Press Releases
Brouster named vice chairman of Saint Louis University board
St. Louis Business Journal, June 1, 2010http://stlouis.bizjournals.com/stlouis/stories/2010/05/31/daily9.html
Banking executive Thomas Brouster Sr. has been elected vice chairman of Saint Louis University's board of trustees.
Brouster joined SLU's board in 2001. Known in local banking circles as "The Turnaround Guy," Brouster spent his career acquiring troubled financial institutions in Missouri, Kansas and Illinois, and successfully turning them around to profitability. Brouster served as chairman, chief executive and majority owner of Forbes First Financial, the holding company for Pioneer Bank and Trust, an independent state-chartered bank specializing in small- and middle-market companies. In 2005 he sold the company to National City Bank, where he is currently chairman of Missouri banking.
Saint Louis University, a Catholic, Jesuit university with more than 13,000 students, also recently elected four new members to its board of trustees:
- Barry Beracha, retired CEO of the Sara Lee Bakery Group, former chairman of the Pepsi Bottling Group and a former vice president and group executive of Anheuser-Busch Cos.
- Albert Black Jr., president and CEO of the Dallas-based On-Target Supplies and Logistics Ltd., a corporate supply chain management company he co-founded in 1982
- George Brill, founder and CEO of St. Louis-based Talisen Technologies, an information technology company specializing on systems integration, smart buildings and security
- Virginia McDowell, president and chief operating office of Creve Coeur, Mo.-based Isle of Capri Casinos Inc. and is the only female president and COO among the top 10 publicly traded gaming corporations.
Brill's Talisen Powers Down States, Sees Revenue Surge
St. Louis Business Journal, May 21, 2010 – by Kelsey Volkmannhttp://stlouis.bizjournals.com/stlouis/stories/2010/05/24/story5.html
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| Brian Cassidy |
| George Brill said Talisen’s energy-saving technology is helping customers go green. |
In a dark room that looks like a NASA control center, a huge glowing map shows the state of Missouri speckled with orange dots.
The spots represent the more than 1,000 state buildings where Talisen Technologies is monitoring thermostats; heating, ventilation and cooling; utility bills; electric and gas meters; greenhouse gases; and weather data.
Talisen also keeps track of each building’s occupancy so state officials know which buildings to keep open or close. The Creve Coeur, Mo., company assigns each piece of real estate a health index evaluating wear-and-tear so state maintenance workers know when to order new valves, air conditioning filters and other building parts.
Chief Executive George Brill founded the company in 1991 as Aero Tech Service Group, an IT company that was an early pioneer in the transmission of secure information over the Internet.
Now Talisen is tackling what Brill calls the “next frontier” - the intersection of building automation systems and IT. This convergence has grabbed worldwide attention. At a smart building conference in Dubai last year, a presenter from British aerospace and defense giant BAE Systems pointed to Missouri as a leader in using technology to cut energy usage.
Talisen’s technology helped Missouri cut its energy usage by 6 percent this past year, or $3 million. The electricity saved over the past 12 months was enough to power 2,500 Missouri homes for one year, a statistic trumpeted by Gov. Jay Nixon during a visit last month to Talisen.
Last year, Nixon signed an executive order requiring all state agencies whose building management falls under the direction of the Office of Administration to reduce their energy consumption by 2 percent per year for the next decade. “As one of the largest employers and energy consumers in the state, Missouri must become a leader in conservation,” Nixon said at the time. “We have a responsibility to set the example for state employees, businesses and citizens across the state.” In 2008, Missouri spent $54.7 million on energy costs at these state buildings.
Talisen’s $8 million energy-savings contract with the state of Missouri is just the beginning, Brill said. Other states and cities, flush with federal stimulus dollars for green projects, are looking to reduce their energy usage and cut their carbon footprints. Brill said he expects revenue to jump nearly 30 percent from $14 million in 2009 to $18 million this year.
Kansas City signed a $2 million deal with Talisen the first week in May. “Before this contract with the state (of Missouri), our average contract would be $50,000 to $250,000,” Brill said. “Now these deals average $1 million to $5 million.”
Brill said Talisen is investing more in its technology to reach new customers and land stimulus contracts. Talisen spent $2 million last year to switch from on-site data centers to Internet-based cloud computing, he said.
Talisen has 62 employees but plans to hire additional staff as it takes on more projects, said Brill, the company’s majority owner. The minority owners are Chief Technology Officer Bruce Draper and Rob Topping, former CEO of St. Louis aerospace firm Westar Corp. Draper and Topping own a combined 15 percent.
