Board of Directors

E. Jamie Schloss, Chief Executive Officer, Director

Mr. Schloss was a certified public accountant for more than 30 years.  Mr. Schloss joined our Board on February 11, 2008 and previously served on the Surge’s Board from October 2004 to July 2006.  Mr. Schloss served as Chief Financial Officer from December 2005 to June 2006 and was appointed to serve as our Chief Executive Officer on February 19, 2008. Prior to his appointment as Chief Financial Officer, Mr. Schloss’ company Castle Rock Resources, Inc. was engaged as a consultant to Surge. Castle Rock participated in the drilling of more than 20 deep oil & gas wells in Texas, New Mexico, and Louisiana from 1990 to 1995 through joint venture partnerships. In June 1995, Castle Rock and partners sold seven wells in the Townsend (Sublime) Field in south Texas to Weeks Exploration Company for an aggregate of $16,000,000.  Castle Rock continues to own and manage two oil & gas wells in south Texas which have been producing oil and gas for more than 15 years. Mr. Schloss has a Juris Doctorate (JD) degree, a B.A. from the University of Pennsylvania, and an MBA equivalent from Pace College in New York. Mr. Schloss worked as a Certified Public Accountant in California and New Jersey from 1966-1970. Prior to his experience in the oil & gas drilling and exploration business, Mr. Schloss was an executive and officer of several entertainment industry firms including MCA-Universal., Warner Bros. Television Distribution, Western-World Television, and Hal Roach Studios.

 

Barry Nussbaum, Chairman

Mr. Nussbaum joined our Board on February 11, 2008 and previously served on Surge’s Board from March 2006 to July 2006. Mr. Nussbaum is the CEO of BNC Real Estate, which he founded 30 years ago. While formerly owning and managing properties throughout Southern California and Arizona, BNC Real Estate currently owns and manages projects throughout Texas. Mr. Nussbaum is also the co-founder and former board member of several companies including Digital Orchid, a wireless technology company, which sells products in 22 countries. He is in his tenth year as a board member (four as president) of the California 22nd District Agricultural Association, also known as the Del Mar Fair Board. Appointed to three terms by the Governor of California, the Del Mar Fair Board manages the 100+acres of fairgrounds properties including the world famous Del Mar Race Track. In addition, the Governor previously appointed him to the State Race Authority and State Race Track Leasing Commission. Mr. Nussbaum has a Juris Doctorate from the University of San Diego School of Law, and a Bachelor of Arts (Summa Cum Laude) from Claremont McKenna College.

 

Jeffrey L. Bernstein, Director

Mr. Bernstein joined our Board on February 11, 2008 and is the founder of Granite Group, L.P., a hedge fund, for which he has served as its CEO from 1998 to the present.  From 1982 to 2000, Mr. Bernstein was a trader on the Chicago Board of Trade.  He has a B.A. from the University of California at Santa Barbara.

 

Mark Fritz, Director

Mr. Fritz joined our Board on February 12, 2008.  Mr. Fritz has been the owner and President of MCF Machine Co., Inc. since 1981.  Mr. Fritz attended Ohio State University and Stark State University from 1975 through 1980 and was voted the Business Person of the Year in Canton, Ohio in 1989.

 

Edwin J (Ed) Korhonen, Director

Graduate of Queen’s University Kingston ON (1957) with a BS.C in Electrical Engineering. Member of the Professional Engineers of Ontario.

Mr. Korhonen, age 73, began his career as a Sales Engineer with Allen-Bradley selling electric motor controls. He then joined Campbell Soup in Toronto in 1963 and worked in production management and as Director of Engineering in the US, returning in 1973 as President of the Canadian Company. He subsequently became President of Nabisco Brands and then Maple Leaf Flour Mills in Canada until 1991.

For the past 15 years, he has been involved as President with smaller, early-stage businesses, including Tracker Corporation, a bar code identification system to identify and return lost and stolen items; Eco Logic, a high temperature hydrogen technology to destroy hazardous and toxic materials; and since 1998 as President and investor in Northstar Multicorp, manufacturer of a peat-based absorbent to clean up oil spills, currently exported to over 15 countries. He also served 21 years on the Board of Governors of the Queensway Hospital in Toronto, including serving as Treasurer and Chairman of the finance and audit committee for about five years.

Mr. Korhonen is currently a director of ISG Preventive Technology Inc, a start-up Toronto based company with a patented integrated strain gauge technology that can be used to estimate and predict fatigue life of materials and structures.

