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EP Global Communications, Inc is a
thirty-four year old integrated communications company, providing
information that matters from people who care. This is more than just a
catchy phrase or slogan; it is a statement of who we are, what we do and
most importantly what we stand for.
Communications
Publishing
(EPGL.OB)
EP Global Communications, Inc.
65 Route 4
East
River Edge, New Jersey 07661
Phone: 814-361-3860
Joseph M. Valenzano, Jr.
President, CEO and Publisher
Interview conducted by:
Lynn Fosse, Senior Editor
CEOCFOinterviews.com
February 24,
2005
BRIEF
CURRICULUM VITAE
JOSEPH M. VALENZANO, JR.
President, CEO & Publisher
EP Global Communications, Inc.
Exceptional Parent
Joe Valenzano, has spent 33 years in
the publishing and communications industry, holding senior executive
positions at McGraw-Hill, Elsevier-NDU, Playboy Magazine and the Thomson
Corporation, a U. K. and Ontario – based Publishing & Communications Company
with interests in medicine, science and the law worldwide. He is a former
Chief Financial Officer and has also been a line operations officer in
charge of publishing operations that included such publications as the
Physicians’ Desk Reference (PDR), Business & Health, Contemporary
Pediatrics, Contemporary OB/GYN, etc. as well as manufacturing,
distribution, information systems, marketing and circulation. For the past
eleven years, Joe has served as President, CEO and Publisher and a major
stockholder in EP Global Communications, Inc (“Exceptional Parent
Magazine”), a 33 year old publishing and communications company which
provides practical advice and emotional support to families of children and
adults with disabilities and special health-care needs as well as the
physicians, allied health-care and educational professionals who are
involved in their care and development.
Under his direction over the past
eleven years, Mr. Valenzano has led EP from the verge of bankruptcy in 1993
to the most recognized and respected communications company serving the
disability community in the world. From a single six-time-a-year magazine
in 1993, EP has become a multi-media communications company which includes a
Custom Communications Division responsible for publishing clinical reports
on complex medical issues such as mitochondrial and metabolic disorders and
managing and controlling refractory seizures in people with mental
retardation; a library with over 1,200 disability specific book titles; an
on-line educational operation offering Continuing Medical Education
Accreditation and Continuing Education Units for Physicians and Allied
Health Care Professionals and Teachers and the World Congress & Exposition
on Disabilities, the premiere educational and product exposition event in
the world today focused on special needs. These products and services are
extended to virtually every organization and association serving people with
disabilities in the U.S. and abroad as well as to the U.S. Military.
Mr. Valenzano received his
bachelor’s degree in economics and history from Upsala College. He also
holds an MBA in Finance and Management from Fairleigh Dickinson University.
A Certified Management Accountant (CMA), Mr. Valenzano was also awarded an
Advanced Professional Certificate (APC) in Accounting and Information
Systems from the Graduate School of Business at New York University.
The Company’s flagship publication,
Exceptional Parent Magazine is the recipient of several national awards
including the Presidential New Freedom Initiative Award as the Best
Publication and Web Site in the Nation for People with Disabilities; several
Easter Seals Equality, Dignity and Independence (EDI) Awards; two FOLIO back
to back (2001 and 2002) Gold Medal Awards for Excellence in Journalism and
one Gold Medal from FOLIO most recently in November of 2004 , three Gold
Medal Awards from the Consumer Health Publishing Association of America in
1999, 2000 and 2001.
Joe is a frequent speaker at
publishing industry conferences, companies, non-profit organizations and
rehabilitation facilities serving the disabled. He has published and spoken
extensively about Universal Newborn Screening which has become his passion
in life including efforts to have this embraced in the U.S. Military, and he
has also written and published several articles on financial topics
including mergers and acquisitions, divestitures, budgeting, strategic
planning and new business developments.
For the past 20 years, Mr. Valenzano
has taught courses in business strategy, finance, cost accounting, marketing
and management organization at both the undergraduate and graduate school
levels. He taught The Advanced Publishing Studies Course in Publishing
Finance offered at the Stern School of Management at the Graduate School of
Business at New York University and served on NYU’s Adjunct Faculty of the
School of Advanced Publishing Studies. He has also served as a thesis
advisor to graduate students at NYU. Joe serves on the Board of Directors
of the American Academy of Developmental Medicine and Dentistry and Chairs
that prestigious medical society’s Executive Advisory Board; Oral Health
America, The Society for Special Needs Dentistry; MOVE International and
the Child Neurology Foundation. He also served as Chairman of the Advisory
Board of the Child Neurology Foundation.
Mr. Valenzano founded and serves as
a member of the Board of Trustees of EP Foundation for Education Inc., a 501
(c)(3) not-for-profit company whose mission is to help provide education and
assistance to families of special needs children. The EPFE is solely
responsible for developing the entire educational curriculum for the World
Congress and Exposition on Disabilities (WCD) including all content and
speakers.
