Ownership and Executive Management

Steven Fassberg, President, CEO and Founder
Steven Fassberg has been a finance and mortgage professional for over 25 years. He also simultaneously opened, developed and sold an array of impressive restaurant concepts and delicatessens from 1984 until 2002. He began baking bagels at the age of 13 in Massapequa, N.Y., and has owned numerous New York-style deli restaurants steakhouses, and sports cafes during his career.

Fassberg began developing the concept for real New York water bagels in June 2004, and has been working diligently full time for the last seven years on the development of the franchise model, menu items, operating procedures and food delivery systems. He has fully tested every aspect of the operational franchise model, and has had the benefit of some of the best and brightest minds in QSR who have helped shape the model to perfection. His vision for The Original Brooklyn Water Bagel Co. franchise model was derived from 25 years of experience in the worlds of restaurant and finance.

Joseph West, Ph.D., Vice President and Director of Operations
Joseph West served as the Dean of Florida International University’s School of Hospitality and Tourist Management for 10 years. He made history when he established a FIU satellite campus in Tianjin, China - becoming the first school in the United States to do this. On a personal level, West was the co-founder of the South Beach Food and Wine Festival. He has also served as Chairman of the Department of Hospitality Administration in the College of Business at Florida State University in Tallahassee and was the Director of the Hospitality Education Program (HEP) for Florida’s Department of Business and Professional Regulation. West was vice president of two restaurant companies and presently serves on the board of Benihana Corp.

David Ross, President and Chief Development Officer, Advisory Board Member
David Ross has enjoyed a successful career as a residential and commercial real estate developer for 35 years. His recent focus has been in the Lodging & Hospitality sector, specifically developing hotels and casinos including the Hard Rock Biloxi and the Ritz-Carlton San Juan. As owner, developer and operator, he is disciplined in the planning, financing and implementation of highly complex and quality oriented businesses that in most cases operate on a 24/7/365 basis. He brings business acumen and leadership skills honed as a developer together with his understanding of the importance of quality service, employee empowerment and customer satisfaction to help guide the company’s strategic growth and development. Mr. Ross is a graduate of the Wharton School of Finance, is married with two children and makes his permanent residence in Boca Raton, Florida.

Jack Grumet, Chief Operating Officer for The Original Brooklyn Water Bagel Co.
Jack Grumet has been a senior franchising executive for more than 40 years, overseeing close to 1,000 franchisees. He served as Chairman and CEO of the Manhattan Bagel Company Inc. from 1991 to 1998 where he was responsible for more than 650 bagel shops in 19 states. He helped the company develop its franchise system, managed acquisitions and directed the company’s $4.5 million initial public offering. He was also founder, Chairman and CEO of Jo-Ann’s Nut House, which began as one retail store and grew into about 150 nut and candy outlets in shopping malls in 13 states. Over his career, he has founded and served as chairman and chief executive in a number of additional companies in financial services, technology and the food service industry.

Jim Dodrill, Esquire, Legal Counsel
Jim Dodrill, serves as the company’s corporate and securities legal counsel. Dodrill began his legal career in the New York office of Latham & Watkins, one of the nation’s largest law firms. Upon leaving L&W, Dodrill co-founded a golf equipment, apparel and accessories design and marketing company, serving as its President and General Counsel for 3 1/2 years from inception through initial public offering (IPO). After consummating an underwritten IPO for the company, Dodrill phased himself out, brought in other management and left the company in early 2000 to start James G. Dodrill, P.A., which exclusively focuses on providing corporate and securities legal advice to a global client base of select companies. In 2008, Dodrill’s practice was ranked as the eighth most active law firm in the United States for representing investors in private investments into public equities (“PIPES”). Dodrill is a graduate of Brown University and The University of Miami School of Law, magna cum laude.

Chef Allen Susser, Corporate Chef and Advisory Board Member
Allen Susser is owner of the acclaimed Seafood Grill in Aventura , Fla. and consulting chef at Taste Gastropub in Delray Beach , Fla. , Jade Resort in St. Lucia and Chef Allen’s To Go, Fort Lauderdale-Hollywood Airport. His culinary viewpoint was established with the debut of his groundbreaking Miami restaurant, Chef Allen’s, in 1986. Mr. Susser has garnered prestigious awards including Food & Wine magazine’s “One of the 10 Best New Chefs in America ” in 1991 and the coveted James Beard Award in 1994. He has been featured on air and in magazines including Bon Appetit, NBC Today and the Food Network.

Susser is a member of the Advisory Board of the James Beard Foundation, and a member of the boards of the American Institute of Food & Wine. He is President of the Miami chapter of the Florida Restaurant and Lodging Association. Susser is the author of New World Cuisine and Cookery (Doubleday, 1995), The Great Citrus Book (Ten Speed Press, 1997) and The Great Mango Book, (Ten Speed Press, 2001). He publishes a monthly e-newsletter Savvy at www.chefallens.com

 

Advisory Board

Larry King, Advisory Board Member
King started his CNN show - the first world-wide, phone-in TV talk show - in 1985. It went on to become the cable channel’s highest rated show with a mix of celebrity interviews, political debate and topical discussions. He has conducted more than 40,000 interviews, which have included many national and international luminaries of the time.