 

Kenneth D. Polin, Director

Mr. Polin has over 25 years of experience in the areas of securities, venture capital, mergers and acquisitions, and other financing transactions and is a partner in the law firm of Foley & Lardner LLP. He concentrates his practice on corporate and securities law with an emphasis on representation of emerging and public technology and growth companies. He also has extensive experience representing venture capital and other investors. Mr. Polin has managed a broad range of major business transactions for these entities, including private placements and public offerings; mergers, acquisitions and spin-offs; joint ventures and other strategic collaborations; and commercial transactions, such as bank credit lines, lease lines and off-balance sheet financings. He has been counsel to companies in the biotechnology, media, communications, hardware, healthcare, medical device, software and telecommunications industries. These companies range from start-ups to companies with hundreds of millions of dollars in annual revenues. He also regularly represents finance companies in a variety of consumer and commercial finance transactions. He joined Foley & Lardner in 2001 after having previously been a partner in several other major national law firms. Mr. Polin is a member of the California State Bar and the San Diego Bar Association. He is extremely active in community affairs as a member of the board of directors of the Lawrence Family Jewish Community Centers of San Diego County, where he previously served as president. He also is a board member of the UCSD Cancer Center Foundation, and is an executive board member and assistant treasurer of the United Jewish Federation of San Diego. Mr. Polin received his bachelor’s degree, summa cum laude, from American University in 1975. His J.D. degree was conferred, magna cum laude, in 1978 by Georgetown University, where he was a member of the Georgetown University Law Review.

 

Charles Sage, Director

Mr. Sage joined our Board on February 11, 2008.  Mr. Sage was employed by the Goodyear Tire & Rubber Company from 1967 until 2000 where he held senior sales, marketing and general management positions.  Responsibilities included strategic planning, product and process rationalization, organizational development, merger and acquisitions, and succession planning. Since 2001, he has been engaged as a consultant to industrial rubber products companies seeking to broaden market presence through the acquisition of North American operations.  Mr. Sage has a Bachelor of Science (BS) degree from the Kelley School of Business at Indiana University, Bloomington, Indiana.

 

Warren M. Dillard, Director

Warren M. Dillard, age 67, has been active in the financial management world for nearly 40 years. A graduate of the Harvard Business School he entered business managing mutual funds, has had top level operating responsibility in a number of positions and is currently active in private investment banking.

Mr. Dillard is currently President of Enecor Energy, Inc., a Los Angeles based energy company active in assembling a considerable inventory of lease in the state of Utah on state and federal lands holding deposits of oil sands. Until early 2006, Mr. Dillard was recently a Founder, Chairman and CEO of Global Card International, LLC, an international marketing company that sells and services debit cards to the “unbanked” populations of the world, initially Mexican immigrants, through direct contract relationships with the various states andprivate business entities in Mexico as well as through employers in the United States.

Mr. Dillard is the former Vice Chairman of The Gordon Group, of Los Angeles, California, and was responsible for financial and strategic planning, capital formation and corporate coordination of all of The Gordon Group of companies. Previously, Mr. Dillard was President and Chief Financial Officer of the Group upon it’s founding in 2000 and was instrumental in developing each of its five business units. This included a position as Chief Strategic Officer and Director of what is now known as iPayment Holdings, a now-public e-commerce payment gateway serving 20,000 merchants.

For the past 20 years, Mr. Dillard has been active in private investment banking for new and emerging growth companies in a variety of industries including real estate, oil & gas, financial services and technology. This activity included raising private and public equity capital for an early stage high tech company in Silicon Valley that he took public, to which he was also appointed Chief Operating Officer, Chief Financial Officer and Director. He brought capital into the company through privately placed equity in both the United States and Asia. Mr. Dillard provides capital formation and business strategy consulting for early stage ventures in energy, technology and electronic commerce. He received his BBA in Accounting from Texas A & M University and his MBA in Finance with Honors from the Harvard Business School.

 

Mr. David A. Rapaport, Esq., Director

Mr. David A. Rapaport, Esq., age 67, is currently Executive Vice President & General Counsel for High Capital Funding. He was a director and General Counsel for Middle Kingdom Alliance Group, a special purpose acquisition corporation which went public in December 2006 until July, 2009. He served as a director and on the audit committee of Reconditioned systems, Inc. a NASDCS listed refurbisher and distributor of office furniture from 2002 until 2005. His prior experience includes serving on several Boards of directors and managing Initial Public Offerings (IPO’s). Mr. Rapaport has a LLB from St. John’s University School of Law and is admitted to practice law in Georgia and New York.

 

Fred B. Zaziski, Director

Fred B. Zaziski, age 56, is a senior manager with comprehensive background in domestic and international oil and gas development, operations and strategic management. Mr. Zaziski has more than 20 years diversified oil and gas experience working for Halliburton, National Petroleum Company in Saudi Arabia, and Com Oxy, Houston TX. He was formerly President and Chief Executive Officer or Epsilon Energy, Inc. based in Toronto, Canada and Houston, Texas. He has a BS in Petroleum Engineering from Pennsylvania State University and is a member of the Society of Petroleum Engineers (SPE) and the American Petroleum Institute.