), 2001.
Eyal Amir, Efficient Approximation
for Triangulation of Minimum Treewidth, 17th Conference on Uncertainty in
Artificial Intelligence (UAI ’01), 2001.
E. Amir, (De)Composition of
Situation Calculus Theories, Seventeenth National Conference on Artificial
Intelligence (AAAI’2000), 2000.
E. Amir and S. McIlraith, Improving the
Efficiency of Reasoning Through Structure-Based Reformulation, Proceedings of
the 4th Intl’ Symposium on Abstraction, Reformulation and Approximation
(SARA’00), B.Y. Choueiry and T. Walsh Eds., Lecture Notes in Artificial
Intelligence 1864. Springer.
E. Amir and S. McIlraith, Partition-Based
Logical Reasoning, 7th International Conference on Principles of Knowledge
Representation and Reasoning (KR’2000), 2000.
E. Amir and P. Maynard-Reid
II, Logic-Based Subsumption Architecture, 16th Intl’ Joint Conference on
Artificial Intelligence (IJCAI’99), 1999. See also the project web page.
E.
Amir, Pointwise Circumscription Revisited, in Sixth International Conference on
Principles of Knowledge Representation and Reasoning (KR’98), 1998.
Refereed
Workshop Papers
E. Amir, Learning partially observable action models, 4th
international workshop on cognitive robotics (CogRob’04), part of ECAI’04, 2004.

B. Hlubocky and E. Amir, Knowledge-gathering agents in adventure games,
AAAI-04 workshop on Challenges in Game AI, 2004.
D. Ramachandran and E.
Amir, Compact propositionalizations of first-order theories, ECAI-04 workshop on
Local Computation for Logics and Uncertainty, 2004.
E. Amir and S. Russell,
Logical Filtering, Sixth Symposium on the logical formalization of commonsense
reasoning, part of the AAAI Spring Symposium, 2003.
E. Amir and P. Doyle,
Adventure games: a challenge for cognitive robotics, AAAI’02 workshop on
Cognitive Robotics, 2002. [PS, PDF]
E. Amir, Planning with nondeterministic
actions and sensing, AAAI’02 workshop on Cognitive Robotics, 2002.
E. Amir,
Interpolation theorems for nonmonotonic reasoning systems, 9th international
workshop on Nonmonotonic Reasoning (NMR’02), 2002.
E. Amir and S. McIlraith,
Solving Satisfiability using Decomposition and the Most Constrained Subproblem,
LICS workshop on Theory and Applications of Satisfiability Testing (SAT 2001),
2001. Proceedings of SAT 2001 appear in Electronic Notes in Discrete Mathematics
(Elsevier Science). Also in IJCAI’01 workshop on Distributed Constraint
Reasoning
S. McIlraith and E. Amir, Theorem Proving with Structured Theories
(Preliminary Report), LICS workshop on Theory and Applications of Satisfiability
Testing (SAT 2001), 2001. Proceedings of SAT 2001 appear in Electronic Notes in
Discrete Mathematics (Elsevier Science). Also appeared in Fifth Symposium on the
logical formalization of commonsense reasoning, 2001.
E. Amir and P.
Maynard-Reid II, LiSA: A Robot Driven by Logical Subsumption, Fifth Symposium on
the logical formalization of commonsense reasoning, 2001.
S. C. Shapiro, E.
Amir, H. Grosskreutz, D. Randell, and M. Soutchanski, Commonsense and Embodied
Agents: A Panel Discussion, Fifth Symposium on the logical formalization of
commonsense reasoning, 2001.
E. Amir and P. Maynard-Reid II, Logic-Based
Subsumption Architecture: Empirical Evaluation, AAAI Fall Symposium on Parallel
Architectures for Cognition, 2000.
E. Amir, Object-Oriented First-Order
Logic, Workshop on Nonmonotonic Reasoning, Action, and Change (NRAC’99), 1999.

E. Amir and P. Maynard-Reid, Logic-Based Subsumption Architecture, AAAI 1998
Fall Symposium on Cognitive Robotics, 1998.
E. Amir, Towards a Formalization
of Elaboration Tolerance: Adding and Deleting Axioms, Symposium on Abstraction,
Reformulation and Approximation (SARA98), 1998. Also appeared in Seventh
International Workshop on Nonmonotonic Reasoning (Belief Revision track), 1998.

