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Who Is This Guy?

The “Who is Jack?” question comes up from time to time. So, I prepared the following life-synopsis to be something a bit better than a superficial answer. This is written with an emphasis on my business skills, and where they came from. But, there is much here to shed light on my personal traits, as well. Hopefully, this will give the reader at least an adequate starting point in getting to know who I am, and how I came to this point.

I am a skilled business manager. I define “manager” as someone who is knowledgeable of the most intimate features of the business systems he oversees, is motivated to make those systems produce the maximum possible net income for the company, is capable and skilled so as to constantly be aware of potentials for increased performance, is willing and able to design and make the changes needed to gain increased performance, is determined enough to design and pilot an agenda for improvement against any resistance, and is totally devoted to the sustained improvement of the company’s profitability.

History At The Speed Of Light

Prior to 1991, I had a 14 year period during which I:

- Studied an economics and engineering curriculum at both Vanderbilt and MTSU, gaining 80+ semester hours of combined CLEP and classroom credits, with a 3.6 GPA, this while working full time in entrepreneurial business activities (below).

- Studied a civil engineering directed curriculum at Georgia Tech and Vanderbilt, accumulating 60+ semester hours credit and maintaining a GPA of above 3.4.

- Bought, managed and grew a small commercial cabinet manufacturing plant in Murfreesboro, TN from a 4-man shop with about $20K per month revenue and a small net monthly operating loss, into a 28-man shop (3-shifts) with sustained monthly revenue of over $250,000 and a net monthly operating profit of over $50K. After 2.5 years of operation during which I was the prime fixtures manufacturer for Wendy's restaurants and Commerce Union bank's new construction, I sold the Wendy's contract and the shop itself to one of Wendy's primary plumbing contractors for $625,000, from which I earned a net capital profit of $272,000. It was 1980 and I was 21 years old.

- Bought a failing 4-bed tanning salon on Nolensville Road in Nashville by agreeing to assume $16,000 in existing debt, and paying the owner $10K. Expanded that shop into the next-door lease space, added 4 more beds, added a tanning bed sales showroom, and began adding outside sales reps to sell a business opportunity package based around tanning beds. By June 1983, I owned 71 retail tanning beds operating in 16 salons located across Middle Tennessee, including 7 in Nashville, and I had sold over 520 Suntanna brand tanning beds, making my company, SunSystems South, Inc., the largest Suntanna sales outlet in the world in both 1982 and 1983. All of these beds were sold within my business startup/biz-opp based marketing program, primarily to owners of existing hair care facilities in the 12 southern US states. In June 1983, I recognized that the indoor tanning industry was maturing rapidly, with both retail tanning time rates being pressured and retail bed sales prices being pressured, so I began selling, not new beds, but my own existing and profitable indoor tanning centers to new sales prospects. By December of 1983, I had sold all 16 of my freestanding retail units and I left that industry. During that period I enjoyed some $700,000 in net personal income, and had reached a personal net worth of approximately $550,000 dollars. I was 24 years old.

- Also during the 1980 through 1985 period, I accepted over 20 assignments for short term jobs in a variety of overseas construction locations for a number of US based engineering and construction companies. These would last from 1 week to (the longest) 2 months, and I would be paid handsomely for performing instrumented survey work, laying out both outdoor and indoor new construction sites using a variety of surveying tools. I earned something around $200,000 for these brief jobs, with most being on a per diem pay plan of from $750 to $2500 per day, on site, plus travel expenses.

- In March 1985, I fell from the roof of a building in West Palm Beach, Florida and caused catastrophic damage to my hip, right leg, and my back. The remainder of 1985 was spent in a variety of reconstructive surgeries and rehabilitation programs. I had no medical insurance and, to ensure that I received proper care I was required to pay for medical services as rendered. During 1985, I paid over $420,000 in medical expenses. Good investment, as I am today able to walk and to perform 80% of what would be normal physical activity.

- During the July 1985 through December 1985 period, while in a wheelchair that entire time, I worked as the Rehabilitation Workshop Supervisor for Goodwill Industries of Palm Beach County. My job was to design work activities and to train and supervise a changing workforce of from 40 to 110 seriously handicapped young people. I also recruited over $500K in new contract assembly work into the shop.

