Metro Capital

Robert B. Schwartz, President and Founder

Mr. Schwartz founded Metro Capital in 1994. He has been involved in virtually every phase of the Accounts Receivable/Payable business for the past 28 years. Well known in the recovery industry, Mr. Schwartz leads Metro Capital’s sales, settlement and recovery operations from the firm’s headquarters in McLean, VA.

Prior to its current “Balance Sheet Surgeons” activities, Metro Capital existed primarily as a marketing organization, representing some of the largest sub-prime mortgage companies (such as Ameriquest and AAmes). Metro Capital created referral conduits, primarily of debtors requiring cash-out residential refinancing, between these mortgage companies and virtually all of the major A.R.M. firms.

That many of these debtors/borrowers had obligations in excess of their lendable equity led to the current structure of Metro Capital.

Prior to creating Metro Capital, Mr. Schwartz was President of the Credit Resource Company (“CRC”), an investment firm that specialized in purchasing portfolios of defaulted obligations, primarily credit card receivables.

Mr. Schwartz also served as Director of Special Markets (Outsourcing) for Allied Bond, Inc., one of the oldest and most respected A.R.M. companies until its purchase by Outsourcing Services Inc. in 1998.

Earlier in his career, Mr. Schwartz was a Director of Financial Computing for Lerner Enterprises, a major Washington DC area real estate development and management firm (and current owner of the Washington Nationals baseball team), and Vice President of Acquisition and Finance for RMS Partners, a Florida based investor/developer of office and multifamily properties.

During the early 1980’s Mr. Schwartz was an account executive with Towers Financial, and subsequently owned (and then sold) Network Collections , a New York City-based commercial collection agency.

Mr. Schwartz received his MBA from the Georgetown University Graduate School of Business and his BA in Psychology from the State University of NY at Albany.

Paul D. Economon – General Counsel

Mr. Economon is the principal of Economon & Associates, PC. In addition to being General Counsel for Metro Capital, Mr. Economon also serves as Chief Legal Counsel of iMPACT Ventures, General Counsel of LeverPoint, LLC and LeverPoint Capital Partners, LLC. He is a corporate, contract, business transactional and technology attorney with an extensive background in providing both legal and business support to the small to medium enterprise sector, with a strong focus on high technology. He has represented various privately-held, emerging and established companies by providing them with corporate formation and governance, general (in-house counsel) business representation, product and services agreements, technology and software development and licensing agreements, distribution and reseller agreements, website (e-commerce) development and hosting agreements, employee compensation arrangements, and counsel on all manner of commercial negotiations and disputes. Mr. Economon has extensive transactional experience with various mergers & acquisitions, asset and stock purchases, corporate and entity reorganizations and recapitalizations, as well as the sale of securities and compliance with state and federal securities laws. He is a member of the Virginia and DC bar associations.

Mr. Economon’s former and present clients include: K12, Inc. & Liquidity Services, Inc. (both venture backed, publicly traded), Everest Software (formerly iCode, Inc. – venture backed), Three Pillar Software, Inc., Tangible Software, The Heiden Group, LLC, Leverpoint, LLC & LeverPoint Capital Partners, LLC, India Venture Partners, LP, Propane Taxi, Claraview, Inc. (acquired by Teradata Corporation), Extreme Exposure Media, Foxhole Technologies, The Irus Group, Inc., Intech, Inc., Agari Mediaware and ArguSight, Inc.

Prior to his work with iMPACT, Mr. Economon was Co-Founder & COO of OnDialog, Inc. (formerly PluraPage, Inc.), a venture backed SaaS development company providing a best-of-breed landing page, microsite and personalized URL (PURLs) solution to support campaign and promotional marketing, employing the latest in on-demand, Web 2.0/3.0 technologies. While on the senior management team, Mr. Economon oversaw all operational, legal, financial, corporate and sales operations of the organization. He led and consummated multiple debt and equity financings with various investors, was the primary point of contact for the company’s largest clients, and led a lengthy integration effort with on-demand CRM system Salesforce.com, and the resultant partnership. Mr. Economon remains the second largest equity holder of that company’s preferred stock.

