Advisory Team
Kevin Bette, Chairman of Advisory Board, Shareholder
Kevin Bette is the President and Chief Executive Officer of First Columbia, a diversified real estate and development company that plans, builds, finances, and operates high-quality commercial projects across the country. Mr. Bette’s years of experience and investment have been instrumental in the Company’s progress. Mr. Bette is a graduate of the Harvard University’s Graduate School of Design.
Ed Tedeschi
Ed Tedeschi has thirty years of experience in developing growth strategies for a wide range of businesses, counseling major corporations on brand development, new product development, and communications strategies. He has helped manage brand growth and launch products in categories ranging from technology, to OTC pharmaceuticals, prescription pharmaceuticals, financial services, government agencies, telecommunications, and consumer packaged goods.
Earlier in his career, he was a managing partner at Tower Hill Consulting Group, a merchant bank in New York, where he was co-chair of the investment review committee. Prior to that, he was a managing partner in the New York Office of MVBMS/EuroRSCG, among the largest communications agencies in the world.
Ed has operated his business development consultancy, Ed Tedeschi, Inc, for 12 years. His current clients include corporations, service businesses, investment groups, and technology development businesses in the United States and in Europe.
Russell Lewis
Mr. Lewis has gained international experience in the entrepreneurial world of business for more than 25 years. As founder and CEO of Rhino Linings USA, Inc., a worldwide distribution company with retail dealer sales in excess of $200 million, Mr. Lewis is the organization’s visionary and personifies Rhino Linings’ commitment to delivering the highest quality product and service to it’s customers.
In 1988, Mr. Lewis pioneered an entirely new industry in America, the technology of sprayed-on polyurethane, which was used in the mining industry in South Africa. At that time, the automotive industry had only standard plastic drop-in bed liners as their best option to help protect truck beds leaving very few options for consumers. Realizing that plastic drop-in liners did not adequately provide the best protection for steel bed trucks, Mr. Lewis combined the technology of South Africa with his own ingenuity and engineered the highest quality chemical formulations. Thus, Rhino Linings USA was established, spurring a whole new industry of sprayed-on polyurethane truck bed linings.
Mr. Lewis is also the CEO of Rhino Linings Australasia Pty Ltd., Rhino Linings of Canada, Inc., and Rhino Linings of Latin America. Today, the Rhino Linings empire hales over 1,400 dealerships and industrial accounts in over 50 countries around the globe.
Along with his founding companies, Mr. Lewis is involved in a variety of other industries including manufacturing, wholesale distribution, retail and real estate. He founded the International Chemical Industries, Inc. and ArcoMatrix, Inc. He is co-founder of Rhino Off-Road Industries, Inc., a manufacturer of off-road vehicles, and a Director at Tungsten Heavy Powder. Mr. Lewis is actively involved in real estate. His real estate holdings include assets in domestic and international markets.
Mr. Lewis received two degrees in Science. He also serves on the Board of Directors for Carbite Golf, GEO2 Technologies, Fallbrook Technologies and is currently involved with the Entrepreneurial Management Center at San Diego State University. Mr. Lewis currently resides in Rancho Santa Fe, California with his wife and four children.
Robert Bateman
Robert J. Bateman is the Founder and President of Alliance Defense Marketing Associates, LLC a premier risk management and defense/security consulting firm. Drawing on over 35 years of experience, with core offerings that include a broad range of expertise in law enforcement, governmental relations connectivity, corporate advisory services, security threat analysis, representation through key partnerships and alliances, U.S. and global financial funding services and business strategies, mergers and acquisitions and defense industry initiatives. He has held senior level executive positions in the Department of Treasury and served over nine years as a front line Law Enforcement Officer with the Hampton, New Hampshire Police Department. For more than two decades he served as a senior sales and executive management officer with a number of private sector financial services and investment banking firms including serving as President of the Wall Street firms XTF Capital and XTF Advisors and as Senior Vice President of Retail and Institutional Distribution with XTF Global Asset Management, LLC.
Prior to founding Alliance Defense Marketing Associates, LLC, Bob was the Senior Vice President of Global Sales with American Defense Systems, Inc., a world leader of physical security and defense solutions where he developed and initiated a focused global sales strategy integrating the unique talents of the U.S., European and Middle East sales team which led to record level sales.
Bob is a serving Colonel with the New York Guard Army Division as the Deputy Chief of Staff for Intelligence (G/2) and is a past Chairman of the Board, Military Association of New York. Bob is a graduate of the HPD Police Academy, the USDA Graduate School for Government Executives, U.S. Army War College National Security Symposium and holds as Bachelors Degree from Villanova University.
Michael Collins
Michael is New York City’s former Police Director for the Department of Environmental Protection. He is a security professional with three decades of experience in public safety, high-rise safety and architectural security hardening. He has worked globally advising business leaders, security executives and government officials. He has been a Special Assistant to the Mayor of the City of New York and Director of Security Planning for the New York City Water Supply System.
Michael has served as Director of Fire and Life Safety at Goldman Sachs Americas, Senior Vice President at American Defense Systems, and Chief Operating Officer at Alliance Defense Marketing Associates. He is a co-author of the BOMA White Paper on High Rise Emergency Preparedness and author of the Vulnerability Risk Assessment of the NYC Water Supply System. He is a past Chairman and President of the Military Association of New York. Michael is a founding member of the Joint NYC Law Enforcement Task Force on Infrastructure Security, former Vice Chairman of the Association of Life Safety Executives and a past member of the Police Executive Research Forum. He is a graduate of New York City’s Police and Fire Academies, has attended the University of Chicago Booth School, the Army War College NSS program, and the US Justice Department program at New Mexico Tech. He holds a Bachelors Degree from the New York Institute of Technology.
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