- In February 1986, when I was physically able to relocate away from my orthopedic surgeon and rehab clinic, I moved to Birmingham, Alabama. The reason I chose to move back to my birthplace, instead of Nashville, was that a friend there had put me in touch with a lady (Claire Jennings) who was having a helluva time trying to keep her personnel agency business from going under. The company, Success Resource Management, Inc., was her family’s business dating back to 1951. But her husband had died in 1984, her brother had left the business, and Claire had struggled to keep it going after that. By January 1986, the company was placing only about 50 workers each month (from a high of over 150 in 1983), had only 12 of its previous high of 35 employees remaining, had closed two satellite offices in Gadsden and Montgomery, and was $283,000 in debt, with average monthly revenues down to only $80K, and with recurring overhead in the $75,000 per month range. I agreed to assume the company’s debt and contingent liabilities, and to pay Claire $50,000 cash in exchange for 60% of the shares in the corporation. I also required an option whereby she must sell me the remaining 40% equity after 18 months if I paid her $300,000. I changed the name to SRM, Inc., invested about $30,000 into new literature, initiated a “Proven Performance” themed advertising and direct marketing campaign capitalizing on the company’s 25 year history in the market (oldest agency in Birmingham), and began recruiting outside sales reps as well as taking on a killing pace of everyday outside sales calls on my own, as the new owner. By summer 1986, I was up to 150+ placements per month, and had initiated an experimental program to focus on temporary workers. Lotus 1-2-3 and WordPerfect were becoming hot office skills, so I began holding “free” training classes every night to teach these skills to experienced secretarial workers, for a fee to their employers, or for free, if the participant would sign a temp-worker availability contract with SRM and would be willing to accept a schedule of temporary assignments. By Fall 1986, I had over 300 of these newly skilled workers on my temp-worker roster, and was already billing over 5,000 hours per month for temp assignments. I reopened the office in Montgomery in December 1986, as an exclusively temp-worker office, and initiated the nighttime training and roster development system there. By Summer 1987, I had over 3,000 temporary workers on my roster, was billing over 75,000 hours per month of temp placements, and had opened another office in Huntsville. At that time, the company was out of debt, bringing in about $300K revenue per month, had about $220K per month in total expenses, and I paid off the $300K to Claire to buy the remaining 40% of the stock. I was then about $50K in personal debt, but had $20K to $40K per month personal income coming out of SRM.

- In November 1986, I began a series of local television and radio advertising in the Birmingham and Montgomery markets for SRM. The company I used to do the spot production was in Birmingham, “Video Dynamics, Inc.” I very quickly realized that I was VDI’s only substantial customer, and that the owner / ’guru’ there, Bob Pharr, was not a skilled business manager or marketer... great at making terrific videos and radio spots... but not a businessman. Since in October I had gotten a great right hand man at SRM (Tom Johnson), I felt I had the time to play with turning around another business, so I made Bob an offer similar to the one I earlier had made to Claire: I would assume the company’s debts, pay a small amount for 60% controlling interest, and promise a “huge” amount for an optional total purchase after 18 months ($200,000). He accepted, and I became the owner-operator of VDI... knowing absolutely nothing about the broadcast media business. The very first thing I did was to put a whole potpourri of bids in with the soon to open Birmingham Turf Club thoroughbred horse racing track that was to begin operating in March of 1987. Because of a few key relationships I had with Turf Club executives and from my own energy I threw at the effort, I landed both the on-track and off-track video services vendor contracts for the track... and had less than 60 days to gear up and deliver. I borrowed $650,000 from SouthTrust bank and began recruiting talent and buying equipment and contracting the build-out of the video editing and transmission suite at the track site. By March 5th, 1987 I owned 164 Sony television monitors, the about 4 miles of cabling to feed them signals, and some $400,000 in additional equipment for the upstairs control suite and the camera feed setups on the five tower locations around the track site, and had 11 new guys on full-time payroll.