E. Amir, Point-Sensitive Circumscription, Fourth Symposium on the Logical
Formalizations of Commonsense Reasoning, London, England 1998.
E. Amir,
Machinery for Elaborating Action — Preliminary Report, Workshop on Nonmonotonic
Reasoning, Action, and Change, Nagoya, Japan 1997.
E. Amir, Formalizing
Action Using Pointwise Circumscription and Set Theory, Workshop on Nonmonotonic
Reasoning, Action, and Change, Nagoya, Japan 1997.
Refereed Abstracts and
Posters
E. Amir, Elaboration Tolerance of Logical Theories, Proceedings of
the Sixteenth National Conference on Artificial Intelligence (AAAI’99), Doctoral
Consortium, 1999.
E. Amir, Formalizing Action Using Set Theory and Modified
Pointwise Circumscription (Poster), 15th Intl’ Joint Conference on Artificial
Intelligence (IJCAI’97), 1997.
E. Amir, Applications of Context to
Elaboration Tolerance (Abstract), Working Papers of the AAAI Fall Symposium on
Context in Knowledge Representation and Natural Language, 1997.
Papers In
Preparation
E. Amir, Reformulation and Syntactic Distance of Logical
Knowledge Bases, in preparation.
Preprints
Small notes on missionaries –
try 4 (postscript) (4/96). The Missionaries and Cannibals Problem is formulated
in Situation Calculus. This version includes elaborations.
The Missionaries
and Cannibals in Situation Calculus (postscript) (9/97). This version includes
natural language elaborations, and a first attempt at classification of these
elaborations.
Trying the MCP NMR retail A formalization of the missionaries
and cannibals with proofs of correctness:
Version 3 (11/96). This version is
quite simple, including very few nonmonotonic stages.
Version 4 (12/96)
Includes more nonmonotonic steps than Version 3.
Elaborating Action (also
known as “Reified Elaborations”) (postscript). – under work.
Nonmonotonic
Reasoning as SAT Search (postscript). – under work.

++++++++++++++++++++++++++

QED. I rest my case.

c. Brendan Tripp is about my age so he’s been around a while. But now he is
going around saying that he is unemployed. Brendan, you’ve done a lot of things.
Starting a conversation with “Hi, I’m Brendan Tripp and I’m unemployed” is not
the best approach.

Brendan does work part-time here and there and he worked for equity for one
firm that went out of biz for a year, so he isn’t getting unemployment for that
work.

d. Todd Stump. I just hate all the folks who have stealth sites in the
works. I called Todd after the Nov. 2nd event and was not ready to talk then and
he there Wednesday and nothing has changed.

I know he was a political consultant and his idea for a business and a
website is somehow tied to voting and elections, possibly vote swapping.

Todd is really under the radar even though he keeps telling he will pop his
head up. toddstump@gmail.com

e. Ramin Nayevsina, contactramin@gmail.com, 312-933-0400.
The guy did not want to give me a card and I have no idea what he does.

28. Bob Brill gets special mention. He has dropped out of the MIT-EF
entirely. I heard what he said about how he ran the March event for three years
and then resigned his position (he was replaced by Richard Cross), but that does
not explain his decision to not attend meetings, even to just network.

Rachel Kaberon was very involved for a few years, then dropped it. Rachel
Patterson, the same. Melissa Kauck, the same, but aside from being very easy on
the eyes, I’m not sure what her value or reason for being there was, and I like
her. The same goes for Anna Rodenko who is also a looker. Not everyone is a fit
for every organization, but Bob Brill is a fit for MIT-EF and it is a little
family of sorts, so Bob is being fastidious here.

Other regulars at MIT-EF who have dropped out include: Danny Fisher, Peter
Sturdivant, Ellen Clough, Sheldon Rosenfield, Gregory Morris, Ray Genellie,
Jerry Rosenthal, Paul Davidovich, Rich Kooy, Charles Dreher, Keith Karasek, Nik
Rokop who was very active for a long time, Walt Sloan, Darrell Dvorak, Ada
Nielsen, Spencer Maus and a number of folks left town like David Smith, Peter
Balbus and Stephen Meade. What was the name of that cute Russian blonde who had
a travel site?

