At 3RC, our Operating Partners are proven business leaders who play an active role focusing on accelerating value creation in our portfolio companies throughout the lifetime of a particular investment. They spend a significant amount of time on-site, involved in the daily operations of the business. They work closely with management teams, offer high-level guidance, and help to develop and implement growth strategies.
Mark Botos
Jim Epstein
Kevin Horner
Brian Jasperse
Pat Marso
Robert Sharpe
Mark Botos
Operating Partner
After earning a BSEE and MBA from the University of Pittsburgh, Mark began his career as a Product Manager for Aerotech, a small, high-end motion and automation company in Pittsburgh. He held positions of increasing responsibility over the next 18 years, including engineering management, manufacturing, and operations (COO). During that period, he both participated in and led significant changes in strategy and operations including the company’s first ERP and the introduction of engineered solutions to the Company’s portfolio of solutions.
Assuming the role of President and CEO in 2009, Mark’s team expanded globally, highlighted by the installation of a disciplined sales process that tripled the size of the company to $120M. He recently relinquished his role as President to focus on his passion of building successful business by overseeing the strategic and organizational development of 3 new portfolio companies under the Aerotech umbrella.
Jim Epstein
Operating Partner
An accomplished executive with a proven track record building and monetizing shareholder value, Jim has over three decades of C-suite experience as corporate development leader and general management leader. His formidable skill set, in such areas as business development, strategy, M&A, finance, deal-making, and general management, has helped him achieve notable results in middle market companies with high financial leverage. Meanwhile, his diverse company life-cycle background managing in growth companies, restructurings, mature companies, and start-ups has provided him the foundation to take on and solve a wide variety of business problems.
Over the last 16+ years, as Chief Development Officer (CDO) and executive committee member, Jim led the corporate and business development efforts that helped transform a single-business-unit U.S. Promotional Products Industry (PPI) supplier with $100+ million in sales into a multi-BU, global-leading PPI company with around ten digits of sales; he acquired six competitors with mid-nine-digit Total Enterprise Value and led PMI; he was a key member of the executive team that twice successfully sold the company to private equity sponsors with acquisitions having contributed a significant portion of value creation; and he led strategy and development efforts resulting in numerous growth initiatives such as European market entry, Poland product imprinting platform start-up, Global Buying Services platform, partnership-customer agreements with large online resellers, and retail brand licenses.
During the 6+ years prior to that, as COO and then president of a call center outsourcing company, Jim helped his team grow sales from $35 to $180 million and sold the inbound division to one of the world’s largest BPO companies—Teleperformance, headquartered in France.
Jim has a B.S. in Economics from the University of Pennsylvania’s Wharton School and an M.B.A. from Harvard Business School.
Kevin Horner
Operating Partner
A results-driven executive known for his calculated risk-taking to drive explosive growth, Kevin has more than two decades in the C-suite—first as CIO of a Fortune 50 company and most recently as president and CEO of a publicly traded IT staffing business.
Kevin is well-rounded with experience across a multitude of business units including manufacturing, sales, finance, HR, marketing, and particularly IT.
Distinguished by a sharp ability to evaluate complex business scenarios and quickly convert insights into bold directives that drive results, Kevin has a number of notable accomplishments recently as Mastech CEO, including:
Brian Jasperse
Operating Partner
Brian’s 45+ years of experience in construction and environmental remediation started with him earning his Bachelor of Science in Civil Engineering with Honors from North Carolina State University in 1975. After successfully completing the requirements to be a Professional Engineer, he went on to acquire and hold PE licenses in 10 states and contracting licenses in every state in which licensing was required.
During his career, he held increasingly responsible positions which culminated in a 20-year run as an executive in the foundation improvement and environmental remediation fields. This experience helped him understand the functions of all departments and how to effectively manage them to produce steady profits and growth.
In his position as CEO of Geo-Con, Brian led the company from annual sales of $1.4mm and EBITDA of $0.3mm to annual sales of $55mm and EBITDA of $8.5mm in six years.
Pat Marso
Operating Partner
Pat is a strategically focused senior manager with extensive C-suite experience in numerous small to upper middle-market organizations within a variety of industries. He earned his Accounting, Computer Science, and Executive MBA degrees all from the University of St. Thomas, and over the years, he has built upon his expertise in the areas of operations, interim and crisis management, financial restructuring, asset recovery, and refinancing.
Pat has worked with private capital groups, commercial banks, corporate attorneys, and financial institutions with extensive international business experience—primarily in Western Europe, Latin America, and the Far East.
After beginning his career in public accounting, he shifted to general management shortly thereafter. Since then, his work has often been recognized by regional and national trade organizations and publications primarily relating to underperforming or distressed companies or companies in transition.
Dr. Shishir Shah
Operating Partner
Dr. Shah has over 25 years of distinguished experience in the fields of health care, biotechnology, and strategic business development, bolstered by his B.S. in Aeronautical Engineering from Rensselaer Polytechnic Institute and his Doctorate in Osteopathic Medicine from Midwestern University.
Before medical school, Dr. Shah started as a systems analyst for JPL/NASA and then worked as a managing director for Ramblax and Co., an investment-banking boutique, where he was closely involved in business development strategies for mobile telecom startups. He subsequently worked in biomedical product design and pharmaceutical packaging operations with Becton Dickinson Company.
Upon completing his medical training specializing in Emergency Medicine and Family Practice, Dr. Shah went on to provide clinical health care at several outpatient and emergency room facilities in Illinois, Indiana, and Arizona. He also served as a consultant at CIGNA Healthcare where he was involved in cost containment for high-end patient utilization and staff turnover reduction.
After receiving additional training in wound management and board certification in hyperbaric medicine, Dr. Shah co-implemented one of the largest wound-care /hyperbaric clinical delivery models in the U.S., and he continues to work in several advisory roles for hospitals, startups, pharmaceutical/medical device companies, and legal firms. Although he sold his medical group to the publicly-traded company Team Health (later acquired by Blackstone Group), he remains as the medical director for the Advanced Wound Care and Hyperbaric Medicine Center at a level I trauma center in Phoenix, AZ.
Dr. Shah also does extensive consulting for pharmaceutical/medical device companies; utilization reviews for California’s Workers’ Compensation System; medical product and Medicare-related chart reviews; and national speaking engagements involving medical devices and pharmaceuticals.
Robert Sharpe
Operating Partner
Leveraging the knowledge, experience and relationships developed and nurtured during his extensive career in food and beverage, tech, aerospace and corporate finance, including over 20 years as CEO, President or COO and Board Member of multi-million to multi-billion dollar privately held, publicly traded or private equity-backed food and beverage companies, Robert (Bob) continues to create impressive value for team members, customers and shareholders now as a board member, operating partner and investor.
During his tenure as a business leader, Bob has built dynamic leadership teams with whom he has driven high rates of growth, both organically and externally, substantial margin expansion of both operating and returns on invested capital measures and multiple expansion by taking leadership within the relevant industry served.
Among his many successes, Bob built the $120 million (revenues) French division of Smithfield Foods and built it into the publicly traded, Madrid-based, $3 billion (revenues) European leader in processed meats, Campofrio Food Group. During a 10-year period, Bob and his team transformed 14 operating companies into a single enterprise, integrated 7 acquisitions, built a portfolio of over a dozen leading brands, drove over a hundred million dollars in supply chain and overhead productivity, took the company public and then successfully sold the business to a North American based food group.
Bob has a B.S. in Finance from the University of Michigan and an M.B.A. from George Washington University.