Not a penny in revenue had come in at that point on this speculative venture, but I was contracted to a recurring $118,000 per month during the track’s 9 month running season. Off-track, I invested $175,000 into a new office and video production facility for VDI, and began delivering the kickoff television spots for the track’s inaugural operations. This work represented about $200,000 revenue, on open 30-day net billing to the track. Opening night was supposed to see 20,000+ patrons through the doors. 6,300 showed up. The first month was to see an average crowd of 6,000 per night with an average handle (bets per patron) of $45. Actual visitation averaged 2,100, with the handle averaging just over $20. After one month, the track management asked me for net 45 days terms, after having paid the first $118,000 monthly fee a week late. Bad sign. More later. In the meantime, I had realized that I had the tapes of each night’s races, anyway, and that I should find some way to profit from that. So, I designed a 30-minute television show called, “It’s Post Time!,” and contracted to purchase a 30-minute airtime slot on WDBB FOX 17 each night, Tuesday through Saturday. To get the rates I needed to be profitable, I contracted for a 2-year period at $16,000 per week. That was another $70K per month going out, based on the Turf Club relationship. I hired two great guys to sell the 8.5 minutes per show of advertising time, and I fed all the spot production for these advertisers to my VDI business. I intended to hire a well known local sportscaster to host the show, but was not able to strike a deal prior to the opening night air time. So, I bought a tuxedo, and hosted the opening night show myself, live, in a $31,000 1-hour time slot I had bought from WDBB-17. I managed live interviews with a number of track VIPs, as well as with James Garner, Herve Valasquez, the mayor and the governor, and with Bobby Allison Jr., among others. My head full of positive feedback, I decided to be the on-air host for the taped broadcast show that started airing the next night. I hosted that show for the next 18 months, 5 nights per week, semi-live (meaning we only had 45 minutes each night to can the show and get it to the station for broadcast, after the races ended). Financially, It’s Post Time would go forward to earn a net profit of from $1,500 to $3,000 per week.

- In the summer of 1987, I went to Detroit to visit with Tony Serra, President of The Serra Group, which owned over 40 new car dealerships around the eastern US, mainly GM stores. I had already had a series of hits with commercials I had produced at VDI for several Birmingham dealerships. But Serra had a standing contract with an Atlanta based firm that had kept me out of their 9 mid-Alabama market dealerships. I found out that contract was up for renewal, so went to Detroit to take my swing. It worked, and I got a 1-year contract to handle the television spots for 17 Georgia, Alabama, and Mississippi Serra dealerships. Whoops. I needed around $350,000 in equipment to do this work that I did not own. Back to SouthTrust bank I went, as well as to AmSouth, to borrow that money and rapidly add to my physical production facilities. From the start, this relationship produced over $250,000 per month in recurring revenue, with the September - December period going over $400K per month billings for Serra.

- As 1988 rolled in, all was well with my various business enterprises. Overall, I had substantial operating profits each month, was promptly servicing my approximately $1.2 Million in total debt load, was promptly paying my approximately $70,000 per week in combined payroll, was paying all other ongoing business costs, and was enjoying from $30K to $50K per month in draw-out personal income from all the businesses, combined.

- In early 1988, I spotted an ad in Computer Shopper for a 4-channel input-output board for a PC that would connect to 4 telephone lines and would perform what is called auto-attendent functions, answering calls, streaming outgoing messages, and accepting touch-tone control signals for forwarding of lines. I bought one and hired a local fellow to set up an automated voicemail and call forwarding system for the main lines at my Birmingham SRM offices. I was so impressed that I began considering other uses for the technology, and I realized a little creativeness could lead to having a whole personnel business based around such an automated telephone information system. I developed a business plan I called “Jobseekers Hotline, Inc.” and began developing the software and hardware to make that business a reality. Today, such an enterprise can be launched for a few hundred dollars using functionality already built into most PC systems; in 1988, setting up a business with 36 incoming lines to support information storage and on-call retrieval cost upwards of $400,000. I designed a business that would advertise a common telephone number (871-JOBS), would accept incoming calls, would provide a recorded job category list, would accept touchtone selections for type of job, would then branch down into playing short descriptions of specific job listings, would allow selecting up to three specific listings, and would then forward the caller to a live interviewer/screener who would pre-qualify the caller and make or not make appropriate referrals to the actual employer who had placed the listing with Jobseekers. With a one-week listing and screening service priced at $49, I needed 200 listings on the system at all times to make for a break even business. These would come from companies not satisfied with the direct-call-in method created by a $70 to $90 per week newspaper ad, but who didn’t want to face the much higher cost of a full personnel agency service. I intended to franchise the business nationally, and undertook the all-states and federal process needed to permit that franchise selling effort. I also invested $420,000 into developing and opening the very first (and last) Jobseekers Hotline location in Hoover, Alabama. I learned quickly that the Birmingham, Alabama market is not the most receptive in the world for paradigm shattering business models. After over $150,000 in local marketing over the first 60 days of grand opening hoopla, I had 106 listings on the service, but with many of them discounted below the standard $49 per week fee... many of them were given away, free. After 30 days, I had over 2,500 incoming job seeker calls per day, but only 100 jobs listed.