I found it in my archives: “One other firm is www.globalistaz.com
run by a very cute Russian woman named Marina Vytovtova. The site is in
development and Marina says it will focus on a social network for women business
travelers.”

29. This report is starting to degenerate into the old nasty Ron May
vitriol — and I don’t even have input from Steve Lundin today

But we can’t ignore H. Charles Kaplan, MD — Harvey to his friends. Forget
about the rumpled suit that he bought ten years ago. Forget about how his shirt
is not tucked in and how it does not even cover over his belly which hangs
out.

He has been an inventor since the age of five, he says.

He did go to Harvard and graduated with a major in biology and three minors
(chemistry, physics, and mathematics) — he was a “science jock,” he told
me.

Then he went to The Medical College of Virginia for five years, followed by
three years at the Mayo Clinic and then at Rush Medical Center for two years. He
has 38 filed patents pending and over a hundred inventions. He has done work in
many areas within the medical field, but much of his work has centered on
nuclear radiology and the design of new medical instruments and he has also done
work in the field of nuclear fusion power plants. he has filed patents in 42
countries.

I asked him on the phone today, Friday, about the Japanese nuclear disaster
this year. Harvey said there will be several million cancer

deaths worldwide because of sizeable amounts of cesium 137 and iodine 131
that have already reached the United States, but we have not been told about
it.

Chernobyl will result in close to a million deaths, he said, but originally
the Soviet government floated the notion that there were 59 deaths

Harvey carries a booklet sort of like the portfolio booklet that models
carry with their head shots, etc.

Harvey sort of reminds me of Marty Glotzer and Bernie Ostrowsky.

In 2009 or early 2010 the DOE awarded GE and General Atomics won a $40MM
split contract to develop a pebble bed reactor that is a helium cooled reactor.
Harvey believes this is a big mistake.

He is still fuming that as a taxpayer they never read his 300 page proposal
and they told him that they did not read it because it exceeded the 75 page
limit.

His proposal was for an air cooled 262 lbs/ per sq inch, 1 to 16 cubic feet
per second — it’s compressed room temperature air combined with steam.

Six installations which would entail 18 fusion reactors built the Harvey
Kaplan way would be enough to replace the 110 reactors in the U. S. and 125
installations with 375 fusion reactors could provide all the power needed on
earth.

He calls it the Kaplan electrostatic fusion reactor.

It would be protected from earthquakes, missiles, airplanes, etc. and water
could be pumped in but there would be no need to modify the grid.

I believe he said that one reactor would generate 52 billion watts for 16
months which is from one installation with three fusion reactors inside.

Harvey wrote a ninety page criticism of the DOE decision and they did not
even read it, he told me.

He wrote 90 pages of criticism and they did not even read it.

I asked Harvey for the name of his groupie and I expected the name of the
guy who was hanging out with him at the VentureShot party.

But Harvey mentioned Janet Jasper whom Harvey is a big fan of his. Janet
lives in Sacramento and goes to a lot of trade shows. While she’s not an
engineer, she is a smart amateur.

Havey said that Janet believes that he’ll be honored as Tesla
someday.

The person I had in mind when I asked Harvey about his groupies was Romeo
Folvarco who is an

alternative physician and/or chiropractor who is attracted to outside the
box thinking.

Harvey fashions himself as a leader of the next Tesla revolution which will
be based on secrets that have never been published.

Here are some documents on the net that mention Harvey. He has no website.

Harvey attended the Fabtech conference at McCormick Place this week.

Harvey can be reached at hckaplan1@hotmail.com and
773-484-7731.

BTW, when Harvey was talking to Glenn Gottfried and I came over (in my
wheelchair) and asked Glenn if Harvey is a genius or crazy (not directly making
reference to the John Nash story as chronicled in the movie A Beautiful
Mind).

Glenn made a reference to a Japanese saying that it is a fine line between
the two, but I have to email Glenn for the exact saying. I believe that Glenn
said he is half Japanese.

