| EXECUTIVE
TEAM |
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The Idea
Mill executive team consists of the following individuals:
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GEORGE
TARRAB, JR.
Managing Partner |
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Mr. Tarrab has
developed new products, managed corporate operations and successfully
grown companies and services for over 20 years. He has an Associate
in Science degree from the Edison Technical Institute and has held
federal and state security clearances as a result of his project
management efforts with various government agencies including the
FBI, Naval Weapons Research, Special Operations and police groups
worldwide. He has managed electro-mechanical product development
and projects for the aviation, entertainment and broadcast industries
as well as for the private sector. His diverse background includes
mechanical and electronics design engineering, market research,
creating and negotiating international leasing contracts, budgeting
and managing multi-million dollar projects, risk management and
technical consulting.
As Chief Operations
Officer of the largest supplier of stabilized helicopter camera
mounts, Mr. Tarrab streamlined operations, researched and established
15 new locations and created the retail infrastructure for all 36
locations worldwide. During his tenure, sales, quality, on-time
service and customer satisfaction were at the highest levels in
the company's 40-year history.
He has been
sought out to manage many special projects because he is a professional
logistics coordinator, has proven problem-solving skills and has
the ability to envisage all aspects of business. Noteworthy projects
include customized hardware for the FBI, Naval Weapons Research,
Northrop, Hughes Thermal Imaging, Flir Systems Inc., Bell Helicopters,
IMAX, Goodyear Blimp, Fuji Blimp, Broadcast Surveillance Systems,
NBC, ABC, and others.
He has also
provided technical and logistical consulting to hundreds of commercials,
television programs and feature film productions. His movie projects
include Mission Impossible, Terminator 2, Die Hard, Die Hard 2,
The Fugitive, Hunt For Red October, Lethal Weapon 2, Lethal Weapon
3, Broken Arrow, Clear and Present Danger and Water World. His work
for television includes commercial advertisements for Princess Cruises,
BMW, Toyota, Nissan, Cadillac, Mazda and Suzuki, and program coverage
of two Americas Cup races.
Even in leisure,
Mr. Tarrab's interests have evolved into entrepreneurial product
development and improvement. While racing personal watercraft, he
was enlisted by Ultranautics for the development and testing efforts
on their Suzuki powered boats and watercraft. He met his associate
of 20 years and Idea Mill Partner, Chris Lessel while testing these
crafts and dominating the racing circuit for four years. Together,
Mr. Tarrab and Mr. Lessel evaluated and developed numerous products
to enhance the performance and hydrodynamic efficiency of the various
models of watercraft. Their efforts were the genesis of West
Power Systems (WPS), a company dedicated to solving the many
shortcomings and high-maintenance costs of high-load, continuous-duty
reciprocating engines. Through WPS, they continue to develop small
hybrid turbine engines as a super-reliable and affordable power
plant for use in many types of vehicles.
More recently,
as a parent of three, Mr. Tarrab became aware of the dangers and
ill effects of the over-usage of electronic media in children's
lives. Impoverished brain development, aggressive behavior and obesity
are at epidemic levels due to too much television, video games and
computer play. These troubling trends prompted him to invent PlayTime
Manager™, a simple, intuitive solution for controlling
the amount of time children spend with electronic media. PlayTime
ManagerŠ is the latest inductee to the Idea Mill family and is being
launched through the Time Management Products
(TMP) division.
Now, as Managing
Director of Idea Mill, a Concept to Product Development Company,
Mr. Tarrab has a venue for developing many of his product ideas
and looks forward to helping other creative thinkers with their
endeavors. His business experience, engineering savvy and evaluation
skills are invaluable to inventors and entrepreneurs seeking a way
to get their ideas ready for market.
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CHRIS
LESSEL
Co-Founder
/ Partner |
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Chris
Lessel has over 25 years of business development experience as both
a corporate executive and an entrepreneur. His business acumen and
ability to think creatively have resulted in a career of streamlined
operations, increased company performance and several successfully
marketed inventions.
Before
Idea Mill, Mr. Lessel served a seven-year tenure as Branch President
of one of the largest privately owned building supply wholesalers
in Southern California. After serving as Vice President for 10 years
he was given the task of improving sales efficiency.
Mr.
Lessel developed, implemented and managed the Point-Of-Sale computer
system across 13 locations, which greatly simplified sales entry
and improved inventory control for the entire multi-location operation.
Mr.
