Chicago is My Home

22
Jan

Chicago Technology Advisor Dick Reck Has a Musical Heart

Author: Adam Fendelman, Category: Business, Technology

---

CHICAGO – After spending 30 years advising several of Chicago’s most prominent technology companies as a partner with KPMG, Dick Reck today is as likely to focus on R&B as he is P&L (profit and loss).

The guy who helped Andrew Filipowski take Platinum Technology, Inc. public and later sell the software company to Computer Associates for more than $3.5 billion in 1999 is now happy to work for relative beer money as the manager of the decades-old country rock band Heartsfield.

“It is not very financially rewarding, but it is a labor of love,” said Reck, 58, who left KPMG in 2002. “I’m an old rock and roller from the 1960s. I set aside music for 30 years.”

Though Reck first saw Heartsfield play live in the 1970s, he didn’t meet the band’s frontman (Perry Jordan) until a few years ago. Heartsfield has performed live with the likes of Eric Clapton, Fleetwood Mac and more recently Lyle Lovett.

The group mostly plays in the Chicago area at places like FitzGerald’s in Berwyn and the Beverly Arts Center of Chicago.

Reck does everything from helping the band book gigs to pushing for the release of its next CD. He added: “Making music is like painting with oils and writing code. You just need to say ‘done’. Perry has a number of songs that are really good. We just need to finish them and put our marketing plan together.”

When Reck isn’t dancing in the aisles at Heartsfield shows, he can be found sitting on the boards of several area companies and not-for-profit groups. He is a director of such varied companies as Woodbridge, Ill.-based biotech firm Advanced Life Sciences and Chicago-conceived humor Web site Liquid Generation (now based in Beverly Hills).

He was the chairman of Schaumburg, Ill.-based technology consultancy Greenbrier & Russell when it was sold to Fujitsu Consulting two years ago. Reck – who is also a board member of the Illinois Information Technology Association (ITA) and the Illinois Technology Development Alliance (ITDA) – laments that it is more difficult for young technology companies to raise money today than it was a generation ago.

When Platinum Technology went public in 1991, he says the company was doing less than $15 million in revenue and only raised about $30 million. Today, regulatory compliance costs make it harder to justify smaller offerings. This in turn makes it more difficult to raise money from venture investors who get paid from an IPO exit.

“Money that used to go to venture capital is finding its way into hedge funds,” Reck said. “I am very worried about capital formation and our ability to stay ahead.”

That’s the Ticket

Last week, Rolling Meadows, Ill.-based retailer TicketsNow agreed to be acquired by Ticketmaster for more than $265 million. The deal, which is expected to close later this quarter, is the largest reported pure-play Internet transaction in the Chicago area in recent memory.

Further, the company’s three institutional investors are local firms. In 2006, Northfield, Ill.-based DFJ Portage Venture Partners and Evanston, Ill.-based New World Ventures invested $8.2 million in the company’s first round of financing. In 2007, Chicago-based Adams Street Partners led a $34 million round that included follow-on commitments from existing investors.

Eight-year-old TicketsNow, which competes with StubHub, was doing several million dollars in revenue before it raised outside financing. DFJ Portage was also the first institutional investor in Chicago-based FeedBurner, which sold to Google in 2007 for a reported $100 million.

Bits & Bytes

The deadline to submit business plans for the 2008 Midwest Venture Summit is Jan. 30. The two-day summit will be held on March 17 and March 18 at the University of Chicago’s Gleacher Center and the Chicago Sheraton Hotel (respectively). More information about the program and participating companies and investors can be found here.

Also, the Chicago-based Internet Marketing Initiative earlier this month changed its name to Rise Interactive. The online marketing firm’s clients include Kodak, Allstate and Armani.

Finally, HLB – the Chicago-based design and engineering firm that helped outfit NFL coaches with Motorola gear – wrapped up 2007 winning eight ideation awards from groups including CES and the Chicago Athenaeum.

Content from this article, which first appeared on Monday in the weekly Tech Matters column by Brad Spirrison in the Chicago Sun-Times, is being published with permission.

By Brad Spirrison