30. Jeff Willinger tells me today (Friday) there were about 80 people at
the Acronym Bash on Tuesday. “Was it a good event?,” I asked. “No, it sucked,”
he said. Wow! I can’t recall the last time Jeff said that about an event!

Gary Slack was not there, he said and Steve Strand was, but he does not
know if Michael Davies or his wife Jessica Boggs were there because he does not
know them. I also heard from another source that there were few tweets coming
out of the event and right up until the end, they were telling people that they
still had tickets.

Heck, even Lundin had more than 100 people at his B2B social media event
featuring Gillin on November 30th.

31. We’ve got to wind this down. Andy Nadler was talking about the Kayak ad
on TV. I had not paid attention to it until he mentioned it but I have now.

This is not the ad I saw but www.Kayak.com
is known for funny ads.

32. So, to sum up the week, event wise, we had:

Monday: Crain’s Grub Hub shindig at the Ravenswood Center with 200 people.

Tuesday: Health 2.0 with 60 people; BNC Venture Capital Group with 37
people; and Acronym Bash with 80 people, the worst turnout they’ve had in
years.

Wednesday: VentureShot at 744 N. Wells with 80 people

Thursday: LEGG at the Metropolitan Club with about 100 people, including Ed
Condon, Alex Bratton, Jim McCarthy, Paul May and others.

_______________________________

Ron’s response:

Subject: Tom, responding to your note.
Date: 12/6/2011
From:

Reply To:
To: tlc@midwestvp.com
CC: tswagle@aol.com,
reed.holwegner@klrd.ks.gov, cboler@foulston.com, chris.steineger@senate.ks.gov,
ronaldmay@aol.com

Sent from the Internet (Details)
Internet Address Card Attached

December 6, 2011

Tom,

I am not engaging in self
aggrandizing puffery here as you suggest.

You may not have been
following it, but way back in mid-March 2011, I was contacted by two Kansas
state senators, both of whom are on the Kansas state senate commerce committee
and one of whom, Susan Wagle, is chairman of that committee.

Senator
Wagle lead an investigation of the KBA which has resulted (so far) in Thornton’s
resignation and his subsequent flight to Cleveland, an investigation by the
Johnson County DA into Thornton’s (possibly illegal) practices, and a forensic
audit which is on-going.

Tom, there is no hubris here. In fact, I have
repeatedly written and said privately that the vast majority of the
investigation was conducted by Susan Wagle (316-655-9991 and tswagle@aol.com)
and her committee; Reed Holwegner (785-296-4404), a legislative aide for the
commerce committee; Cydney Boler, (913-253-2158 and
913-488-8534 Cell), a
lawyer in Kansas who did a good deal of investigating and who turned that
material over to the committee; and Chris Steineger (785-296-7375), another
member of the commerce committee.

By contrast to the folks listed above,
my contribution to the investigation was tiny.

During the period from
mid-March through Thornton’s departure, I exchanged dozens of calls and emails
with these people.

All Carolyn Nowinski, your former assistant, said to
me on Nov.17, 2011, a conversation that lasted for all of thirty seconds Tom,
was that you never took the money from the KBA, referring to the $5MM that
Thornton had slated for your fund.

I sent Susan Wagle a number of emails
on my inquiry into your fund and many other subjects. We also discussed it on
the phone. at one point, I recall Susan asking me if I thought you and Thornton
socialized with each other. I told her that given your “loveable” personality, I
doubted that you and Thornton were drinking buddies.

Tom, not only does
the KBA know about me, they gave Susan Wagle a letter about me which she has
somewhere in her boxes of files. The letter had the usual attacks on me as a
so-called blogger the letter was no doubt sanctioned by Thornton or Terry Osborn
or possibly our old buddy Cary Nourie.

I believe that the letter was
delivered to Susan by John W. Carlin who is on the KBA board and who was
governor of Kansas from 1979 to 1987.
www.kansasbioauthority.org/about_the_kba/JCarlin.aspx

I
have not seen the letter but Susan Wagle called me and read the whole document
to me on the phone.

Furthermore, at the end of March, I received an
anonymous call from a woman who told me that Thornton said “Someone needs to
take care of Ron” and Tom, I doubt that Thornton was planning to send me a
dancer.