Lessel's entrepreneurial skills stem from his personal interest
in aviation as well as recreational vehicles. His enthusiasm for
aircraft and watercraft has cultivated his natural mechanical abilities
and given him expertise in engineering outside of his formal business
education at USC. His inventions grew out of the desire to refine
engines and their working components for greater efficiency.
He
developed, patented and marketed several specialty components, engineered
internal modifications, and developed complete custom-built engine
systems. These systems have been used in numerous marine applications
and personal watercraft utilizing Suzuki marine engines. His ability
to identify the causes of lagging performance in engine systems
has given him a reputation as a troubleshooter. Once he has designed
a new idea, he is able to orchestrate the tooling and manufacturing
of the product and take it to market.
In
particular, Mr. Lessel has helped develop one of the smallest, lightest
turbo-shaft jet engines for use in experimental aircraft, marine
applications and land vehicles. With his long-time associate, Idea
Mill Partner, George Tarrab, Jr., he helped design, test and market
an engine that can be used for these various experimental applications.
(See Idea Mill Division WPS for more
information)
Mr.
Lessel attended the USC School of Business Administration, earning
a Bachelor of Science degree with an emphasis in marketing.
In
addition to his product development skills and business management
abilities, Mr. Lessel is an FAA Instrument rated Commercial Pilot
with Single-Engine Land and Sea, Multi-Engine Land, Rotorcraft and
Certified (Authorized) Flight Instructor ratings. He has flown for
over 25 years and is licensed to fly multiple fixed-wing, single-
and multi-engine aircraft as well as various models of piston-engine
and turbine-engine rotorcraft.
Mr.
Lessel's varied interests and abilities reveal his propensity to
approach all challenges with an attitude to succeed. In his position
as Co-Founder and Partner for Idea Mill, he welcomes the opportunity
to help other imaginative people bring their ideas to light with
his knowledge, experience and resourcefulness.
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JOHN
ZABEL
Financial
Advisor |
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John
Zabel is an award-winning CPA with 20 years of negotiation, project
financing, capital raising (including German IPO experience) and
accounting/general management experience. He was the VP Controller
and SVP of Finance at Sony Pictures Entertainment, Inc. for twelve
years and the EVP and CFO of Mandalay Entertainment, LLC for eight
years.
He
has negotiated multi-year licensing deals with major international
companies in the UK, France, Italy, Japan, Germany, Spain, Australia
and New Zealand. He has also negotiated credit agreements with major
US (Chase) and UK (Coutts/Natwest) banks, including completion bond
and insurance packages covering 15 projects and $900 million over
the last 5 years. In addition, he has been involved in developing
non-traditional financing sources such as a $75 million UK sale/lease
transaction and a Canadian tax shelter on a German financed project
(one of the first such deals ever completed), a $35 million insurance
policy-backed project loan facility and over $75 million of project
equity from German investment funds (structuring the first and only
project financing utilizing two separate and competing funds on
the same project).
His
accounting and administration expertise culminated in his leading
the finance team charged with library valuation for the merger of
Columbia Pictures and TriStar Pictures in 1987, and the $6 billion
purchase of both by Sony in 1989. He was a member of the FASB Task
Force charged with clarifying and improving accounting guidance
for the Entertainment Industry, which resulted in the issuance of
SOP-02 in June 2000. He also established a system to automatically
track project valuations against actual results used to calculate
and post adjustments to the general ledger and established the legal,
administrative (including human resources, insurance and payroll)
and distribution tracking systems for the multi-entity group at
Mandalay.
In
2002, Mr. Zabel established Media Finance Structures (MFS), LLC
and has grown it into one of the most successful boutique media
advisory firms in the industry. MFS provides guidance and expertise
to leading investors, banks and law firms on all manner of Entertainment
activities.
Mr.
Zabel graduated with Great Distinction from California State University,
Long Beach, was a member of the UCLA Executive Program's 72nd Class,
and started at the Big 8 accounting firm of Arthur Young & Company,
where he won the Elijah Watts Sells award for his performance on
the 1981 CPA Exam.
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GAIL
PIPER
Marketing |
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With
successful track records in executive level corporate and service-side
marketing in both the United States and Europe, London native Gail
Piper now runs The Piper Consultancy, a San Francisco-based brand
strategy and marketing consulting practice.
Ms.
Piper's brand experience spans diverse businesses, from global retail
franchises to mature packaged goods companies to technology start-ups.