Other companies in the smart building space are Johnson Controls, Siemens, Honeywell, IBM, CISCO and Accenture.
kvolkmann@bizjournals.comCopyright © 2010 American City Business Journals, Inc.
Missouri Governor Jay Nixon Announces 5.6 Percent Reduction in State Energy
Consumption During Press Conference at Talisen Technologies
St. Louis, Missouri– On Monday, April 26, 2010, Missouri Governor Jay Nixon toured
the headquarters of Talisen Technologies in Creve Coeur, Missouri. Gov. Nixon held a press conference at the
company to announce the extent of energy consumption savings over the past year. A reduction of 5.6 percent
was saved this past year, which amounts to a savings of more than $3 million.
Find out more about the announcement, and Talisen's role in Missouri's energy consumption initiative, from
the following news articles:
Video of News Conference on YouTube
Missouri Governor
St. Louis
Business Journal
Linked Article: Copyright © 2010 American City Business Journals, Inc.
Missouri Governor
Jay Nixon Newsroom
Linked Article: Copyright © 2010 State of Missouri
De Smet Jesuit High School to become a Green Technology Showcase with the deployment
of a Campus Sustainability Platform Solution
St. Louis, Missouri– De Smet Jesuit High School is partnering with Talisen Technologies,
Inc. to be the first Campus Sustainability Platform Solution. Together the joint partnership is taking an
innovative approach managing campus facilities from a total cost of ownership perspective.
The platform will utilize secure communications to extract information from the new and existing control
systems within the school. It displays the real-time data through a web-based Global Access Facilities Portal
that will provide role-based access to discrete data and applications across the campus.
The information will allow De Smet stakeholders to make decisions that will drive savings around maintenance
and energy to build a more sustainable operation for De Smet Jesuit High School. In addition, the solution
allows for continuous measurement and evaluation of system performance, monitoring and managing various control
systems and the ability to display benchmark baseline energy performance.
A new phase of education, leveraging "green intelligence" for the classroom will nourish today’s environmentally-focused
and technology-savvy students. De Smet hopes to allow students to earn credits while working with the portal.
First-hand knowledge can be gained by evaluating, comparing and contrasting energy information as well as
diagnosing the building control systems in an ongoing basis.
"We believe that it is important in these current times that we establish an energy policy for De Smet
Jesuit," Fr. Walter Sidney, S.J., President of De Smet Jesuit High School said. "The first step in doing that
is to understand our energy consumption and start managing it in a more economical and environmentally friendly way."
He stated that De Smet envisions a world where staff and students from multiple organizations can collaborate
on how to make their schools more sustainable environments.
"We are excited about the opportunity to work with De Smet Jesuit on this project," said George Brill, CEO of
Talisen Technologies, Inc. and a 1981 graduate of De Smet Jesuit. “We believe that by using technology we can
not only help school’s operate more efficiently, but we can also make it part of the curriculum and educate students
on the importance of effective energy consumption."
Talisen Technologies, Inc. is a founding member of TEAM CO-OP, a cooperative of industry leaders
that together provide Enterprise Sustainability Platform solutions across a range of global markets.
ABOUT DE SMET JESUIT HIGH SCHOOL
De Smet Jesuit High School is a Catholic, college preparatory community whose members work together to build
a challenging, academic environment set in the context of the life and spirit of Jesus Christ. Students learn
and live the values of St. Ignatius by becoming intellectually competent, open to growth, religious, loving,
and committed to doing justice in generous service to the people of God. For more information,
visit www.desmet.org.
ABOUT TALISEN TECHNOLOGIES
Talisen Technologies Inc, is an internationally recognized leader of system integration for large customers
with sophisticated networks, applications and security requirements. Talisen Technologies Inc., is building
on its legacy technology to support clients with mission critical, enterprise IT infrastructure that are
seeking ways to be energy wise. Talisen provides services and solutions within Facilities Information
Management, Business Process Management and Enterprise IT Management for large organizations in aerospace &
defense, government and facility management. For additional information, please
visit www.talisentech.com
A Day in The Work Life Of George Brill
St. Louis Commerce Magazine, May 2008 – by Susan Cabahttp://www.stlcommercemagazine.com/archives/may2008/life.html
George Brill provides a product or service that millions of people use frequently, rarely think about, probably couldn't understand if they did think about it, and—in these days of ubiquitous Internet commerce—couldn't live without.
