So, Enough About Me. What About Me???
Here’s a question: who is this guy and why is he going to do a show about business? And why should I listen?
Okay - it’s two questions; for strict constructionists, perhaps it’s three questions. Fair point.
If you don’t care about most of this, and just want to get to the bit about what I do for a living, and my relevant experience, click here.
If you’d prefer that I just shut up about it and let you read my CV, click here. Otherwise, read on, friend.
“I’m not here to tell you to eat your vegetables and do your homework. I want to find interesting stories - or at least stories that I think can be interesting (and hopefully you will, too) - in everyday things.”
First, about me. I’m just this guy, you know? In west Philadelphia, born and raised. I spent a fair amount of time on the playground. I caught a love of music early, studied classical music seriously and got a job in a kitchen at a restaurant. A run-in with a rotary slicer one night at work, when I was seventeen, put an end to any plans I had of being an instrumentalist, and that led me to my first conflict - do I pursue music in some other form or restaurant management? I chose music and pursued being a symphonic conductor. Off to University of the Arts in Philadelphia as a Music Theory and Music Education major with my eyes set on the conductor trifecta of Mannes Conservatory, Juillard and the Curtis Institute, until the hand injury got the better of me and it was clear that I wasn’t ever going to be able to play piano well enough to sustain a career as a conductor. So, reboot.
I spent my early twenties working in a number of companies, smaller to larger, in roles starting at the bottom and working my way up, doing a lot of different things and always having one hand in whatever was going on with computers and systems. Went to work for General Instrument’s Communications Division in Hatboro, PA. A couple promotions later and I was the junior of two email administrators and was beta-testing Microsoft Exchange. A couple of staff changes later and I was handed videoconferencing, a couple engineering groups, and the executive office to support. I got married (short story, short marriage), and took a job as I.T. Director for a family-owned HVAC manufacturing company. Acquisitions, corporate integrations, ERP system implementations, due diligence, acquire a company a third of our size, lots of time in Fridley, Minnesota yah you betchya, but it’s a dry snow, yadda yadda.
As it turns out, when you refinance your entire capital structure to do an acquisition, the lender wants you to meet your projections. And when you don’t do that for the first three months of the new loan, the lender gets really antsy. Turnaround management comes in, keeps me around, I become part of the turnaround team, we succeed, then the company is sold. Work for new corporate overlords. New corporate overlords split up the parent company for profits after a year, I fire myself after Y2K passes without a hitch. Bang around a bit, go to work for a regulated medical device manufacturer leading I.T. and regulatory affairs functions. Leave and take a job as a consultant with the turnaround firm from earlier in the story. Along the way, I got involved in global internet policy work, joined the Internet Engineering Task Force (Responsible Use of the Network Working Group) and became principal author of RFC-3098, the first articulated global policy for responsible use of email for advertising (and boy did we make some mistakes in that one. Leaving out confirmed opt-in? What were we thinking?). Joined the Internet Societal Steering Group (doesn’t exist anymore) and got to learn from legendary geniuses like Vint Cerf.
That was twenty years ago. In that time, I’ve gone from seedling to partner in a firm; gotten married again (longer story, still married); adopted my two daughters; earned the Certified Turnaround Professional designation; started my own firm; bought the old firm; taken a couple bankruptcy cases to the Supreme Court; lost them both, and; became an expert in bankruptcy and corporate restructuring. I’m a member of the Turnaround Management Association, the Association of Certified Fraud Examiners, the Association of Insolvency and Restructuring Advisors, and the American Bankruptcy Institute (ABI) (the world’s largest national organization of insolvency and restructuring professionals). In 2012, I was elected to the ABI board; in 2014, I was elected Vice President - Development. I served as the organization’s President for the 2018-2019 term, and I presently (at least as I write this) serve as the board’s Chair (at least until April 2021, when I fade into my well-deserved irrelevance). Along the way, I did work on lawyers’ professional ethics, helped amend a Federal Rule of Bankruptcy Procedure, and formed some task forces (one of which, the ABI Veterans & Servicemembers’ Affairs Task Force was instrumental in getting the HAVEN Act passed, which law helps disabled veterans who need the fresh start relief of chapter 7 bankruptcy).