Look, I can laugh about it now, but for a day or two after
the call, I was pretty shaken up.

Call me crazy Tom, but I called the
cops and the KC FBI as a precaution. They said I had no case because no specific
threat had been made.

I now think the woman who called me about the
supposed threat was probably the KBA staffer who is suing Thornton, Melissa
Lynch.

I’m including a copy of the part of The May Report to which you
referring for Susan, Reed, and Cydney, all of whom I’m copying on
this:
++++++++++++++++
Tom Thornton (and here Carolyn Nowinski told me at
the Entrepreneurial Bash at UIC on November 17th that Churchwell never took the
$5MM he was slated to get from the Kansas Bioscience Authority and on that
narrow point, I did play a role by alerting Kansas state senator and chairman of
the Kansas state senate commerce committee Susan Wagle to the fact that TLC did
not have a new fund and was therefore not eligible for the money which was being
doled out on a matching basis) and many more
examples.
++++++++++++++++

Tom, you are not denying that you were
slated for KBA funds, are you?

Here is what did appear on the KBA
website.

++++++++++++++++++++++
tinyurl.com/7fhu7dn

Venture Capital Investment Background
The KBA initiated plans to
significantly increase the availability of bioscience venture capital funding in
Kansas when it published a request for qualifications (RFQ) in late 2008
inviting submissions from qualified and experienced venture capital funds
interested in working with the KBA. Twelve venture funds responded to the RFQ.

In order to professionally evaluate the 12 funds, the KBA initiated a
request for proposals for qualified financial managers and, from that process,
engaged a third-party firm to conduct an independent, comprehensive evaluation
of each fund and the confidential information provided to the KBA. That
third-party firm was Ennis Knupp, whose private equity evaluation team is
nationally recognized. Additionally, Ennis Knupp’s existing knowledge of the KBA
from its role as the KBA’s financial advisor allowed it to quickly begin its
evaluation, and it had no conflicts with any of the firms that responded to the
RFQ.
Ennis Knupp used the rigorous evaluation criteria defined by the KBA in
its RFQ, including track record as a priority, and also experience of
management, investment strategy, commitment to locate in Kansas, knowledge of
the Kansas marketplace, the funds’ proposed terms and conditions, and other
confidential information provided to the KBA by the respondents to the RFQ.
Ennis Knupp presented the due diligence process it would use to evaluate the 12
applicants to the KBA board of directors during its May 2009 meeting. In
addition, the KBA staff met with each of the venture funds that responded to the
RFQ, with two objectives: 1) to get to know each firm and its investment thesis
by sector and stage so we can source Kansas investment opportunities to the most
appropriate firms and (2) to share information about Heartland BioVentures’
approach and services to get companies venture-ready.
At the KBA’s June 2009
investment committee meeting, Ennis Knupp provided a detailed assessment of each
of the 12 funds, including a ranking of the firms according to the KBA’s
evaluation criteria. After in-depth discussion, the investment committee created
a prioritized list of eight candidate firms on which it desired to focus during
the next phase of the selection process. Those prioritized firms were invited to
give a presentation detailing their qualifications at future investment
committee meetings.
The investment committee met individually with each of
the eight venture firms it prioritized in its June meeting. After completion of
these meetings, the investment committee met to discuss all of the firms and
identify which it believed are best suited to achieve the KBA’s growth fund
objectives. Upon completion of its evaluation and deliberations, the investment
committee voted unanimously to recommend to the full KBA board commitments in
eight funds.
On October 8, 2009, the KBA board of directors unanimously
approved commitments to invest with the following venture capital firms (listed
alphabetically by commitment size):
Burrill & Company, San Francisco, CA,
$10 million
MPM Capital, Boston, MA, $10 million
IN Partners / MidPoint
Food & Ag, Carmel, IN, $5 million
Meadowlark Venture Partners, Chicago,
IL, $5 million
Midwest Venture Partners, Chicago, IL, $5 million
Open
Prairie Ventures, Olathe, KS, $5 million
Prolog Ventures, St. Louis, MO, $5
million
Triathlon Medical Ventures, Cincinnati, OH, $5 million
Together,
these funds provide a range of expertise in the bioscience sectors in which
Kansas has existing strengths: animal health, bioenergy, biomaterials, plant
biology, and human health. Working with multiple funds also exponentially
expands the venture capital network focused on bioscience companies at varying
stages of development in Kansas and provides the greatest assurance of increased
venture capital flow into the state.
+++++++++++++++++++++++

Feel free
to call any of these people to verify what I am saying.