Previously, Mr. Economon was a partner with the Law Firm of Koltun & King, P.C. in Washington, DC. Prior to joining Koltun & King, Mr. Economon held the position of General Counsel with three different venture backed high-tech firms in Northern Virginia.

Mr. Economon is a graduate of the Entrepreneur Program at the University of Southern California’s Marshall School of Business where he received his BS, and received his JD and MBA degrees from the George Washington University.

Walter Curt

In 1983, upon graduation from James Madison University with a degree in Physics, Walter Curt had a vision to develop a product for monitoring power quality. In 1987 he began Shenandoah Electronic Intelligence Inc. (SEI) in the basement of his home. In 1988 he created SEI Technology, his first subsidiary, to serve the government market with records management, data and voice communications, secure ID production and software development. In 1989, Mr Curt formed his second subsidiary, Power Monitors Inc (PMI). PMI was established to provide state-of-the-art, easy to use, and affordable electronic test equipment to the electric utility industry and has since become a leading manufacturer of power quality monitoring equipment. Mr. Curt acted as President and CEO of SEI and CEO of PMI.

As SEI flourished, the formation of a third subsidiary, Shenandoah Services, became necessary to deal with the administrative operations of the corporation. In 2005, after 13 years of successful and rewarding support to the federal government, Mr. Curt sold his subsidiary SEI Technology, which had grown to 2,000 employees nationwide, to SI International. After the sale he re-focused his attention on Power Monitors, Inc. (PMI), taking over the reins as President in 2007.

In 2008, after years of supporting electric utilities, Mr. Curt recognized the issues surrounding the energy industry and formed GreenLink Conservation Alliance. This non -profit trade association aims to promote the adoption, implementation and utilization of power line carrier systems to reduce energy consumption in residential and commercial buildings.

Mr. Curt’s technical abilities in engineering have resulted in five published patents, with an additional seven patent applications pending. In 2004 Mr. Curt received the High Tech Entrepreneur of the Year Award from the Shenandoah Valley Technology Council.

In addition to his business ventures, Walter Curt has served with Governor George Allen on the Blue Ribbon Commission on Government Reform and was appointed to the State Council for High Education under Governor Jim Gilmore. Most recently Mr. Curt served on the Regulatory Reform Committee under Attorney General Robert McDonnell.

Walter and his wife Martha have also established their own foundation to handle their charitable donations and philanthropic activities. The Curt Family Foundation provides scholarships to James Madison University students in the art, physics and computer science departments. In the physics department alone, the Curt Family Foundation has provided scholarships to 51 students. Their foundation has also provided donations to the Boys and Girls Club and the Salvation Army. They also generously support the ALS Foundation, the Mayo Clinic and DRAFT (Disability Rights Advocates for Technology). They are key supporters of the Segs4Vets program whose goal is to provide Segways to the men and women of the U.S. military who while serving in the Iraq War sustained injuries resulting in disabilities.

Michael Zukerman

For the past 36 years, Mr. Zukerman has practiced real estate law, concentrating his practice in the areas of real estate secured lending, from the lender and the borrower side, real estate development and acquisitions. He has represented investment banks including Credit Suisse First Boston, Morgan Stanley, Paine Webber Securities, Nomura Securities, Donaldson Lufkin and Jenrette, and Daiwa Securities, in conduit financing and interim financing. He has also represented lenders in mezzanine financing. He represented the first credit lease financing conduit, and was involved in the first mortgage conduit ever done. He has represented borrowers in numerous transactions including a joint venture between Credit Suisse First Boston and Dames Moore Brookhill to acquire $125 million loan and workout portfolio. He represented two Reits that were going public and a merger of a private company into a Reit that has a present Market Capitalization of over $700 million. His expertise includes the representation of borrowers and lenders in all phases of dealing with troubled real estate including loan workouts, foreclosures and the ultimate disposition of real estate collateral acquired by lenders. He is working with another lender who will be specializing in financing the development of the hotels.

