Top 50: Former Top 50 CEOs have taken diverse paths

Thomas Adams//July 25, 2008//

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Stephen Ardia celebrated his first million-dollar month of sales in June as CEO of Water Resource Technologies LLC in Saratoga County.
Ardia helped found Water Resource Technologies five years ago, after departing as chairman and CEO of Environment One Corp.
“We represent Environment One’s low-pressure sewer systems in eastern New York, Connecticut and New Jersey, and we recently opened an office in Florida,” Ardia says.
To anyone living in the Rochester area two decades ago, Ardia’s name should ring a bell: Back then, he was president and CEO of Goulds Pumps Inc., a roughly $500 million Fortune 500 company based in Seneca Falls.
Like Ardia, some of the CEOs on the first Rochester’s Top 50 list have left the area. Others remain here, and one-Michael Hone, who now lives in Boston-was named CEO at locally based American Aerogel Corp. last month and plans to return.
Hone formerly was chairman and CEO at Photographic Sciences Corp.-later renamed PSC Inc.-in Rochester.
“I’m commuting from Boston to Rochester weekly,” Hone says of his new position at American Aerogel.
Others on the original Top 50 list-like former Bausch & Lomb Inc. chairman and CEO Daniel Gill, former Eastman Kodak Co. chairman and CEO Colby Chandler, and former RCSB Financial Inc. and Rochester Community Savings Bank chairman, president and CEO Leonard Simon-are retired and living at least part of the year in the Rochester area.
Robert Hurlbut, founder and CEO of Vari-Care Inc., is president of Hurlbut Trust, a Rochester financial and consulting firm for health care facilities and rental properties.
Richard Aab, founder, chairman and CEO of ACC Corp. and later Rochester-based E-chx Inc., now is vice chairman of the Paetec Holding Corp. board of directors.
Aab resigned as CEO at ACC in October 1995 and left the company in 1996 to co-found US LEC Inc. in Charlotte, N.C. US LEC merged with Paetec in February 2007.
Albert Montevecchio, founder of Veramark Technologies Inc. precursor Moscom Corp., today is president and CEO of Xelex Technologies Inc. in East Rochester.
Xelex, a provider of telecommunications billing systems, was founded in 2001.
Montevecchio founded Moscom, a maker of telecommunications management and billing systems, in January 1983 and was its president and CEO until July 1997.
Ardia became chairman and CEO at General Electric Co. spinoff Environment One in Schenectady County after leaving Goulds Pumps in 1994, then started Water Resource Technologies.
“They were great days with great people,” he says of his time at Goulds Pumps. “Goulds at that stage was an independent company and we had an independent spirit.
“We did well at times and at times the economy and the marketplaces were challenging,” he adds. “But I have no regrets and still am in contact with many of the people I worked with during my 25-year career there.”
In addition to running Water Resource Technologies, Ardia is a partner with Champlain Capital Partners L.P., manager of a $140 million private equity fund with offices in Boston and San Francisco.
“As they make investments, I co-invest with them and, depending on the nature of the business, in several cases I end up as chairman of the board with a semi-active role in the management and operations of the business,” Ardia says.
Hone, in addition to his new role as head of American Aerogel, is regional chairman in Boston for Chairman’s View, a consulting firm for middle-market companies.
“It’s a company that helps $5 million to $100 million privately held companies get prepared for some sort of transaction,” Hone says. “It could be a sale. It could be an acquisition. It could be a merger. It could be a transfer of ownership.”
Hone left PSC, a maker of laser-based bar code scanners, in 1997.
“Growing the company from 100 or so employees to 1,500, from a few million dollars in sales to over $220 million in sales, was a wonderful experience,” he says.
PSC eventually was bought by an Italian firm. Local operations moved to Oregon.
Hone became president and CEO of Centennial Technologies Inc. in Wilmington, Mass., after leaving PSC. In 2001, former PSC colleagues convinced Hone to return to Rochester to become president of medical-imaging firm Lucid Inc.
He left Lucid and became president and CEO of Salem, N.H., telecommunications firm Bizfon Inc., then was chief operating officer for Conseco Insurance Group in Carmel, Ind.
“That was a meltdown disaster in financial services,” Hone recalls of his turnaround efforts at Conseco. “It was the third-largest bankruptcy in corporate history, a $53 billion bankruptcy.
“Now it’s a Fortune 500 company,” he adds. “It has about $1 billion of free cash flow every year. It’s in good shape again.”
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