2011 Irish Small Biz 50 Honorees, A-D
Name: Alan Gibson
Biography: The Butcher Shop Market, Inc. is a full service butcher shop which opened for business in November of 2009. It offers a full line of Irish sausages, rashers, boiling bacon and hams and black and white pudding made fresh daily on the premises. The market also carries a large selection of beef, lamb, pork, poultry, veal and game meats and its experienced butchers are both American and European trained. March of 2011 saw the opening of Mrs Murphy’s Kitchen at the Butcher Shop Market, a restaurant serving breakfast, lunch and dinner. From traditional Irish breakfasts to their own signature marinated steak, pork and turkey tips; Shepherd’s Pie, chicken curry, a host of hot entrees, assorted sandwiches; omelets and even pancakes are served all day.
Name: Anita Daly
Biography: Anita Daly is a key player in niche marketing and the founder and President of Daly Communications. The company thrives on its ability to pinpoint Irish American audiences and create marketing campaigns geared specifically to this consumer, utilizing press, radio and Internet outlets. With over 30 years in the entertainment industry, Anita has been part of various groundbreaking trends. She launched her own marketing company in 1996. Daly Communications specializes in promoting Irish entertainment in the US. The company provides press, radio, Internet and lifestyle marketing reaching out to consumers where they work and play. This includes direct marketing via email, blogs and websites, street teams and outreach to mainstream media outlets. Daly Communication’s artist roster has included Riverdance, Celtic Woman, Van Morrison, The Irish Tenors, The High Kings, The Chieftains, Black 47, The Saw Doctors, The Pogues and Finbar Furey. Corporate clients include Live Nation, HBO, A&E, PBS, Sony, EMI and Warner Brothers. The company has received Gold and Platinum records for CD and DVD units sold. Daly Communications has recently partnered with music publishing company, Cosmic Trigger to further promote some of the acts the company represents. This includes getting airplay for artists in movies, TV programs and commercial advertisements. Anita is a founding member of Women in Music and a long time member of the Irish Business Organization of NY. Daly Communications has voluntarily mentored many students from colleges in NY and abroad.
Name: Aofie Kimber
Biography: Aoife Kimber has worked for over 20 years with Irish and International companies in the high-tech, telecoms and wireless industries. She helps emerging companies gain the right foothold in the US market in order to publicize products and services to the right audiences. Aoife has worked for blue-chip technology companies including HP and Sun and also start-up companies from around the globe promoting news to an international audience. She launches companies and products, devises speaker programs, writes articles and web site content, secures meetings with analysts and journalists, and oversees all aspects of a company’s PR and marketing communications’ needs. For Enterprise Ireland, Aoife secures publicity for emerging Irish companies and has given presentation training for executives of start-up companies entering the US market. Aoife works with Juan Villalonga, ex-CEO of Telefónica and his team to promote his current initiatives. Aoife also provides writing expertise to tech companies in Silicon Valley including EFI. In the past, she has worked for PR agencies, Ogilvy PR and SIPR. Aoife’s written work has appeared in many industry publications and also on National Public Radio (NPR).
Name: Brian J. Connelly
Biography: Brian Connolly is a Principal at the New York City-based architectural design firm, Zivkovic Connolly Architects. A graduate of Dublin’s Trinity College and the Dublin Institute of Technology, he has over 25 years of professional architectural experience both in the United States and in Europe. His firm’s work has been accorded numerous professional design awards including the prestigious Palladio Award. Mr Connolly is an active member and Fellow of the Institute of Classical Architecture & Classical America where he chairs that organization’s Publications Committee. In 1999 he authored a report on Ireland’s then deteriorating Clonfert Cathedral, bringing that building to the attention of the World Monuments Watch. That organization placed Clonfert on its Millennium List of the World’s 100 Most Endangered Monuments. The resultant worldwide attention was instrumental in raising both the awareness and the funding that helped restore this important part of a shared global heritage. Zivkovic Connolly Architects is an award-winning, Manhattan-based architectural design firm serving a diverse residential, institutional and commercial clientele. The practice is committed to the simple and essential art of place-making. Their work is notably responsive to site, to program and to context and always avoids imposing pre-conceived solutions on any design problem. A respect for architectural history, craftsmanship and the appropriate deployment of fine materials and technologies informs the work of the practice to create architecture of significance and enduring value. The firm manages a small but select number of projects, thereby allowing the principals to maintain direct involvement in each design. The quality of work has been consistently recognized in professional design award programs and numerous publications, in the United States and internationally.
Name: Cathal Queally
Biography: After moving to the States in the summer of 2008, it took just seven months for Cathal to open up the very first Lily O’Brien’s Chocolate Cafe. Trading now for two years in what has been very difficult and challenging economic times for the retail sector, the company has still created many new American fans for its brand of chocolate, most of whom are trying it for the very first time. Last year the company sold over 18 million chocolates on airlines around the world and their move into the retail sector in the US has helped consolidate those exiting customers. Lily’s is the first and only premium Irish chocolate company to put down roots in the USA. The Cafe won two awards for its design and recently won an award for window display. The product has won awards annually at the Great Taste event in Ireland with its tiramisu and Creme Brulee chocolates recently winning gold medals at the taste fest.
