Stephen Sensoli Profile (Nimbus/Biz 941)

New College, Sarasota, image by RTC1 via FlickrBy Bob Andelman
July 2007

One year of sending his son to the University of Miami and Stephen Sensoli’s father was fed up.

“I’m glad you’re having fun,” he said of Stephen’s entertaining freshman year at one of the mid-70s’ predominant party schools, “but this doesn’t make sense.”

And that’s how Sensoli (’80) found himself enrolled at New College in 1977.

“I wanted to stay in Florida and go to a good college. New College was, and hopefully still is, a place where people who didn’t fit in in other places could go. That’s the way I was. I didn’t have time to deal with the realities of a typical school. New College allowed me to focus on what I thought – at the time – was important to my future career.”

That career was destined be as an entrepreneur, as Sensoli went on to earn an MBA from the University of Michigan and build a reputation for himself as a business development expert in the pharmaceuticals industry. He worked for Leeco Diagnostics, a Michigan-based biotech company, for 10 years, including time spent in China setting up a joint venture for his employer.

When he returned to Michigan, the company announced a joint venture with Johnson & Johnson and Sensoli was asked to run the startup, which produced the Fact-PlusTM home pregnancy test and a Strep A home diagnostic test. “I got a reputation in Southeast Michigan as someone who could grow things.”

GeneWorks was one of several companies he helped start. During his six years as CEO, the company raised $20 million and did deals with nine biotech and pharmaceutical companies.

“We genetically engineered chickens to lay eggs with pharmaceutical protein in the egg whites,” Sensoli explains. “That was a really cool company with a lot of super-smart people. At least 22 of the 25 employees had masters or higher degrees. We used to have great Trivial Pursuit parties. There was almost no topic where you could stump the crowd.”

Today, Sensoli commutes weekly from his home in Plymouth, Michigan, to his position as director of global business development with Banner Pharmacaps in High Point, NC.

Sensoli, 49, a married father of two teens, well remembers the culture shock of landing at New College from Miami. “As one of the smartest and highest ranking kids from my high school, going to New College – where everybody was highest ranked – was humbling. But that was good, too. It’s a great place to build a lot of character and independence. It really prepares you for the world when you get out of that. You are truly responsible for building your own curriculum and accomplishing it. It prepares you for the business world and life.”


Copyright 2008 Bob Andelman. Click here for copyright permissions!
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Carol Flint Profile (Nimbus/Biz 941)

"China Beach" image via WikipediaBy Bob Andelman
July 2007

Carol Flint’s is the kind of success story that should inspire future New College applicants, as she can draw a straight line from her Emmy Award as a writer and producer on the NBC-TV series “ER” right back to the school and community where she first spread her theatrical and scriptwriting wings.

“I have been very fortunate,” says the class of 1978 grad, who now makes her home in Santa Monica, California. “New College being New College, there was a humanities department, but I was able to specialize in theater even though they didn’t have a theater department. I taught acting workshops. New College made that possible.”

After New College, she worked at the Florida Studio Theater in Sarasota, eventually becoming playwright in residence there.

Flint and her husband, Steve Jones – a Sarasota County planner she met at a New College Palm Court party – relocated out west and both attended classes at the University of California/Davis. When she graduated with an MFA (and as a Regents and Chandler Fellow), Flint went to Los Angeles for a 10-week, unpaid internship that changed her life.

The job was doing research for John Sacret Young, who was writing a TV pilot for ABC called “China Beach” about American military and civilian women serving at an evacuation hospital during the Vietnam War.

“I was in the right place at the right time because I had done a lot of research finding and writing about women who had been in Vietnam,” Flint says. “After the pilot was made and ABC made an initial order for six episodes, I was uniquely positioned.”

She became a staff writer on the series, rising to producer by the third and final season of “China Beach.”

“It’s not a good model to give to someone to follow!” Flint says, laughing.

She moved on to “L.A. Law,” “ER,” (where she won her Emmy and was nominated three times overall) “The West Wing” and “The Unit,” typically as a writer and producer. Flint shared nominations for the Writers Guild of America Award for Episodic Drama not once but twice. She has been a nominee and recipient of the Humanitas Award and has received both a GLAAD Award and a Media Access Award.

“It’s ironic because all through my 20s,” she says, “I only wanted to write for theatre. I didn’t own a television! We had to buy one to watch ‘China Beach.’”

Flint’s memories of New College are all good.

“New College was a place that was so much about experimentation, but also about being self-directed,” she says. “It was a place where there was freedom to create high-quality work and take that on your own shoulders. That seems to directly correlate with the work I’ve done.”


Copyright 2008 Bob Andelman. Click here for copyright permissions!
Some stories may appear in unedited versions that are different from their print counterparts.

"Body Copy" (Biz941 Magazine)

Medical researchers, Hollywood filmmakers and animal rights activists stand to benefit from Chris Sakezles' synthetic human body parts.

By Bob Andelman

When Robert Cresanti met Sarasota inventor and entrepreneur Dr. Chris Sakezles in February, Sakezles shook his hand and showed him his thigh.