With more than 50 years as a broadcaster, the Emmy-award winning King has been inducted into five of the nation’s leading broadcasting hall of fames. He is a recipient of the prestigious Allen H. Neuharth Award for Excellence in Journalism, the George Foster Peabody Award for Excellence in Broadcasting, a News and Documentary Emmy Award for Outstanding Interview/Interviewer, 10 CableACE awards for bester interviewer and talk show series and many more awards. As part of the team, King will play a key role in promoting the company in print, radio and internet promotions. It is anticipated that as the Company grows, its Advisory Board and management team will be expanded to consist of additional members who have expertise in the food service industry as well as national franchising and entrepreneurial experience.

Peter C. Gerhard, Advisory Board Member
Managing Partner & Chief Investment Officer of G Capital Management, a global macro hedge fund which he founded in 2008. He is also a trustee of his alma mater, Bucknell University and serves on the Advisory Boards of Hackensack University Medical Center (HUMC) & Intervention Energy, LLC. In his board work at Bucknell he is Vice Chair of their Investment Committee and is also former head of the Investment Committee at HUMC. Prior to this, Mr. Gerhard worked at Goldman Sachs from 1983 to 2006. At Goldman Sachs, he actively traded and managed risk allocations across Goldman Sachs’ Global Macro Trading businesses which included Global Foreign Exchange, Emerging Markets, Global Interest Rate Products & Money Markets. He also served for several years on the Firm Wide Risk Committee and Partnership Committee at Goldman Sachs and was a Partner Managing Director from 1994-2006.

Fred Goldring, Advisory Board Member
After spending several decades practicing entertainment law as one of the top deal-making attorneys in the music industry as a founding partner of the Beverly Hills, CA-based boutique law firm Goldring, Hertz & Lichtenstein, where he represented many of the biggest recording and performing artists in the world, Fred Goldring recently embarked on the next exciting phase of his multi-faceted career becoming a full-time entrepreneur, forming the strategic consulting firm Goldring Strategies and becoming a partner in several media, technology, clean energy and new product ventures.

In February 2010, Fred was appointed by President Barack Obama as a Member of The President's Committee on the Arts and the Humanities, and was sworn-in by Justice Stephen Breyer at the United States Supreme Court in Washington, D.C.

Fred is the former Chairman of the Board of Directors of Rock The Vote, and he was the Executive Producer of will.i.am's, groundbreaking Yes We Can Song music video, for which Fred shared an Emmy Award, a Clio Award, a Global Media Award, and an NAACP Image Award.

Fred was also a Co-Executive Producer of the documentary film/music project The People Speak based on Howard Zinn's seminal work, The People's History of the United States, and he was a Producer of the soundtrack album from the hit television series Thirtysomething.

Steven E. Leber, Advisory Board Member
Steven Leber has enjoyed a distinguished career in the entertainment industry as a manager and producer. He is perhaps best known as the manager of iconic rock artists including Aerosmith, AC/DC, Def Leppard and Michael Bolton, to name a few. His company, Contemporary Communications Company (CCC), was one of the world’s leading music management firms and was responsible for some of the greatest selling albums of all time; to date, CCC performers have sold more than 120 million records.

Leber began his career at the William Morris Agency where he established its music division and worked with major artists such as the Rolling Stones, Bill Cosby, Simon and Garfunkel, Diana Ross, Dionne Warwick and the Jackson Five. He also excelled as the innovative producer of theatrical shows and live events, creating new business models with shows like the unprecedented arena tour of Andrew Lloyd Weber’s “Jesus Christ Superstar,” the international smash-sensation “Beatlemania,” The Teenage Mutant Ninja Turtles “Coming Out of Their Shells” tour, the Texxas Jam Music Series, and The Concert for Bangladesh. He also brought the Moscow Circus to North America and broke box office records across the United States.

Leber is a co-founder of Mobile Life, a telecommunications company partnered with AT&T, Chairman of Grandparents.com, the nation’s premier online community for grandparents and remains active in the entertainment realm. Currently he is working on a Broadway musical and a major motion picture, both due for release in 2011.

Leonard Marsh, Advisory Board Member
Leonard Marsh, a co-founder of the Snapple Beverage Corporation who helped steer the company’s start-up through to its $1.7 billion dollar sale in 1994, brings to the advisory board his expertise in taking a new health-conscious concept onto the national level.

Marsh, who served as Snapple’s president and chief executive officer when it went public, worked in 1972 with two partners to start a company called Unadulterated Food Products. They sold juices to health-food stores in New York’s Greenwich Village. In 1980, Marsh was instrumental in the introduction of a line of all-natural juices with the Snapple name, which came from one of its first products – a carbonated apple juice that had a “snappy apple taste.”

Throughout the early 1980s, the company enjoyed success with its natural sodas. It was in 1987 that Marsh and his partners introduced the first iced tea – Snapple Lemon Tea. Sales skyrocketed. As American’s became more health conscious, Marsh’s company promoted their drinks as the only ready-to-drink iced teas brewed from real tea and made with all natural ingredients.

Snapple grew into one of the nation’s leading flavored beverages, and began to compete with industry giants like Coca-Cola and PepsiCo.

By the time Marsh and his partners sold the company to Quaker Oats, it had annual sales of $700 million, and its bottle of juices and teas could be found in delis, supermarkets, vending machines and homes across the country.