A former professional baseball
player and college coach, Mr. Valenzano has been active in athletics and
education all his life. He once published a newsletter for high school
baseball coaches and invented a unique batting machine as well as other
baseball training devices, products being marketed and sold today. He is the
father of five sons one of whom has a disability and he lives with his wife
of thirty three years, Pat in Woodcliff Lake, New Jersey
Company Profile:
Based in River Edge, NJ, 34-year-old EP is an integrated communications
company providing information for families and professionals involved in the
care and development of people with disabilities and special healthcare
needs. EP uses a multi-media approach to disseminate information via its
publication, EP Magazine; Web site (www.eparent.com); custom communications
projects and clinical monographs; the EP Bookstore of disability books;
seminars developed through the EP Foundation for Education, Inc., a 501(C)3
company and the educational program developers for the World Congress &
Exposition on Disabilities. Exceptional Parent Magazine has received many
prestigious awards, including back-to-back FOLIO: Gold Medal Awards for
editorial excellence, as well as Gold Medals from the Consumer Health
Publishing Association of America, and the Easter Seals "EDI" Awards for
Excellence in Journalism.
CEOCFOinterviews: Mr. Valenzano, will you tell
us a little about your background with EP Global?
Mr. Valenzano: “Eleven years ago, I bumped into
an investor banker friend who introduced me to this fledgling company that
had a magazine, which was published six times a year and had one book in its
inventory. The two remaining founders were feuding with one another to the
point where they were not speaking and the company was on the verge of
bankruptcy. I fell in love with the company…sort of had an epiphany… and saw
immediately that they had a great niche. They filled a void by providing
very useful information to families of children with special needs and I
decided that this was something that warranted further consideration. I went
back, considered it, and decided to make a run at acquiring this, and did so
by bringing in a lot of personal friends and family as investors. We
acquired the company in 1993 and restructured it. We arranged financing and
built what we have today, which is much more than a monthly magazine. We
enhanced the publication considerably, developed the Annual Resource
Directory, went out and formed various solid strategic alliances with
professional medical societies, lay organizations and consumer
organizations. A major development has been the creation of The World
Congress and Exposition on Disabilities, which has become an annual event
that draws about 6000 people. In December 2005, its fifth year, we will be
in Philadelphia, Pennsylvania”
CEOCFOinterviews: How many people or families
are affected in this area?
Mr. Valenzano: “In the special needs market,
there are 54 million Americans classified as having some form of disability.
They range from the most severe to the least severe. In terms of children
aged zero to twenty-one, there are approximately six million families that
are caring for a child or children with physical disabilities. If you expand
that horizon to populations where cognitive learning disabilities and mental
illness are a measuring stick, the market size grows exponentially to
approximately fifteen million families. It is a considerable market segment
and slice of the American economy. People refer to this as a niche but it is
a large niche. If you look at the other demographic information about it,
you are talking about aggregate income in the one-trillion dollar range and
disposable income in the 250 billion-dollar range and that is a lot of
money. There are other very interesting statistics about this market. Of the
adult population audience, approximately 70% have finished high school and
have gone on to college with 50% graduating from college.”
CEOCFOinterviews: You have 1.5 million visitors
to your site each month. What can they find on your website?
Mr. Valenzano: “The driving force is
information. When you have a child with a disability, whether it is a
cognitive learning disability or a severe movement disorder, you are very
passionate about the care that you provide for that child and you will go to
any length to help improve the quality of life for your child. That is what
you do as a parent. The information in the marketplace about where they can
go for help with individualized education programs or walkers, car seats,
and wheel chairs, is not found in Mainstream Publications such as Parent’s
Magazine, Parenting, Family Fun, Child Magazine, etc. You are going to get
it in Exceptional Parent and that is why people come to the site. They want
information, not just about the latest advances in technology, science,
research, medical care and good old-fashioned parenting, but they also want
information about how to improve the quality of life for the ones they care
for. That is why we have so much traffic, because our content is information
rich. We have put tons of information that is relevant and reliable up on
our website and it is information that people have learned over the years
that they can trust and rely on. When you see that EP Symbol of Excellence,
which we have awarded to only twelve companies in our 34-year history, you
know you can trust it. It is sort of like the Good Housekeeping Seal of
Approval.”
CEOCFOinterviews: What are your sources of
income?
Mr. Valenzano: “We make money from advertising
and from developing high quality education programs, which are accredited by
medical schools and professional medical societies. We offer these to
doctors, allied healthcare professionals, and to families. We make money
through the sale of books in our EP library. We have over fifteen hundred
disability specific book titles, and we make money on the strength and
credibility of our reputation for editorial integrity and comprehensiveness.
To that end, for as small company as we are, three out of the last four
years, we received gold medals for editorial excellence from FOLIO Magazine
Publishers Association and we have won several gold medals from the Consumer
Health Publishing Association. We have won awards for work that we have done
on issues like mitochondrial and metabolic disorders, as well as the Vagus
Nerve Stimulator, an implantable device that helps control severe seizures.