His product? Software, which lets a manufacturer share information with suppliers and customers without compromising security. Brill, founder and CEO of St. Louis-based Talisen Technologies, is a pioneer in collaborative connectivity and security issues.
Brill was a structural engineer with the U.S. Navy at McDonnell Douglas Corp. when he jumped into the fledgling world of business-to-business electronic commerce in 1991. At first, McDonnell Douglas was his only customer, but he soon found a worldwide market.
Seventeen years later, the company has expanded to provide sophisticated software that manages a facility, its energy use, its information systems and its business processes in an integrated way. Think of it as "the whole ball of wax" solution to business problems that are ever more complex.
Who or what is your inspiration or motivation?
"The part I really enjoy is where there is no road map for doing something. I enjoy the challenge of getting into a space that's never been there before. Other people haven't done it. People can't say you are doing it right or wrong. And you live with the consequences. I like that blank canvas.
"There's a term, convergence. It means that not only does your computer talk, your TV talks and your lighting and your cars and your appliances. And there is still a concern about security. We make them all work together in a big picture for big customers. We call it facilities information management. It builds off things we've done in the past, one thing strung together with another, gluing them together so they work together reasonably."
What's the most efficient or productive time of day for you?
"Late is good. Early is tough for me. I'm slower to start in the morning and I accelerate later in the day. I wind down from about midnight to 1 a.m."
What is the most creative aspect of your work? What is the least creative or least satisfying?
"The things I like to do the most are getting to create new technology or businesses or relationships. We're in a technology business and yet, probably the most critical things out there are relationships. The big problems that are going to come up are going to be how to negotiate problems and issues with customers, employees and even partners and your success in those negotiations depend on good relationships.
"The least satisfying? The 'adminis-trivia.' The farther you get away from an idea or a product or a relationship, the less satisfying it is."
What is the most distracting element of your workday/workweek? How do you manage it?
"In our business a lot of things come rolling in at one time and I thrive on that, but it probably makes me less efficient. I try to focus on the important aspect of each thing as it comes along, the personnel issue you had no idea was going to happen, walking into a meeting with a new customer, dealing with an issue with a long-standing customer."
Do you work differently while traveling than in your office?
"I speak more to people by phone. When I'm in the office, I like to walk in and see people."
How do you use devices and electronics—Blackberries, cell phones, iPods—to manage work flow? Are they, on balance, more often a tool or a hindrance?
"I don't like to crack a laptop open on the road. I have a PDA, a Palm Treo. The Treo is much quicker. The more quickly I can get to the information, the better. It's one of the first real devices that allows me to be as mobile as possible and do every aspect of my job. I can check e-mail, make phone calls, watch a movie on an airplane, send a memo. We continue to evolve to see how much we can do securely on (the Treo). You do have to work through incorporating it properly so it can all be supported. Although, you get it perfect and then you have to get a new one."
What are some of your rules for success?
"I could put them into four words:
Vision. You have to be able to continually provide some vision to be moving forward.
Operational expertise. A lot of people have great ideas but can't implement.
Leadership. You can have a great idea and a great plan, but if nobody follows you, you can't get it done.
Balance. You have to remind yourself all the time that there are multiple branches to your life. On a given day, you know you cannot fill all those buckets. What I usually try to do is focus on which bucket I'm not taking care of. At the end of the day, take some tally."
If there is one thing you would like to do differently in the average workday, what is it? Why don't you do it?
If I could do one thing differently, it would be anything that would allow me to put on a ball cap that converts what I'm thinking into words on paper. The act of sitting in front of a blank page is something I don't look forward to. Looking at better ways to translate whatever is in my head, whenever it's there, would be useful. There is probably not an overnight solution."
Brill taking Talisen into health-care, financial markets
St. Louis Business Journal, March 4, 2005 – by Laurie Syberthttp://www.bizjournals.com/stlouis/stories/2005/03/07/focus22.html
Chief executive, Talisen Technologies
George Brill's Talisen Technologies, Inc. continues to expand its secure network communications systems further into its newest markets -- health care and financial services.
Talisen currently is working on a secure network for the Illinois Hospital Association -- a network that will provide an electronic collaboration for more than 200 hospitals, according to Brill.
Talisen provided "mission critical secure environments" for aerospace and defense clients including Boeing and the British Ministry of Defence. In the financial services arena, Talisen provides the secure network for Pulse EFT, an electronic funds transfer network.
