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ScribeBy: Tiffany Jonas, of the Charleston
Regional Business Journal
Originally Published on: 12/30/02
Charleston Angel Partners, a group of local community leaders and investors founded in 2000 to promote economic development in the region through investment in local knowledge-based start-ups, has split into two parts.
“The original angel partnership set out to get a hundred people who would each be willing to give an investment of $50,000 to create a fund of five million dollars,” explains Rick Fenwick, volunteer administrator for the group. “While that model had worked well in other large cities, our efforts started right when the stock market fell apart and we ran into problems here in Charleston because people’s liquidity was not supportive of a $50,000 upfront commitment.”
In recognition of the need for more flexible investment options, CHAP is working on reorganization. Its forum, a bi-monthly meeting in which entrepreneurs present their business plans to investors and other interested parties, has been given the working name Charleston Entrepreneurial Forum and will be moved under the operating umbrella of the Charleston Metro Chamber’s ThinkTEC organization and the College of Charleston’s Tate Center of Entrepreneurship. “It’s now going to be managed by these two local institutions that have staff and facilities to operate this forum,” says Fenwick.
A second component, under the working name Charleston Technology Angels, will form a new group of serious and qualified individual investors. CHTA is being modeled after the highly successful Atlanta Technology Angels organization and will include a new flexible structure. The current CHAP advisory board will serve as an interim working board for CHTA.
The two components will still work closely with each other.
“Charleston is behind in its development of alternative economic industries compared with larger regional cities like Atlanta and Charlotte,” says Fenwick. “We’re catching up. We studied how other cities have supported economic development in their areas through their Angel groups. We’re now taking the best and applying these to Charleston. We think we have the ideal model for Charleston in CHEF and CHTA.”
In late November, Charleston Angel Partners announced its advisory board members:
Carl Ehmann has led formidable R&D organizations at several of the world’s preeminent companies, including pharmaceutical giants Bristol Myers Squibb, J & J and British conglomerate Reckitt & Coleman. Ehmann is active in several local ventures.
Richard Gridley is senior partner at strategy consulting firm McKinsey & Company. Gridley mentors McKinsey’s best young talent as a worldwide training leader.
Ron Hacker is former CEO of a large, successful direct selling organization. Hacker was also appointed president of the renowned Medinah Club, a bastion of industrial titans in Chicago.
Bob Lurie is retired founder, CEO, and chairman of Bright Horizons Corporate Daycare Centers. Lurie currently serves on the Noisette Board and is chair of Trident United Way.
Dick Murphy is former senior vice president at Maersk Sealand and later became chairman and CEO of NeoModal, a software start-up in the logistics industry. Murphy serves on the advisory board for a local high-tech start-up.
Bill Paulsen, CHAP’s spiritual founder and leader, is the retired founder and CEO of Charlotte-based Summit Properties. Paulsen was CFO of the original Kiawah development in the 1970’s and is charter member of Charlotte Angel Partners, the original model for CHAP.
Libby Smith is a transplanted successful entrepreneur from the Northeast who earned graduate honors in the rough and tumble Boston and New York markets. Smith now owns and operates many of the Weight Watchers’ franchises in South Carolina.
Rick Fenwick, CHAP’s volunteer administrator, ran a $100 million start-up by age 30. Fenwick spent most of his career with a New York consulting company specializing in vision, business design and development strategy for start-ups and new ventures of Fortune 500 companies.
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