Private Equity Fast Pitch

Brent Humphries, President of AB Private Credit Investors at Alliance Bernstein, discusses sourcing clients and opportunities, building a culture of learning and diversity, the future of the business and lessons from COVID, the importance of grit and growth mindset, and building trust as a credit provider in private equity.

Kick-Off 2021 with quotes, mottos and mentorship advice from past Private Equity Fast Pitch guests.

Episode 68 of Northstar's Private Equity Fast Pitch features Jerry L. Johnson with EnPro Industries Inc. Jerry joined the EnPro Industries as their Senior Vice President of Strategy, Corporate Development, and Investor Relations. Jerry has held leadership roles in finance and consulting for more than 25 years. He has extensive experience in acquisitions and was a founding member and Partner of the private equity firm RLJ Equity Partners for the last thirteen years. He is a member of the New York Economic Club, Young President's Organization, The University of Tennessee’s Investment Advisory Council and the College of Engineering's Board of Advisors, and a life member of the Council on Foreign Relations. Mr. Johnson’s career also includes experience as a White House Fellow, merchant banker with Donaldson, Lufkin, & Jenrette, and as a management consultant with McKinsey & Company.

Todd Ofenloch is a Managing Director in the Boston office of H.I.G. Capital. Since joining the firm in 2009, he has been responsible for evaluating and executing new investment opportunities, as well as working with certain existing portfolio companies. Todd has over 15 years of experience investing in middle market private equity transactions and has worked on investments in a broad range of industries, including building products, business services, enterprise software, food and consumer products, hospitality and travel services, and media and marketing services. He currently serves on the boards of several H.I.G. portfolio companies. Prior to H.I.G., Todd was an investment professional at Parthenon Capital Partners, GTCR, and The Halifax Group. He began his career as an investment banker at Lazard Frères, specializing in mergers & acquisitions advisory services. Todd graduated with Bronze Tablet honors from the University of Illinois with a B.S. in Accountancy (CPA) and received an M.B.A. with honors from Columbia Business School. 00000377 00000376 0000507E 000051E2 00043FC1 00043FC1 00007EAE 00007F1E 000488EB 000488EB