- By Fall 1988, the Turf Club had dragged me out to giving them net 90-days on their payments, and they were still some $300,000 in arrears. In November 1988, they filed for reorganization with the bankruptcy court. By February 1989, they owed me over $500,000. In April 1989, the track closed. The final overdue balance to VDI was $631,210.00. I would never see any of that money. The bankruptcy court determined that municipal bonds that had been issued against the city's portion of the track's financing had first claim to distributed assets in the liquidation, and there was nothing else left to distribute after that was done.

- In July of 1988, the Serra Group decided to not enter into long term sole-provider contracts for media services, but to shop them on a by-bid basis, and they placed this process with a Chicago based advertising management firm. I bid aggressively on all available work, but, by January 1, 1989, VDI’s revenue from the Serra Group was down to less than $100,000 per month, and was coming only from the then 3 Birmingham area dealerships, and one Montgomery Pontiac store.

- From my teenage years, I began playing fast and loose with obeying laws I saw as inconveniencing me. So, my unhealthy response to financial problems in later years was to develop a string of criminal incidents, charges, convictions, and brief incarcerations over the ensuing years -- all for relatively minor financial offenses, such as bounced checks, or theft. As AmSouth and SouthTrust banks began to come after me for the large amount of money I owed them, and the Serra and Turf Club relationships began to collapse in 1989, I, first, sold the SRM operations to Snelling & Snelling for a good profit; I cleared over $720,000 on the sale. However, after capital gains taxes, I had only about $400,000 left, and I paid $370,000 of this to the banks, and bought a brand new Cadillac Seville with the rest. I also went along with a scheme one of my business buddies had to strengthen commercial loan applications with phony collateral, and that would permit us to purchase income producing office building properties. In fact, after seeing his crude workmanship in that effort, I took over that dirty work myself, and by January 1990 I was spitting out phony deeds of trust, property appraisals, bank LOC’s, and even bank cashiers checks, all to bolster an ever increasing number of loan applications to banks all over the southern US. I left Birmingham, took my new found skill set on the road, and traveled for almost a year simply depositing and drawing down accounts against phony cashiers checks. I literally just drove away from my life in Birmingham, my wife, my businesses, and even my newborn little daughter, rather than face the incredible mess that was developing around me. In early 1991, I eventually landed back in Nashville, where I opened a company, Total POS, Inc., to sell credit card terminals and cash register systems. However, that venture didn't last very long.

- I was caught by the FBI in 1992, prosecuted, and convicted of multiple counts of interstate bank fraud. In early 1997, I was released from the Ft. Dix federal penitentiary in New Jersey and came home to Hendersonville to move in with my mother. While locked up, I had developed a successful career as a business and banking management and security writer, having had over 200 paid articles published by some 40 different banking and business magazines. From this work, I actually arrived home from prison with around $26,000 in savings, but with many old creditors still chasing me, with a huge federal court ordered restitution requirement to pay, and 3 years of federal probation and 10 years of state parole to serve. I bought a car, rented an office, reopened TotalPOS, Inc., and began selling Visa and MasterCard merchant accounts, credit card terminals, and cash register systems to Nashville areas businesses. I hired a few salesmen, a clerk, a bookkeeper, and began to rapidly build a profitable business. I also began accepting speaking engagements for church and business groups, and continued writing articles, including a weekly syndicated column in the Gannett group's small market papers. Within a year, I built a network of over 40 sales reps, bringing in about $500K per month in total sales.

- In early 1998, I met Joe Merlo and his company, Energy Automation Systems, Inc., (EASI), and fell in love with a business. I had been studying the energy savings marketplace since the late 1980’s, and was at this time actively planning a business entry into that industry. I had, in fact already developed a deep expertise in the electricity cost saving business when a mutual friend in Hendersonville introduced me to Mr. Merlo, I was immediately fascinated by EASI's business model of marketing turnkey energy saving projects to business customers, and instantly decided that EASI provided a great platform from which to enter the energy saving industry full-time. So, I negotiated a deal with Joe Merlo by which I would become EASI's second in command, and would be responsible for growing the company's project sales. I liquidated my POS equipment business and went to work for EASI full-time. From early 1998 to early 2002, I was a 100+ hour per week high-energy student of the electrical cost reduction business, using my position at EASI to establish and build industry relationships around the world, to develop and manufacure exciting new technology products with China and East European manufacturing partners, travel and study a vast array of energy saving concepts and technologies, and, most importantly, to always be personally involved with dozens upon dozens of actual site projects located all around the world. Alas, by the end of 2001 it was evident that the owner had little desire to make substantial reinvestments into his company in order to reach out for sustained growth. And, it was equally obvious that I had grown to become one of the handful of most capable executives in the energy conservation industry. So, in February of 2002, I left my position at EASI to return to a life of entrepreneurial self-employment, principally with management consulting and new product development services drawing on my China sourcing expertise.