We have done work on end-stage renal disease and rare genetic disorders.
These clinical monographs impact a large number of people, and are written
in ways that lay people can understand, but physicians can use as a useful
tool to discuss innovations with parents.”
CEOCFOinterviews: Why have you chosen to go
public at this juncture?
Mr. Valenzano: “Our plan is to develop the core
franchise further. Sadly, disabilities are not confined to our shores.
Information that we publish is information that is relevant all over the
world. Our mission is to provide and facilitate the interaction of
scientists, physicians, researchers and teachers, together with families. In
that way, when everybody is working together, you can affect positive
outcomes. Our plans are to expand our franchise internationally by
developing licensing arrangements with countries that show interest. We have
had some contacts with people in Australia, New Zealand, England and Italy.
Our plans are possibly to acquire some entities that round out our business
franchise or at least embark upon some strategic initiative with them. We
are also looking to expand the franchise that we created five years ago
called The World Congress and Exposition on Disabilities. We do one or two
of those a year. I think that the potential for that is on the international
front as well as here in the United States.”
CEOCFOinterviews: Do you plan to expand the
information you provide online?
Mr. Valenzano: “We do have plans to grow the
online franchise with online seminars. To that end, we have embarked on a
joint strategic initiative with Conemaugh Health Systems in Johnstown
Pennsylvania. They do a lot of work in post-polio syndrome and pain
management through the John P.Murtha Center for Pain and Neuroscience. We
have strong strategic relationships with major professional medical
societies. We are proud to tell you that effective January of this year, we
are now the Official Publication of the American Academy of Developmental
Medicine and Dentistry. We will be offering CME accreditation through the
magazine, to physicians who subscribe to the publication and take the
self-test that will be available to them in the publication. This is based
on peer review articles.”
CEOCFOinterviews: “Information that matters
from people who care” is a strong point for EP Global. How do you keep that
feeling as you grow?
Mr. Valenzano: “When we relocated our operation
to Johnstown, Pennsylvania late last year, we hired several people in the
area for key positions. I say to every single one of them, from the
receptionist to the vice president of sales, “do not come to work for our
company if you come without passion.” Passion and dedication are the two
ingredients for success. You have to want to be here. You have to want to
work in this environment and above all, you have to have a passion for
helping people. You have to intensify the feeling of ‘We’ before ‘I’. If you
have those ingredients, you will be successful at EP, and if you do not, you
will not be successful. We publish and produce information that is
significant, valuable, reliable, and credible. It also comes from people who
care, who are involved in organizations, who are involved in caring for
others, and people who not only talk the talk but walk the walk. If you walk
through the halls of this company, you will find some profoundly disabled
people who have very significant jobs in this company. One of them is a
young man who is 33 years old. His name is Dennis Duscevic, who has cerebral
palsy. It is Dennis who is responsible for the production of our Annual
Resource Guide. He is responsible for the research that goes behind it, the
outreach and validation of the references, sources, and the packaging of
that often used Reference Tool. He does that from his desk every single day.
He has very little use of his hands and no use of his legs and he is in his
motorized wheel chair. Dennis was New Jersey’s Employee of The Year for our
little company. He has been written about in the media and has been with us
for several years. He is a powerful reminder to all of us about who we are,
what we do and what we stand for. We have several others too working in our
organization. Several have come here on job training programs with the
Bleschman School in Ridgewood New Jersey. They come here with significant
disabilities and come here with job coaches to get a taste of what it is
like to work in the real world. Our doors are open. Every one of us
realizes that if we lose that passion we are doomed. We have to maintain
that in the forefront of our minds each and every day.”
CEOCFOinterviews: In closing, why should
potential investors be interested and what should they know that they might
not realize when they first look at the company?
Mr. Valenzano: “If you look at our financial
segment, you do not see anything that is really dynamic. In fact, if you
read any of the reports that come out, they are doom and gloom because of
the way we are required to write financial copy for potential investors. We
have been around for 34 years. I am a firm believer that it is possible to
do well by doing good. I think that everywhere I go and everywhere I speak,
that is the philosophy of our company. Our focus of ‘We’ before ‘I’ and
about providing information to people who care will translate into growth
for our company. The target of opportunity that we have identified, the way
in which we have built our foundation, which is a rock-solid relationship
with organizations and associations around the company, are highly respected
and valued by everyone that we do business with and have a relationship.
Those things are going to endure and provide us with another phrase I like
to throw around; those relationships provide us with “access without
excess”. If we want to develop information that is focused on movement
disorders, we know exactly the organizations and associations that we have
to go to, to align ourselves with and we have never been refused. If we want
to do work in epilepsy or complex seizure disorders, we know the people that
we need to contact. Those relationships, combined with the business
strategies and tactical implementation plans that we have instilled in the
development of our business, will produce significant growth opportunities
for any investor.”
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