Firm Overview
- Private Equity, Strategy, and Executive Management Support
- Core focus: Medium to large-sized businesses requiring growth capital, strategic vision, and executive management support to move to the next level
- Broad-based areas of interest include travel and transportation,
technology, and e-commerce
Capabilities
- Significant experience in creating, managing and growing businesses
- International business management and inorganic growth integration
- A broad-based functional portfolio
– Transactions: mergers & acquisitions, capital structure, corporate litigation, business contracts including vendor, employee agreements
Strategic Planning: industry/competitor analysis, forecasting, operational growth planning and implementation, change management and integration, entry and exit strategies
– Finance: global financial/ accounting systems and processes, audits, cash management, taxes, bank relationships & loan syndication
– Technology and Business Solutions: roadmaps, technology development and management, outsourcing management, decision support analysis
– Marketing Management: needs analysis, brand positioning and messaging, product development and management, marketing and sales support
Fieldstone Equity Bios:
Ralph Manaker
Ralph is Fieldstone Equity’s Managing Partner. Ralph has over 30 years experience in mergers and acquisitions and was instrumental in the creation of BCD Travel, a $15 billion global travel management company headquartered in the Netherlands. From 1998 through 2007, Ralph was co-President of BCD Travel with responsibilities for strategic planning, legal, acquisitions and integration. He was responsible for setting up the European operations of BCD Travel’s sister company, TRX, a leading travel technology company. Ralph also led BCD’s efforts to expand globally through acquisitions in Asia, Latin America, and Europe including the purchase of TQ3, a large European travel management company.
From 1987 to 1998, Ralph was President of USTravel, Inc, a billion dollar travel management company located in Rockville, Md. Ralph was one of the cofounders of USTravel, which grew to approximately $2 billion in airline sales, before merging with BCD Travel (formerly BTI WorldTravel).
Ralph has a BA in Mechanical Engineering and a Doctorate of Law from Syracuse University. Prior to starting a career in business, he practiced law in New York and was an adjunct professor at Syracuse College of Law. Ralph is married with two daughters, and in his spare time he enjoys polo and collecting vintage cars.
Jim Dullum
Jim is a Senior Partner in Fieldstone Equity. Jim has over 30 years of executive business management and strategic planning experience with two Fortune 500 companies and the start-up and/or operations of eight other companies.
From 1993 – 2009 he led the $1.4 Billion Global Transportation Business for EDS, an HP company. Jim was responsible for the global delivery of EDS’ outsourcing and other end-to-end capabilities to a diverse client base including air carriers, airports, logistics and transport enterprises, hotel companies, cruise lines, and major reservations networks. He engineered over $600M of accretive acquisitions and integrations in the US and Europe. During this period, EDS became the number one provider of information technology (IT) services to the airline industry globally, established significant positions in Logistics in EMEA and Asia, and opened Transportation best-shore operations in Latin America, India and China.
Jim was also: a co-founder of USTravel; founder of Execunet Travel Systems; Vice Chairman of CIMS, a Citicorp information management company; partner and/or executive with investment banking and consulting firms that served clients in the Financial Services, Information Technology, and Transportation industries; and helped found, develop and sell four other companies.
He holds an MBA from the Harvard Graduate School of Business and a BA Cum Laude in Mechanical Engineering from the Georgia Institute of Technology. Jim is married and has four daughters, enjoys playing golf, motorcycle riding and painting. He was born and grew up in Jamaica.
Greg Mathy
Greg is a Partner in Fieldstone Equity. With over 27 years of strategic planning and financial management experience in the private equity, consulting, technology services, transportation, logistics, and software industries, Greg has played a key executive role with a wide-range of companies — from start-up to Fortune 100.
Most recently Greg was the CFO, and member of the executive management team, at Neuropathy Centers of America – a Fieldstone backed start-up outpatient medical services venture. At NCA, Greg had responsibility for all financial, accounting, tax, and treasury functions, while also providing strategic planning expertise and general executive management/oversight.
Prior to joining Fieldstone, from 2009 – 2011, Greg acted as the Managing Director of G2 Strategic Advisors, an independent consulting firm. While there, he was responsible for developing the go-to-market plan for a key line of business for a multi-billion international off-shore IT services firm, and also performed the acting-CFO role for an early-stage unified communications software company, with responsibility for developing the company’s business plan and securing venture capital investment. From 1990 – 2009, Greg held various key executive management roles with several Fortune 100 players, including Hewlett-Packard, Electronic Data Systems, and Union Pacific. During that tenure, he had strategic planning, P&L, and global market-development responsibilities, as well as M&A and in-house investment banking duties. Greg started his career as a tax attorney with PricewaterhouseCoopers, focused on providing tax and business consulting services to individual and corporate clients
in various industries.