Mr. Hurlbert is a seasoned entrepreneur – with a thirty-year track record of building successful businesses with strong leadership teams. Mr. Hurlbert was named Ernst & Young Entrepreneur of The Year® in 2009 in the Houston and Gulf Coast Area and inducted into the Ernst & Young Entrepreneur of The Year® Hall of Fame that same year. He was also a founding member of the Young Presidents Organization – Gulf Coast Region. Mr. Hurlbert is currently a Managing Partner and Co-Founder at BrightMark Partners, a growth equity and management firm dedicated to providing capital and resources to venture, growth phase, and middle market businesses. Mr. Hurlbert served as the President, CEO and Chairman of the Board of Houston based TAS Energy from December of 2001 to April of 2020. TAS is leading provider of high efficiency and modular cooling and energy systems for the data center, commercial, industrial and power generation markets. TAS was sold to publicly traded Comfort Systems (FIX) on April 1st of 2020. Under Mr. Hurlbert’s leadership, TAS grew from a “start-up” to a global leader in efficiency/capacity offerings to the industrial, power generation and HVAC industries, renewable energy – including building over 300MW of geothermal plants worldwide, and data center products and services. When TAS was sold to FIX, the company had over 750 employees worldwide and delivered over 2,000 modules to 33 countries globally. Mr. Hurlbert is the Chairman of the Board at Clearas Water Recovery. Clearas utilizes patented, sustainable and proprietary technology to solve high nutrient wastewater challenges in the municipal and industrial water markets. In doing so, Clearas produces a valuable “bio waste” that can be sold into multiple vertical markets. Currently Clearas Water Recovery bio-waste is a sustainable substitute for hyrdro-carbon based products – i.e. it is being used to make foam for Addidas tennis shoes. Mr. Hurlbert sits on the Board of Prostar Geocorp, a company pioneering geospatial intelligence technology in the energy infrastructure and transportation markets. Prostar utilizes a SaaS based business model and has multiple patents and is transforming the way large utilities, construction companies, and states departments of transportation track underground assets and utilities (i.e. natural gas pipelines). Mr. Hurlbert sits on the Board of ATR SmartProcedures, a company pioneering digital transformation in the industrial industry by providing a SaaS based offering to take “paper based” operational, safety, environmental, and maintenance procedures and putting them in the cloud so they are easily accessible by plant employees. ATR has an impressive customer including Exxon, Chevron, Koch, and Commanche Peak. Mr. Hurlbert served from 2012 to 2018 on the Board of Directors at Loenbro, Inc., a diversified energy services and construction company with more than 900 employees. At Loenbro, Mr. Hurlbert provided leadership direction and oversight for the organic and inorganic growth plan, capital partnerships, risk management, organizational development, marketing and business development, as well as general and administrative oversight. Mr. Hurlbert helped Loenbro founders monetize the business in 2018 with a large New York private equity firm. Prior to joining TAS in 2001, Mr. Hurlbert served as the President and General Manager of a Pratt & Whitney Power Systems business unit, P2 Energy. Prior to P2 Energy, Mr. Hurlbert served as President and CEO of the PIC Energy Group. While at PIC, Mr. Hurlbert initiated and closed a joint venture with PWPS, which lead to the formation of P2. This transaction was valued at over $150 million to PIC, which at the time had roughly $25 million in revenue. Mr. Hurlbert left PIC to lead the P2 entity. Mr. Hurlbert is currently the Co-Founder and Co-CEO of Local Bounti, a company pioneering sustainable indoor agriculture. Prior to joining PIC as the CEO, Mr. Hurlbert was named General Manager of Global Sales for General Electric’s Contractual Services business (GECS). Mr. Hurlbert was integral in building GECS from a “start- up” to over $7 Billion in backlog in just 24 months. GECS was known for pioneering the LTSA product line (long term service agreements) for GE’s gas turbine technology. LTSA’s became an industry wide standard. Mr. Hurlbert lead the team that developed out the product line, and built the global sales team from the ground up, starting with approximately 15 people and ended with over 150 when he left. When Mr. Hurlbert left GECS, the business had just closed $1 Billion in backlog in the prior quarter. A trend that continued after he left. GECS would go on to become one of the biggest success stories in the history of GE, and GE Power systems. While at GE, Mr. Hurlbert completed GE’s esteemed four-week MDC program at Crotonville. Prior to GE, Mr. Hurlbert held the position of Director of International Business Development for Stewart & Stevenson (S&S), the world’s largest third-party operator of Power Plants. S&S Power division was purchased by GE. Mr. Hurlbert joined the energy industry in 1990 in a position with North American Energy Services (NAES) a leading operations and maintenance company where he led sales in Latin America. Prior to NAES Mr. Hurlbert served as a Valuation Manager in the Mergers and Acquisitions Group for the Geneva Companies. Mr. Hurlbert successfully valued over 75 middle market businesses, company valuations ranged between $20 and $150 million. Prior to joining Geneva, Mr. Hurlbert was hired off the San Diego State University campus to work for the Ford Motor company in their esteemed “financial management” program. Mr. Hurlbert worked in Ford’s “Aerospace” division and was a financial analyst in Ford’s advanced “Star Wars” program. Mr. Hurlbert has a Bachelor of Science (BS) degree from San Diego State and a Master of Business Administration (MBA) from the California State University – Long Beach. Mr. Hurlbert is the past President and Chairman of the Turbine Inlet Cooling Association. Mr. Hurlbert loves spending time with his wife and three daughters, Ellie, Kate, and Bella. He is also a competitive golfer, having won the 2010 Montana Mid–Amateur and the 2020 Montana Senior Amateur tournaments and other top regional and national golf events. Mr. Hurlbert has competed in 3 USGA events.