Here is your
note.

+++++++++++++++++++++++++++++++++++++

Your latest “report”
X
Inbox
X
Reply
from Thomas
Churchwell tlc@midwestvp.com
to “ron@themayreport.com” <ron@themayreport.com>
date Tue, Dec
6, 2011 at 5:57 AM
subject Your latest “report”
mailed-by
midwestvp.com
Important mainly because of the people in the
conversation.
hide details 5:57 AM (15 hours ago)
As usual, your hubris is
only exceeded by your ignorance. Do you actually think the Kansas Bioscience
Authority even knows who you are, let alone puts any stock in your
gossip?

Even if someone were dumb enough to think they could game the
process as you suggest, smart investors employ experienced advisors like Hewitt
EnnisKnupp to do proper due diligence.

One would have thought after all
these years and all those words, you would have mastered at least the rudiments
of the industry on which you purport to report.

Thomas L. Churchwell
Managing Partner
Midwest Venture
Partners
+++++++++++++++++++++++++++++

Ron May
773-525-3944
ronaldmay@aol.com

_______________________________

Subject: Re: Susan, when’s the forensic audit going to be finished? BTW,
how are you?
Date: 12/8/2011 8:39:01 A.M. Central Standard Time
From: tswagle@aol.com

To: RONALDMAY@aol.com

Ron

As far as I know, the forensic audit is still on going, although I
think we will have results before the legislature convenes in January.

The auditor was hired by the Bio Science Authority, so their client is
the Authority.

However, I believe the Governor’s office is also in communication with
the auditor.

I have not been involved in the audit process, so I am not in the loop
of communication.

I am sorry I cannot be more informative, but I am an outsider.

Susan Wagle

—–Original Message—–
From: RONALDMAY <RONALDMAY@aol.com>
To: tswagle <tswagle@aol.com>
Cc: ronaldmay <ronaldmay@aol.com>
Sent: Tue, Dec 6,
2011 6:26 pm
Subject: Susan, when’s the forensic audit going to be finished?
BTW, how are you?

__________________________

To: Lawrence Schook, Vice President for Research, Univ of Illinois
CC:
Following offices of University of Illinois: The President, Office of Ethics,
Trustees, University Counsel, Chancellors, Human Resources, and other interested
parties.
Following office of State of Illinois: Governor, Attorney General
and other interested parties.
Subject: BLATANT ACT OF VIOLATION OF HIRING
RULES AND ETHICS AND LAW (MOST LIKELY) BY NANCY SULLIVAN – DIRECTOR OF OFFICE OF
TECHNOLOGY MANAGEMENT (OTM) AT UIC
Date: 10 Nov 2011
Larry,
You are
hereby informed of the blatant act of violation of university policy and
(probably) state law by Nancy Sullivan in her promotion of Jeremy Hollis to
Assistant Director of Business Development, from his former position as
technology manager in spring 2011.
The position (Assistant Director of
Business Development) was advertised in 2009-2010, and after receiving hundreds
of resumes it was declared a ‘failed search’. Jeremy Hollis was the head of the
search committee. After a year of this failed search, no other advertisement was
posted or search conducted, and Jeremy was promoted to position of Assistant
Director of Business Development by Ms. Nancy Sullivan.
Mr. Larry, you are
probably ignorant of this as it happened during transition of responsibilities
from Mr. Ghosh to you in Spring 2011. It really stretches credulity that in this
economy it was first declared a failed search and then viola after a year- the
head of committee of the failed search Mr. Jeremy Hollis takes the position with
a big pay raise. All this is very well-recorded and you can readily obtain all
information should you try.
You are now informed of this blatant act of
violation of ethics and law (most likely) by Ms. Nancy Sullivan, and are
expected to investigate it.

___________________________