Greg received his Juris Doctor degree (Corporate Law/Taxation) from the Creighton University School of Law, and holds a Master’s degree in Business Administration (Corporate Finance) and a Bachelor of Science degree in Business Administration (Accounting/Finance) from Creighton University in Omaha, Nebraska. Greg has two children, and in his spare time enjoys coaching youth athletics, biking, and attending sporting events.
Paul Lambert
Paul is a Partner in Fieldstone Equity. He has over 20 years of leadership experience ranging from public company business unit management, engineering programs and corporate sales to entrepreneurial business creation, funding, acquisitions and mergers.
Prior to joining Fieldstone, as CEO of STaSIS Revo Group of companies Paul successfully engineered a roll up of aftermarket providers included key intellectual property, consumer brand expansion, vertical product expansion as well as distribution into more than 550 dealerships and independent retail centers in 35 countries. As founding President and CEO of STaSIS Engineering he led a retail product development, marketing and sales program that grew from $1 to $7 million in 3 years and captured over 50% of the US Audi dealership base.
During a 10-year career with Altera semiconductor, Paul was a pioneering leader in applications engineering, field engineering and sales management. He was responsible for Altera’s most successful business unit, driving revenue from $10 to $110 million over five years. In his early career Paul held technical positions with Westinghouse participating in the rollout of the first EPA approved trash burning power plants and Pacific Telesis during the birth of the modern cellular phone market. He also spent four years as a professional racing driver and development engineer.
Paul studied under the International Baccalaureate program at the International School of Brussels and earned a Bachelors of Science degree in Electrical Engineering from Carnegie Mellon University. Paul is as an active tri-athlete and cyclist. He is married with two daughters.
Mark Abe
Mark Abe is a Partner at Fieldstone Equity. With over 25 years of strategic planning, business operations and executive management experience in the consulting, technology services, transportation, manufacturing, aerospace and healthcare industries, Mark has served in key executive roles across a broad range of companies — from start-up to global multi-nationals.
As part of Fieldstone’s portfolio, Mark serves as the President at Neuropathy Centers of America — a start-up outpatient medical services business. At NCA, Mark has responsibility for all business operations and financial performance, while also providing strategic planning expertise and general executive management/oversight. Mark previously served as the company’s COO, overseeing day-to-day operations as well as growth and expansion efforts.
Prior to Fieldstone, from 2009 to 2012, Mark served as HP’s Manufacturing Industries Global Industry Leader. While there, he provided executive leadership over the company’s product and services portfolio ($1.5B/year) in support of the High Tech, Manufacturing, Aerospace, Automotive and Transportation & Logistics clients. He served in multiple leadership roles overseeing business development, portfolio management and product development organizations.
Prior to HP, Mark held executive leadership roles within Electronic Data Systems (EDS). Over a 20 year period, he had roles in strategic planning, P&L, and global market/business-development responsibilities, as well as M&A activities. Part of a global industry team, he helped drive EDS’ transportation revenues in excess of $1B/year and was the leader of IT services to the airline industry. From 2005-2008, he served abroad as expatriate in Beijing, Shanghai and Singapore; his final role in Asia Pacific was the Vice President and Managing Director of EDS’Southeast Asia (ASEAN) region, achieving $1B in total sales in 2008.
Mark received his Bachelor of Science in Aerospace Engineering from the University of California, Los Angeles, and has continuing studies at Troy University, Babson University and the London School of Business.
Norman Bluth
Norm is a Partner and General Counsel of Fieldstone Equity. Norm has spent his entire career in the corporate and commercial law practice, the past 10 years heavily M&A and transaction related. Given his extensive legal and business experience, Norm has developed a 360 degree perspective on operating, growing, protecting, buying and selling businesses. Although Norm has been involved in projects in a broad range of industries, he has extensive experience in the transportation and travel sectors.
In addition to being a partner of Fieldstone Equity, Norm is a partner of McBreen & Kopko, a multi-state general practice law firm. He works in the firm’s Transportation and Travel Group and represents a broad spectrum of transportation and travel companies (e.g., airlines, aviation services companies,6 corporate/business companies, logistics companies, freight forwarders, OTA’s,consolidators, tour operators, TMCs) on a wide range of legal matters (e.g.,M&A, corporate transactions, litigation and regulatory).
Prior to joining McBreen & Kopko, Norm was General Counsel of a structured finance firm (projects worldwide), a partner in a boutique aviation law firm, in house counsel with Trans World Airlines (through 2 bankruptcies and the Flight 800 disaster) and an associate with a boutique surface transportation law firm.
Norm lives with his family on Long Island, New York and is involved in many
charities. He presently is a member of Tourism Cares and sits on its Board of Directors, and is a member of the JFK International Airport Rotary Club (former President, Vice President and Board of Directors). Norm is also very active in the outdoors. Norm (like Paul) is a triathlete. Norm completed the Lake Placid Iron man competition, and vows to do it again when his kids graduate high school in several years.
