Richard (Rick) S. Callander, CFA

Partner

Rick is the President of EcoRock Asset Management Inc., an Investment Counsel and Limited Market Dealer. Rick’s career experience has covered the investment spectrum, where he has been responsible for mandates covering the entire capitalization range from large to micro capitalization and private companies.  Over the past ten years emphasis has focused on identifying and leveraging early stage technologies. 

EcoRock’s investment approach identifies emerging small and micro-capitalization companies with exceptional market positioning and return potential. Previously, Rick was a Partner at Marquest Investment Counsel Inc., where he managed the Marquest Bridge Fund with an investment focus on small and micro capitalization companies. Investments focused on Technology, Industrial Technology and Life Sciences. The Fund generated returns of 24.41% in 2006 and 74.23% in 2007 and has generated top decile returns since inception.   In addition, Rick was President and CIO of Matrix Capital Management Inc. where he advised small capitalization companies regarding business and go to market strategies.  Rick was previously a Partner at Perigee Investment Counsel (now Legg Mason Canada) where he managed the Canadian equity product portfolio, a $1.5B large capitalization equity fund, on behalf of a number of high profile institutional clients. The investment approach combined fundamental analysis with a quantitative overlay resulting in consistent performance results often exceeding client objectives. 

Rick holds a BA in Finance from the University of Western Ontario, a BA in Mathematics from York University and the Chartered Financial Analyst designation.  He was the Director of the Toronto CFA Society from 1993 to 1996 and is currently a director of Carthew Bay Technologies Inc., a NASDAQ listed public company. 

Ron Shuttleworth

Partner

With 20 years of experience in software, payment systems, and capital markets, Ron is President, RES Group Inc, a strategic consulting firm for business development, commercialization, and financing for small-cap and early stage technology companies.  For the previous five years, Ron was an equity analyst for the Canadian technology space and covered small-cap companies that represented approximately $250 million worth of various structured financings. The basket of equities that were under coverage returned, on average, 35% to investors on invested capital.

 Immediately prior, Ron was CEO of Covarity, a private venture-backed software-as-a-service commercial loan management vendor based in Waterloo Ontario, where he was responsible for raising its first three rounds of financing, and executing initial commercialization. Overlapping his role with Covarity, Ron was Executive in Residence with Vengrowth, a Venture Capital fund with over $2 billion under management.  At Vengrowth, Ron helped to evaluate investment opportunities, and consulted to several portfolio software enterprises in areas of sales, marketing, operations, and product development.

During the late 1990s, Ron was founder and CTO of Drums Inc., a high-growth pioneer in the development of web-based enterprise applications, which was sold to Boston-based Channelwave Inc. in 2000. Earlier in the decade, he was responsible for Alternative Delivery Systems for CIBC, where he was a pioneer in electronic banking systems including award winning grocery store banks, smart cards, internet banking and debit systems among others. He has an HBA degree in Geography and Urban Studies from Wilfrid Laurier University.

Jesse A. Kaplan, CFA

Partner

Currently a senior analyst at Harborview Advisors LLC, a NewYork-based investment firm focused on providing capital to small emerging growth companies. He is also Managing Director of Rocpart Inc., a private investment company focused on investments in the private markets, and Seek Capital Ltd., a private investment company focused on investments in the public market. Jesse is also the Vice President and Secretary of Goldbard Capital Corporation (GDB.P:TSXV), a CPC which successfully completed its initial public offering in November 2007 and China Opportunity Inc (COC.P:TSXV) a CPC which completed its IPO in May 2008.  Previously, Jesse was the Director of Research for Palladium Capital Advisors, LLC, an NASD member investment bank, and an analyst for Palladium Lending, LLC an asset-backed lending hedge fund.

Mr. Kaplan holds a Bachelor of Commerce degree from the University of Toronto. Mr. Kaplan completed the Canadian Securities Course and has passed all three levels of the Chartered Financial Analyst program.