Some more noteworthy transactions Mr. Zukerman has been involved in include arranging the first $140,000,000 securitized mortgage-backed financing ever completed without credit enhancement in 1991 together with a “follow on” transaction for the same company of similar size in 1993; closing the first $127,000,000 conduit financing ever completed in 1992; acting as financial advisor to a REIT in 1993 ($90 million of equity); coordinating the merger of a shopping center owner operator into a mortgage REIT and creating a large equity REIT that had a capitalization of over $700,000,000 when it was sold; and arranging $200,000,000 financing for an acquirer of environmentally distressed assets in 1997

Mr. Zukerman is a graduate of St Johns University School of Law in 1964 with an LLB and New York University School of Law with a an LLM in Corporate Law in 1966.

Joseph P. Amato, Principal, JGA Associates, LLC

Mr. Amato has been a consultant in the business development and commercial real estate community for over 15 years. Since 1991, Mr. Amato has established himself as a resource in the lending community by developing relationships with an extensive network of over 100 lending institutions.

He began his efforts as Director of an SBA satellite program and later created a business development consulting company (BDA) to expand his efforts through the private sector. The business operation assisted clients in all facets of development including strategic planning and market analysis, business planning, and project feasibility studies through financing applications, documentation, and ultimate funding.

In 1997 Mr. Amato was designated the Small Business Administration – Financial Services Advocate of the Year. Accompanying this honor and recognition were other prospective growth opportunities that would enable Mr. Amato to expand his business model. One of these prospects afforded Mr. Amato the opportunity to sell BDA to American Express Tax and Business Services in 1998.

In January 2001, with over a decade of proven business development and funding success as his foundation, Mr. Amato created JGA Associates, LLC to continue his work in business development, mergers and acquisitions, government and commercial contract financing and commercial real estate development and funding. The company has proceeded to develop over 500 new client projects since its inception.

Mr. Amato is a long-standing member of the National Association of Government Guaranteed Lenders and the National Association of Development Corporations. Mr. Amato has served on the Advisory Boards of several corporations and financial institutions; and developed projects for the District of Columbia Banking Commission and the National Community Reinvestment Coalition.

Janice Pratt

Janice Pratt, President of JP and Company, has over 20 years of professional Marketing Communications and Branding experience, starting her career as MarComm Manager for a large physician group in upstate New York. She went on to serve as Public Relations Director for the Southern Tier Zoological Society in Binghamton.

After moving south, Janice embarked on a successful 17-year career with Chase Manhattan Bank (now JPMorgan Chase), where she held several strategically important positions.

At Chase Education Finance, she served as Northeast Regional Marketing Manager where she supported an outside sales force and helped generate over $3 million in incremental loan volume through an innovative loan referral program and various high-school marketing initiatives.

Later in Chase’s mortgage division, she was Southeast Regional Marketing Manager, providing branch support to more than 60 loan officers in Florida and Texas. As Corporate/Affinity Marketing Manager, she supported a team of National Account Executives and managed co-marketing arrangements with companies such as Kraft Foods and IBM and organizations including: The Retired Officers Association (TROA); California State Bar Association; the EPA’s Energy Star Program; UCLA Alumni; and Texas Tech Alumni Associations to name just a few.

Her most recent responsibilities at Chase included Brand Management for Customer Retention and Employee Communications for 3 global call centers.

After Chase, Janice went on to First NLC Financial Services (The Lending Center), where she served both as Marketing Manager for New Business Development and as East Coast Sales Executive. Transitioning out of financial services, she also gained valuable experience as Marketing Director for a growing technology firm in Tampa, FL.

Janice enjoys volunteering her time for many local organizations. Currently she is serving as Logistics Chairperson for the American Cancer Society’s Making Strides Against Breast Cancer, a major fundraising event held annually in downtown Tampa. The 5K walk attracts over 5,000 participants and regularly raises more than $400,000 toward breast cancer research.