The company Brill founded at age 27, in 1991, with one employee grew to a company with just under 100 employees and $11 million in revenue in 2004. Brill, 41, holds the majority interest in the company.
He said he always knew he would start his own business, but starting it at 27 had some drawbacks.
"When you start a business that young, you don't have the business relationships to draw on that you would if you had been in one industry for 30 years," Brill said. He credits his success to the "great people around me, timing, luck and prayer."
Brill's professional life has somewhat come full circle. He began his business in one of the St. Louis County Economic Council's business incubators and now serves on the board of the St. Louis Enterprise Centers. "It's part of me giving back to the community," Brill said. "I try to do anything I can do to help startup companies."
He's also an executive advisory board member for Parks College at Saint Louis University and was named the Small Business Person of the Year in 2004 by the Small Business Association in St. Louis. Brill encourages others to consider starting their own business.
lsybert@bizjournals.com
Talisen's Brill secures small business honor
St. Louis Business Journal, April 30, 2004 – by Rick Deslogehttp://www.bizjournals.com/stlouis/stories/2004/05/03/smallb2.html
It's taken George Brill 13 years to become an overnight success.
Talisen Technologies, Inc., the company he started in 1991, topped $12 million in revenue last year with 100 employees. Talisen was at $3.5 million with 38 employees just three years ago.
"It took us seven years to grow to 13 people. Last year I was gone for three weeks on business. When I came back we'd hired 13 people," Brill said.
Earlier this year, a committee with the Small Business Administration in St. Louis took notice. Brill was named the SBA's 2004 Small Business Person of the Year. It is the local top honor among a half dozen awards the SBA bestows during Small Business Week, May 3-8.
Six judges reviewed 11 companies that made the short list. "This was probably the best group I've seen in terms of quality of businesses," said Jeff Dee, vice president in the business banking division of Commerce Bank. He's been a judge on the panel for the last four years.
Talisen's growth and the quality of its people made the company stand out in the pack, Dee said. Talisen has both innovative technology and people with the skills to bring it to market, he said.
Talisen, which is based west St. Louis County, takes its name from a Celtic word for an all-knowing being. The company designs secure network communications for customers that have no room for errors -- Boeing, the British Ministry of Defense and Pulse, an electronic fund transfer network, among others.
"The (SBA) award is made to an individual but there's no way an individual can win this award," said Brill, who works closely with Paul Schwetz, president of the company, and Bruce Draper, chief technology officer.
Talisen received a major influx of talent two years ago when it acquired Consultrix, a small consulting firm, and its two partners Tony Zeis and Jim Wooten. "They were on the network consulting side of the business, and Talisen was in gateway applications. We both did security," Brill said.
That combination opened doors to other large companies needing secure networks.
Talisen brought to the deal business partners such as Sun Microsystems and Hewlett-Packard, which provide key parts of Talisen's products and give it "a window to the future" of the industry, Brill said.
He paired Talisen's more recent success with its ability to build partnerships with its customers. For example, it was through Boeing that Talisen made connections with the British Department of Defense. Brill's hope now is Talisen will be able to develop the same kind of profitable relationships in its own back yard.
Talisen today is vastly different from when Brill, now 40, started the company as AeroTech Service Group. He was an aeronautical engineer who saw the possibility of creating a technical consulting operation that could serve Boeing and its suppliers. He had connected with software developers within McDonnell Douglas (now Boeing) who had created a prototype of what became Talisen's software.
The SBA honor puts Talisen in some elite company. Leaders of three other technology companies have won the SBA award in the last five years: Himanshu Bhatia of Rose International; Randy Schilling with Quilogy; and Greg Sullivan of G.A. Sullivan, which sold last year to Seattle-based Avanade Inc.
rdesloge@bizjournals.com
Two area companies make Hispanic Business top 500 list
St. Louis Business Journal, June 1, 2004Two St. Louis-based companies made Hispanic Business magazine's list of the 500 largest Hispanic-owned companies in the nation in 2003. The list appears in its June issue.
Pangea Group of St. Louis ranks No. 145, up from No. 198 in 2002. The construction, restoration and environmental services provider had revenue of $31 million in 2003, the magazine said.
Talisen Technologies, Inc. ranks No. 318. The company wasn't on the prior year's list. The secure network developer had revenue of $12 million in 2003.