- In late 2002, I formed a company, DVForge, Inc., to undertake developing a wide range of consumer technology products in the computer and A/V areas. The plan was to make the venture self-sustaining by launching manufacture and sales of a few smaller products along the way, and to divert all of the revenue from those sales back into further product development. The result was a number of extremely popular and good-selling products, as well as the creation of a pool of product designs with wide-ranging sales potential. In both this venture and the previous position at EASI I had daily interactions and business dealings with a growing group of contract manufacturers located in Taiwan, China, and Eastern Europe. I became quite expert at dealing with these international manufacturing relationships.

- In 2005 I had taken DVForge to a $20 million per year sales pace, and was starving for growth capital -- sustained 10% per month or higher growth had simply stripped every penny of cash from the company and extended our credit past the point of sanity. When two high volume new products arrived from China with hidden defects that did not appear until nearly 50,000 pieces had been shipped into global sales channels, it was the blow that pushed the company into insolvency. Mid-2005 was spent liquidating DVForge assets, paying creditors, negotiating settlements, and the other nasty details of dealing with a forced business closure.

- As DVForge closed in 2005, I began promoting myself as a consultant in the specialized field of technology business growth development, using my skills in creating high sales, high profit margin products on behalf of clients. I still do this work today.

- In mid-2007 I accepted a job as Vice President of Strategic Business Development for Tsinghua Tongfang Co., Ltd., a $20 billion market cap public company in China. Working from their Shenzhen R&D facilty I steered a group of exciting new products through the design, development, and go-to-market process, including an all-new line of miniature PowerPC-based personal computer products under the company's new LimePC brand name, shown at CES 2008 in Las Vegas to a terrific response from both media and the market. I left THTF to return to full-time consulting in Spring 2008.

That's me. Messy? You bet. Knowledgeable? Experienced? Absolutely... Battle hardened? Inured to the dynamic ride that a growing business provides? Yes, but, also very humbled by my adventures, and long since determined not to repeat my earlier mistakes.

This “down and dirty” resume is my attempt to show the complete picture that composes “me.” No nonsense, no bull, just the facts. Frankly, I'm the kind of high energy, fast pace guy that scares some people. I've cut a lot of corners in my life, and have now learned not to do that. I've taken unreasonable risks in my life and have learned not to do that, as well. In fact, because of the crazy, pinball pace of my life, I've had the luxury of seeing and involving myself and immersing myself in an order of magnitude greater variety of personal and business adventures than a more typical business manager would ever see. That experience has immense value.

I'm all repaired and grown up now. I'm a big boy, with adult skills and abilities. My resume, though truly scary in a few spots, is stronger than 98% of guys my age who are building executive management careers. Not egotistically, just honestly: I am a very, very good manager. And, I am arguably one of the smartest and most capable executives now working in the computer, consumer electronics, and A/V market spaces.

I believe the most powerful words a sales guy (or company) can ever say to a prospective customer are:

“You’re right. What you believe is actually true.”

Rather than fight the same battle of perceptions that every other company is fighting to convince customers that what they already believe is not exactly right, I believe in telling them that, yes, what they already believe actually is right. And, I craft a company's entire marketing proposition to capitalize on the ready acceptance this statement creates, and to convert that acceptance into sales.

Today, I work for a wide array of business clients, helping them with their branding, product development, direct marketing, China transactions, and growth management efforts.

I'm a driven, direct, bluntly honest guy. My work ethic and job performance are equally driven and direct. There's no nonsense in me, my methods, or my results. I am business-savvy, battle-hardened, and ready to go to war on behalf of your company's growth and profitability.


Jack Campbell
Spring 2008

Mr. Campbell has had an extraordinary life and career that makes him one of today's most skilled and creative marketing experts and product developers.