SmartCore Solutions

Rick Wnuk

Chief Business Officer

Rick Wnuk is an accomplished consultant and sales executive with a portfolio of successes leading clients through the successful design and execution of strategies to drive business performance in complex selling environments.

Rick is passionate about taking a hands on approach with his clients in the practice areas of strategic planning, sales optimization, channel development, corporate development and mergers & acquisition. He engages with clients in verticals that include technology, data services, life sciences, financial services and outsourcing.

Select client engagements include:

• Retained by a life sciences firm to design and execute a go to market strategy that resulted in a quarterly revenue increase of 150% over their previous three quarters combined.
• Retained by a technology provider to develop a comprehensive strategic plan to shape the company’s goals and direction for the next three years. The strategy was instrumental in securing an incremental $8M in funding from Bain Capital.
• Retained by an outsourcing organization to recommend and execute a divestiture strategy for one of its subsidiaries.
• Retained as a subject matter expert to design a curriculum on the subject of sales prospecting for an international leader in management training and professional development.
• Retained by a life sciences company to develop and orchestrate a market strategy to accelerate market penetration of an underleveraged asset through the development of an indirect distribution channel.

Rick began his career with one of the first Business Process Outsourcing (BPO) organizations, SoftBank Services Group. He was part of the team that grew the organization from less than 50 people to a $450 million organization with 13,000 employees, 42 facilities, and operations in 12 countries. Shortly after the acquisition of SoftBank Services Group by Client Logic, Rick joined SAS, a technology leader in analytic solutions. At SAS, he spearheaded innovative sales strategies bringing to market underleveraged assets while effectively establishing new markets.

In addition to his consulting engagements, Rick frequently speaks to organizations on the topic of sales performance and is a contributor of sales related topics to Selling Power Magazine, EyesOnSales, Sales and Marketing Management Magazine, WebEx Communications and the American Management Association. He has also contributed to a book titled “Roadmap to Success” authored by Stephen Covey and Ken Blanchard.

Michael R. Press

Business Incentives Advisory, Government Relations and Location Analysis

Mike has more than 25 years of experience in economic development and tax incentives, having served in both government and non-government consulting roles. Mike also serves as President and Executive Director of M. R. Press Consulting, LLC, a firm devoted to advising corporate clients on maximizing the value of government-sponsored financial incentives granted in return for their job creation or capital investments. He built and led the world's leading Business Incentives advisory practice for eight years while serving as Tax Partner at Ernst & Young. Mike has supervised incentives advisory engagements for Fortune 100 Companies in the aerospace, automotive, consumer products, financial services, distribution, telecommunications, energy, pharmaceuticals, food and beverage production and packaging industries. He has supervised incentives projects in key states including: NY, NJ, CT, PA, TX, CA, OK, NC, SC, FL, GA, OH, MA, TN, MI, IL, and LA. His skill sets are frequently relied upon to support the Government Relations, Economic Impact and Location Analysis functions of capital investment planning and implementation.

Prior to his current roles, Mike served in government as Assistant Director of Tax Studies, Senate Finance Committee, New York State Senate (Majority); Chief Economist and Deputy Commissioner for Policy in the New York City Office of Business Development; and Chairman of the Enterprise Zone Administrative Boards of four Enterprise (EDZ's) in New York City. He created new and redesigned existing key economic development programs for New York City and New York State including; REAP (Relocation and Employee Assistance Program), ECSP (Energy Cost Savings Program), ICIP (Industrial and Commercial Incentive Program) and Tax Increment Financing.

Most recently, Mike organized and hosted the first comprehensive private sector Business Incentives Symposium in the United States in 2009 and authored "Incentives in a Down Economy", Journal of Multi-State Taxation, 2008 . Mike is a member of the Practitioner Connection of the Council on State Taxation (COST); the Editorial Advisory Board, of Tax Incentives Alert; and a member of the Editorial Board, Incentives Section, of the Journal of Multi-StateTaxation.

Richard DeVeau

Creative Director/Copy Writer

Richard brings nearly thirty years of experience as an award-winning creative director, creative strategist and copy writer to SmartCore.

Richard has spent the majority of his career working at some of the largest advertising agencies in Boston and Chicago, leading teams of writers, designers and art directors to develop print, broadcast, direct response, web and online communications solutions for clients in consumer goods and services, consumer and business technology, financial services, healthcare, insurance, pharmaceutical, publishing, education, business-to-business and nonprofit industries, including Ducati Motorcycles, Red Lobster, Compaq Computer, VeriSign, Bank of America, NationsBank, Massachusetts General Hospital, Rehabilitation Institute of Chicago, Blue Cross/Blue Shield, John Hancock Insurance, Dupont Merck, Miles Pharmaceuticals, Houghton Mifflin Publishing, Simon & Schuster Publishing, Boston University, Yale University, General Electric, Monsanto Chemical, Habitat for Humanity, American Lung Association and many others.

In addition to years of directing and writing offline marketing, branding and fundraising creative, Richard’s web and online experience dates back to 1994, when he was part of the creative team that put only the second bank in the entire country onto the web. In 1999, he was the Director of Website Development for an Internet start-up. In 2000, he worked on Steven King's Internet publishing debut, creating and writing the online campaign promoting King’s first internet-only downloadable book, Riding The Bullet. And through the years, he has written and directed a large number of websites, online and email campaigns and has remained current with the latest web and online best practices, including Web 2.0 and search-engine optimization and marketing strategies and tactics.

Richard is also an accomplished fine art painter and has had several solo shows of his work in a number of Boston art galleries.

John Ramsey

Software Development

John Ramsey was responsible the software development and successful launch of Precallpro.com, an automated, online (SaaS) sales planning company. His expertise includes software development organization; including software architecture, design and engineering, quality assurance engineering, and technical service and support.

John has been developing and supporting SaaS (Software-as-a-Service) in the Research Triangle Park region for over a decade. His past experiences include leading a team of web developers providing customized online auction solutions at OpenSite Technologies, helping to create innovative solutions to meet customer needs as the Lead Technology Manager at Proof-It-Online and developing and supporting the LetterMark e-mail branding solution as Director of Technology for FullSeven Technologies.

John has a B.S in Physics from North Carolina State University and is currently pursuing his MBA at the North Carolina State University Jenkins Graduate School of Management.