The Piper Consultancy's clients have included Bausch & Lomb, Body
Shop International, Cisco Systems, e-Ceptionist (software), Klutz
(children's activity books), QuadraMed Corporation (software), Stuart
Anderson's Black Angus Restaurants, Terminix, Unilever Mexico, Washington
Mutual Savings Bank, and a number of advertising agencies.
In
2002, Body Shop International hired Ms. Piper on a fixed-term contract
as Executive Director of Worldwide Marketing based at their London
headquarters. Her primary task was brand revitalization and she
laid the strategic groundwork for this and implemented the organization,
talent, and processes to realize that objective through retail,
mail order, in-home, and online channels.
The
Piper Consultancy was started as a part-time venture in 1996, and
Ms. Piper began to pursue it full-time in 2001. Prior to that, she
held a variety of senior management positions in advertising agencies.
In the US, she was Senior Vice President and Director of Brand Strategy
at Hoffman/Lewis, and Deputy Managing Director at McCann Erickson's
award-winning Seattle office. On her arrival in the US from England
in 1986, she spent seven years at Goldberg Moser O'Neill in San
Francisco as a Vice President and member of the management group,
leading many of the agency's new business efforts as well as running
several of the agency's reputation-forming assignments. In her agency
positions, Gail's clients included Boston Market, Celestial Seasonings
Teas, Cisco Systems, The Coca-Cola Company, Dreyer's Ice Cream,
Horizon Organic, Hunt-Wesson, McDonald's, Qantas Airways, The Quaker
Oats Company, Reno Air, The Seattle Times, The Washington Apple
Commission, Washington Mutual, Inc., and Worlds of Wonder Toys.
In
the UK, Ms. Piper held similar agency positions and concluded her
career there as a founder of Broad Street Advertising, which she
helped take public in 1986. In the UK, she managed both domestic
and international assignments. Her clients included, among others,
British Telecom, Glaxo, Heinz, Hoffmann La Roche, and L'Oreal.
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JAKE
LANG, CPA
Accounting |
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Jake
Lang graduated from Brigham Young University in April of 1988 with
a B.S. majoring in accounting. After graduation, Mr. Lang went to
Pepperdine University where he completed his M.B.A. with an emphasis
in Finance. Upon graduation from Pepperdine, he went to work for
Price Waterhouse (now PricewaterhouseCoopers), and, after four years
of Price Waterhouse, joined the tax department of one of his clients,
MCA Inc. (now Vivendi Universal). During his three years at MCA,
Mr. Lang completed his M.B.T. (Masters of Business Taxation) at
the University of Southern California (USC). He left MCA to join
the tax department of Ernst & Young, where he worked until December
2001, when he left his position as a senior tax manager in their
technology, communications and entertainment practice, and joined
Michael Yuda to form Yuda, Lang & Associates, LLP.
While
at Price Waterhouse and Ernst & Young, Mr. Lang was directly responsible
for working on all of the tax issues facing the largest entertainment
companies in the world. He was also heavily involved in tax and
business issues relating to other businesses, as well as other members
of the entertainment industry including various actors, director,
etc., plus high-income and high-net-worth individuals. He has extensive
experience working with personal, partnership, limited liability
company, S-corporation, and consolidated corporation tax issues.
In addition, he has a great deal of experience in dealing with the
IRS and other tax authorities. Mr. Lang is a member of the California
Society of CPAs.
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CHRISTIAN
T. MARTIN
Legal
Counsel |
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Christian
Martin contributes a wide breadth of successful entrepreneurial,
business, legal, and leadership experience to the Idea Mill enterprise.
Prior to joining Idea Mill, Mr. Martin served as Executive Vice
President, Corporate Affairs of Apogee Biometrics, Inc., a Washington-based
technology venture which develops, patents, licenses and sells biometric
security products. Mr. Martin also served on Apogee’s board of directors
in 2002 and 2003. At Apogee, Mr. Martin was responsible for all
corporate and business affairs, including the facilitation of joint
ventures, supervision of intellectual properties, and the coordination
and integration of the venture’s outside counsel and accounting
professionals.
Prior
to this, Mr. Martin served as CEO of East River Entertainment, a
venture development and production company. Previously, he was CEO
of Digital Realm Company, a venture that developed technology initiatives
with Time Warner, Atlantic Records, and others. As a business attorney,
Mr. Martin specializes in corporate development, technology, intellectual
property and licensing, working with clients ranging from superstar
entertainers to high profile technology ventures. He holds a BA,
Cum Laude, from UCLA, and a JD from Southwestern University School
of Law.
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