You can bet that’s the first time that’s ever happened to the U.S. Under Secretary of Commerce for Technology, who came to Tampa that day in February to present Sakezles with a Recognition of Excellence in Innovation award.

And it was entirely appropriate that Sakezles bring out his remarkable thigh because it’s a big part of the attention his company, Animal Replacement Technologies, has been attracting from medical device and pharmaceutical manufacturers to cosmetics companies and Hollywood movie studios.

Sakezles, 40, literally invented that thigh. It looks real and, more importantly, feels sickeningly real, right down to the fake blood coursing through its veins.

“I had discussions with a number of scientists when his nomination came up,” Cresanti says. “This technology really stuck out. It was, considering the many innovation awards we’ve given out, among the most unique. The name of the company was kind of odd. But the more I looked at the thoughtfulness, the patents and approach—and I spoke to some of my medical friends about the limitations of present animal testing models—the more interested I was.”

And, as Cresanti pointed out, it’s one thing to read about Animal Replacement Technologies’ design and manufacturing of body parts, but something else to actually hold its work in your hands. “I said to him, ‘When you visit clients, you must have a very interesting experience checking baggage at the airport,’” Cresanti says.

That’s true.

“When I go through the airport with a bunch of penis models,” Sakezles says, “it’s much more interesting. The security people pull them out and wave them around. I get a weird smile and a smirk. Then I have to explain what I do, and I’m not sure they believe me.”

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"Marketing to the Mob" (Biz941 Magazine)

Dan Miller and his Movo Mobile technology
shake up the marketing industry.

By Bob Andelman

When the flash mob materialized last February outside the Adidas store in Las Vegas within 30 minutes of being summoned via mobile phones and PDAs, it was pretty clear that Movo Mobile’s technology, headed up by Sarasota’s tech entrepreneur Dan Miller, worked. And when—within minutes—those 200 people bought out every special-edition shoe developed exclusively for the event, it was equally obvious that Movo Mobile, a new acquisition for a Naples-based company called Neighborhood America, would one day make a lot of money.

Flash mobs have been around a while. The term refers to the ability of Internet forums, bulletin boards, e-mails and mobile phones to stir up a crowd on short notice to stage some kind of unanticipated event—and then disappear just as quickly. Last year in San Francisco, some 300 people showed up at The Embarcadero to have a 5 p.m. pillow fight, just in time to entertain home-bound commuters stuck in rush hour traffic.

“We haven’t seen them used for commercial purposes until now,” says Gene Keenan, vice president of mobile strategy for Isobar, the San Francisco-based advertising firm of record for Adidas.

In Vegas, Keenan saw it happen firsthand. The multifaceted shoe manufacturer’s program, tied into the NBA’s 2007 All-Star Weekend, was a thing of beauty. Adidas spent more than $1 million buying digital billboard space around the city and draping hotels with its billboards. The only call to action on its signage was for someone to open his or her cell phone and send a message to the Movo system. What they got for opting in were VIP invitations to NBA-related parties, invitations to exclusive autograph signings and electronic passes to the Adidas store for limited-edition shoe runs. Adidas used mobile marketing to promote its activities, day and night. The payoff? In-store Adidas sales in Vegas increased by 25 times the previous week’s take.

“Adidas was extremely happy,” says Keenan. “As a result, it’s stepping up its mobile program significantly for the rest of 2007 and for all of ’08.”

Movo Mobile—whose prime product is a software application that advertising agencies use to launch marketing campaigns by cell phone—is a success story and a fast-moving one at that, having opened its doors in Sarasota in 2005 and been acquired in October 2006 by Neighborhood America.

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By Bob Andelman: Biz941

Multitaskin' Marvin
Entrepreneurial whirlwind Marvin Kaplan is reinventing Dunkin' Donuts—and more.

By Bob Andelman

Marvin Kaplan is just one man, even if sometimes it seems that he must be in more than one place at a time.

“I like to stay busy,” says the businessman, whose current activities include developing Devonshire Park, a community of million-dollar single-family homes in downtown Sarasota; redeveloping Linger Lodge RV Resort and Restaurant and the former J.P. Igloo site in Manatee County; owning five strip centers in Sarasota County; publishing eight books of prayers written by the late Pope John Paul II; and developing 10 new Dunkin’ Donuts franchise stores along the Gulf Coast.

Hmm, better check the notes. Something seems to be missing from that list.

Oh, of course. Kaplan has applied to Dunkin’ Brands, the parent company of Dunkin’ Donuts, to be among the first franchisees it licenses to bring doughnuts and coffee to China, possibly in time for the 2008 Summer Olympics in Beijing.

The local media jumped on Kaplan’s interest in China somewhat prematurely; several existing U.S. franchisees are competing for Chinese territories, as are potential Chinese franchisees. But make no mistake. Kaplan is considered a strong contender.

“We had a conversation with Marvin and his partners,” says Jon Luther, chairman and chief executive officer of Dunkin’ Brands in Canton, Mass. “They’re serious, very legitimate and very much under consideration to enter China. We’re doing our research now to be sure we enter in the right way with the right partners. We continue to advance his interest. He is a serious contender, has strong partners and is well-financed. And Marvin is making a personal commitment.”

What is it about Marvin Kaplan and doughnuts?

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