Name: Christopher J. Kozicki
Biography: Chris Kozicki is the Director of US Government Affairs for Vacant Property Security. VPS is the global leader in securing, maintaining and managing vacant properties across a wide range of customers and industry sectors. Kozicki has developed new markets throughout the US by introducing the product and its benefits to government and industry leaders. Prior to working for VPS, he served as a top Deputy to Chicago Mayor Richard M. Daley for 13 years. His greatest accomplishment was cutting through the bureaucracy to improve efficiencies and demolishing over 10,000 dangerous and hazardous buildings that lead to a reduction in crime and safer neighborhoods.
Kozicki is very active in the community. He serves as Vice President of the Irish Fellowship Club of Chicago; Board Member of the Irish American Heritage Center; member of the Irish American Partnership and Irish Network; Leadership Advisory Council for Cristo Rey Jesuit High School and a Business Council Member for the United States Conference of Mayors. He previously served as President of the Bridgeport Catholic Academy School Board; President of the Young Irish Fellowship Club of Chicago and Chairman of the Young Democrats of Cook County. In 2004 he received the Judge Arthur L Dunne award for his service to Chicago’s Irish American community. He is a graduate of DePaul University and holds dual citizenship with the US and Ireland. A life long Chicagoan, Kozicki resides in the Bridgeport neighborhood with his wife Siobhan and their three children.
Name: David Hugh Martin
Biography: David is the founder and hands-on CEO of Fantasy Interactive (Fi), a global and multi-award winning digital agency headquartered in New York City, with additional offices in Stockholm, Sweden, Salt Lake City, Utah and San Francisco. Founded in 1999, the agency, run by David, has acquired multiple awards and gained recognition for offering premier digital agency services. Under his leadership the agency was awarded Agency of the Year, was the first inductee in the FWA Hall of Fame, and was listed as one of the top three most inspiring companies, alongside Pixar and Apple. Most recently (March 2011) the agency won the site of the year for the Porsche Panamera campaign awarded by Communication Arts. David’s long-standing experience and reputation for keeping the finger on the pulse of the next-generation digital trends, has made Fi known for cutting-edge design and development that attracts global brands and top talent from around the world. He runs the company in a hands-on manner and is involved in every project and product that the company outputs, from smaller web initiatives to large-scale sites to the enterprise clientele of the company’s proprietary social media platform Kontain.com.
Name: Declan O’Dea
Biography: DJO Consulting, LLC has over 20 years of experience in finance, tax, accounting, and real estate offering incomparable service for clients.
Specializing in tax preparation and planning, business organization and management, financial planning, and system design and implementations including websites the company will not consider any engagement complete until the customer is 100 per cent satisfied.
Name: Dennis A. Meehan
Biography: Two businesses, the first Commercial Vehicle Consultants Inc. and Old Macks.
Name: Dennis J. Ryan
Biography: ORIGINALLY a police officer with the National County Police Department in New York, forensics expert Dennis Ryan worked in the police laboratory examining criminal documents such as threat notices and bank robbery notes. As a result, the father-of-two would be called to testify in court as an expert in his field for criminal trials. Mr Ryan from Merrick, New York carried out this role for 16 years before deciding to set up his own private business in 2003 that would see him specialise in both criminal and civil cases.“I already had my own business outside the police department since 1990 examining civil and non-criminal documents,” he said. “These would be documents like last will and testaments or real estate documents but I left the police to devote my time solely on my own practice.”
Within two years Mr Ryan had set up his own company, Applied Forensics, which now has four offices in total handling up to 100 cases each year.
“In 2008 I opened an office in Washington DC and took on two other experts to work in that office while in 2010 we opened our Boston office,” he said. “I had to take on another member of staff to cover the New York office while I concentrated on Boston. Later that year though, we took on two experts in counterfeit documents, as although I had knowledge in that field these people were very specialised. And in 2011 Applied Forensics opened its fourth office, this time in Connecticut.”
Mr Ryan said he must have a passion for forensic science or he wouldn’t be doing 60-hour weeks.
“I guess I must have a passion for it because I am well beyond the 9 to 5pm job,” he said. “We have just been growing and growing – I don’t know how to say no.”
Name: Donal Dennehy
Biography: Mr. Dennehy’s is Greenwich Village’s favorite Irish pub and restaurant with outdoor diners preferring the sidewalk cafe on 7th Ave. South, aka “Mr Dennehy’s Backside.” Most locals enter from Carmine St to enjoy lunch, dinner and brunch, while watching their favorite sports. Greenmount Management is a Real Estate Investment Company.
D&D Turnkey is a Real Estate Investment Company.