The only other Missouri company to make the list was Mid Continent Mechanical Inc. of North Kansas City, which ranks No. 482, down from No. 441 in 2002. The company is a plumbing and heating air-conditioning contractor.
Talisen Technologies takes prize for virtual community software
St. Louis Business Journal, April 19, 2002 – by Matt Sorrellhttp://www.bizjournals.com/stlouis/stories/2002/04/22/focus15.html
Talisen Technologies, formerly Aero Tech Service Group, a St. Louis company specializing in security technology, is flourishing in the world's current security-conscious climate.
In 1993, Talisen (then Aero Tech) was asked by McDonnell Douglas (now Boeing) to help expand its Internet-based communications systems so suppliers and customers could be included in the loop. Talisen met that challenge by creating software that enabled secure exchange of information over the Internet.
Today, that original Boeing virtual community supports more than 38,000 users, who can access more than 250 data sources and 800 unique applications.
"With the assistance of the Talisen product suite, we have substantially improved our data management and ability to communicate with third parties efficiently, even when communicating proprietary and sensitive data," said Don Lang, information systems project manager at Boeing.
Since that first project, Talisen has created numerous "virtual communities" using its self-titled Talisen software. These communities use a combination of hardware and services that allow information and software on a company's intranet to be shared securely with authorized users via the Internet. The virtual community is "virtually" located inside the system's firewall, allowing a user access to information through a secure portal without having direct network access, said George Brill, chief executive officer of Talisen.
"We do what's called secure proxying of access into their live applications," Brill said. "What that basically means is that (clients) can have their data viewed in place instead of making copies and storing them on an extranet."
The original technology was replaced with Web-based technology in 1996. From there, the product evolved into its current firewall-friendly version, Brill said, adding that the management tools and processing have become more sophisticated to deal with larger operating environments.
Brill said Talisen sees interest in the product from three primary industries: aerospace, automotive and heavy manufacturing, and health care, the latter primarily due to upcoming legislation expected to strengthen security and patient privacy requirements.
The company did $3.5 million in business in 2001, and Brill said revenue could double this year. Helping this growth are upcoming projects overseas, including in Australia and Greece; another project in Italy is pending. These projects are a result of Talisen's ongoing partnership with Boeing and its involvement in Boeing's industrial participation program.
In addition to Boeing, Talisen customers include the U.S. Department of Defense, Honeywell, GKN Aerospace and Great Britain's Ministry of Defense, which has accredited the software for use in transmitting its restricted information. Talisen is the first system ever to receive this accreditation, Brill said.
Matt Sorrell is a St. Louis free-lance writer.
U.K. Defence Ministry contracts with Talisen for software
St. Louis Business Journal, June 5, 2002A St. Louis software company is providing software to the U.K. Ministry of Defense that allows it to securely transmit restricted data over the Internet.
Financial terms were not disclosed.
Talisen Technologies' Virtual Community software allows the U.K. Ministry of Defense to securely collaborate with its contractors to facilitate the development of the U.K.'s Future Offensive Air System (FOAS). The FOAS program seeks to provide the U.K. with long-range offensive air capability to replace the Tornado GR4.
Four large companies in the United Kingdom also use the Talisen Virtual Community software.
ON THE CUTTING EDGE
St. Louis Commerce Magazine, September 2000 – by Liese Hutchisonhttp://www.encyclopedia.com/St%7eR%7e+Louis+Commerce+Magazine/publications.aspx?date=200009&pageNumber=1
2000 Fast 50 Winners (taken from excerpt)
AeroTech Service Group Inc.
Secure extranet solution provider George Brill President 12208 Missouri Bottom Road Hazelwood, MO 63042 314/895-4555 www.aerotechsg.com
A three-time FAST 50 winner and ranked in the middle at number 25 last year, AeroTech provides software development and support that allows companies to offer secure portals to intranet systems. The company offers a suite of software products: a secured proxy gateway, data access system, electronic bidding system and remote authorization services. Aerotech’s customers are primarily in the automotive, defense and heavy manufacturing industries, but the 9-year-old company also works with health-care systems. “Hospitals need secure access to patient records and our systems allow that,” says George Brill, president.
AeroTech has partnerships with companies in Finland, England and the Benelux countries. New European accounts include the Ministry of Defense in England, British Aerospace, Fokker and the Finnish Ministry of Defense. The company, with 22 employees, plans to open an office in Europe this year. “Right now, our primary focus is to solidify strategic relationships we’ve established over the last several months,” Brill states.