So, I hear you ask, what exactly do I do for a job? Well, if I’m hired by a distressed company, we work to fix the distress. As one of my mentors said, “we save jobs.” If the company has to go through chapter 11 to reorganize or be sold, I run the bankruptcy case for the debtor. If I’m hired by a committee in a chapter 11 case, I work as their (and their lawyers’) financial and operating eyes and ears, and advise them on how to improve their constituency’s recoveries (the pursuit of justice). When I’m a trustee, I often have to sue directors and officers for having done the bad things that led to corporate failure. I’m frequently hired to be an expert witness in bankruptcy litigation. When a company goes into bankruptcy but the management and ownership and debt structures are all intertwined, I’m hired to be an independent director, so the board can function in bankruptcy without conflicts of interest. And, finally, when a company is no longer viable on its own and needs to be sold, we’ll sell the company. So, that’s my work day.
When I finished my year as President of ABI, I decided to do something new. I enrolled in law school. So, aside from having a B.Sci. in Management and Information Systems, I also hold a Master of Legal Studies and a Master of Dispute Resolution from the Pepperdine University Caruso School of Law (go Waves!). I’ve served on boards of for-profit companies, political organizations, non-profit advocacy organizations, and cultural arts organizations. I believe that as long as I have a seat at a table, I have an obligation to amplify the voices of those who aren’t at that table.
I’m still a musician. Since 2007, I’ve played rhythm guitar with The Indubitable Equivalents, the house band of the American Bankruptcy Institute. Since 2010, I’ve played guitar, bass, and steel guitar for Bankrupt Talent, a NYC-based charity fundraiser of restructuring professionals who rent out the legendary Le Poisson Rouge for a night, put on a 20-or-so-song set, and raise money for a variety of charities. Back when people went to bars and listened to live music, I could be heard sitting in with the occasional band when I wasn’t drinking a beer and listening to them. I think somewhere there might there a picture of me playing blues with Johnny Hoy and the Bluefish (my favorite blues and roots band, from right here on Martha’s Vineyard) and Jim Belushi - oh, wait, no that picture is actually right here (I’m the guy on the left who is, for some reason, in a suit).
I think in musical terms - that’s one of the reasons I’m so psyched that Breakmaster Cylinder is doing our music. If you don’t know of BMC (who fiercely guards their identity, so I refer to them in the neutral pronoun), they are a prolific composer of electronic music for broadcast media. They have incredible classical chops and all the composer skills, but how they bring their creative ideas to form is inspired and inspiring. Listen to this episode of the outstanding podcast Song Exploder to hear about how BMC went about creating the distinctive theme music for the also outstanding podcast Reply All, all from an old Bach hit.
Why should you listen to this show? My approach here isn’t to talk about financial ratios, or subordinated debentures, or what retailer want bankrupt again today. I’m not here to tell you to eat your vegetables and do your homework. I want to find interesting stories - or at least stories that I think can be interesting (and hopefully you will, too) - in everyday things. And I want to get interesting people to talk about them with me. Sure, you know about podcasts - but what about the business of the podcast business? What about building a network of nothing but podcasts? What are the interesting stories about running a private jet charter company? Recording studios are all celebrities and hits - but what are the owners worrying about when they can’t get to sleep? Why the hell do we keep falling for Ponzi schemes? These are all business stories that are applicable to all businesses - there are elements of truth and commonality to distress and startups and cringey what were they thinking moments that span industries and companies large and small. And we can have some fun telling these stories and we can make them enjoyable for you. That’s what I hope to bring you.
Why? Well, two reasons. I like turning data into useful information. In my career thus far, I’ve probably spoken on almost a hundred panels and lectures on areas related to my work, and I’ve written around twenty-five published articles and sections of a couple books. As the 2020 COVID-19 pandemic unfolded, I started writing a nightly recap of the day’s numbers and posting it to Facebook. That then expanded to include commentary on what interesting things were happening with the numbers of new cases, of new fatalities. That then expanded to include what other things were sucking the oxygen out of the news cycle. These posts gained a following, and those folks really made my day. I ultimately had to stop when work got too busy and, between work and school, I ran out of the hour that it took each day to do these posts. And the followers of those posts made it known that they were missing the posts, which was kind of them. Heck, they still send me images for my collection of absurd internet Gadsden flags (it’s a long story - come back for Episode Three when we get there).
The second reason is a VoiceAmerica producer asked if I would, and I long ago learned that more interesting things happen in life if you don’t say no to new opportunities.
So, that’s my pitch. I hope you join us. We’re gonna have fun.
-Ted
This is an example of an absurd internet Gadsden flag. The amount of joy this little guy brings me is unreasonable.