Episode 64 of the Private Equity Fast Pitch features Nik Shah, the co-founder and managing partner of Cohere Capital. Prior to co-founding Cohere Capital with Daniel, Nik was a Managing Director at H.I.G. Capital / H.I.G. Growth Partners where he focused on private equity investments in high-growth, entrepreneur-owned companies in the business services, technology, media, and Internet sectors. In his 12 years at H.I.G., he has served on the board of over 10 past and current H.I.G. portfolio companies. Prior to joining H.I.G., Nik was with Landmark Growth Capital Partners in Boston, Massachusetts, a private equity firm focused on buyouts and growth equity investments in business services, manufacturing, and consumer companies. At Landmark, he was responsible for deal sourcing, due diligence, and assisting management as a board director and observer of several portfolio companies. Earlier in his career, Nik was at AH Ventures and Adams, Harkness & Hill in Boston. Nik received his Bachelor of Arts degree in biochemistry with honors from Harvard University and an M.B.A. from the Tuck School of Business at Dartmouth. 000001FA 000001F9 000043D5 0000439E 0000A6A1 0000A6A1 00007F3F 00007F3F 0002880F 0002880F

Episode 63 features Brad Brenneman with Breck Partners. Prior to founding Breck, Brad was a partner at Wingate Partners for 16 years, where he served as Co-Managing Partner and was Chairman of Nekoosa Coated Products, Dunn Paper, and Sunrise Oilfield Supply, as lead board member for Industrial Container Services, and as a board member of S&N Communications and Binswanger Glass. ​ Prior to joining Wingate, Brad was an executive with Entergy Wholesale Operations where he led project teams in acquiring and developing power generation assets. He joined Entergy from Lufkin Industries where he served as an Officer.  In addition to his leadership roles in operations and finance, Brad developed and implemented Lufkin’s strategic planning process and coordinated the successful acquisition of companies in the U.S. and Europe to help implement the strategic plan.  Previously, he was a consultant with Bain & Company where he advised clients on strategy and corporate turnarounds. ​ Brad holds a Bachelor of Business Administration in Accounting, summa cum laude, from Kansas State University and a Master of Business Administration from the Harvard Business School.  He currently serves as an Elder at Preston Trail Community Church and is a Trustee of Legacy Christian Academy.  Brad is married to Leanne and they are the grateful parents of Abigail (21), Jonathan (19) and Matt (17). 000000F4 000000F4 00004BBB 00004BBB 0006C21A 0006C21A 00007E29 00007E29 0006BFA7 0006BFA7

Today we are excited to present a montage of college graduates advice from past Fast Pitch guests. Today’s college graduates find themselves in an unprecedented and challenging environment because of the COVID 19 national lock down.   To address this national challenge, we’ve compiled the best advice to college graduates from top private equity professionals.  we will hear how they overcame challenges in their past and tangible advice they would offer to young graduates in an unfamiliar environment. 000003FA 000003F7 000153B5 000153B5 000305C6 000305C6 00007ED2 00007ECC 00119087 00119087

Julia Karol is President and COO of Watermill Group. She is responsible for overall firm operations and helping Watermill portfolio companies develop and implement their strategies. Previously, as a Watermill Principal, Julia helped guide the day-to-day operations of the firm, directed the firm’s investor relations and managed fundraising initiatives for acquisitions. Prior to joining Watermill, Julia worked at Jumpstart, a national nonprofit organization. While at Jumpstart, she managed Boston-area fundraising, coordinated communication and marketing efforts, cultivated partnerships, developed alumni relations programming, and oversaw staff recruitment efforts.   Julia currently serves as a Partner with Social Venture Partners Boston, a venture philanthropy organization which connects Boston’s most promising nonprofits with the money and minds to fuel their success. Julia has served as a Mentor for Endeavor, a global high-impact entrepreneurship movement and that promotes economic growth and job creation. She also serves as a member for the Budget and Administration Committee for Combined Jewish Philanthropies. Previously, Julia founded and served as board chair for the Young Nonprofit Professionals Network in Boston. Julia is a member of ACG Boston and the Young Presidents Organization (YPO) and has been named as one of the Most Influential Women in Mid-Market M&A by Mergers and Acquisitions Magazine for three consecutive years. In 2019, Julia received the Women of Influence Award from ACG Boston and was named one of Boston Business Journal’s 40 Under 40 honorees. In 2017, Julia was named an Emerging Leader by the M&A Advisor.   EDUCATION: She received a M.A. in Education Policy, Organization and Leadership from Stanford University, completed the Owners, Presidents, Managers program at Harvard Business School, and the Summer Institute for Entrepreneurship at the Stanford Graduate School of Business, and earned a B.A. from Tufts University.