HAT Named Chairman of The Princeton Review

Princeton Review names new chairman



By: Catherine Tymkiw
Published: March 30, 2007 - 12:46 pm


Princeton Review Inc. named a new chairman and hired a consulting team as it reported disappointing quarterly results.

The company, which has seen its operating expenses grow 4.6% last year, said it has experienced significant margin erosion.

“Our latest operating results argue that much remains to be done,” said Chief Executive John Katzman in a statement. Mr. Katzman also said he was stepping down as chairman of the board and that the test-preparation company has hired consultants “to help us improve and accelerate the revamping of our cost structure.”

Longtime board member Howard Tullman will become the new chairman. Mr. Tullman is president of Kendal College in Evanston, Ill., and chairman of the board of The Cobalt Group, a Seattle-based provider of Internet services and B2B marketplaces for the automotive industry. He has been a member of Princeton Review’s board since 2000.

The company’s stock has lagged well below its 2001 initial public offering of $11 a share. Princeton Review’s stock fell as much as 5.9% to $5.12 during morning trading and was down 1% intraday.

The Manhattan company lost $4.2 million or 15 cents a share, in the fourth quarter, compared with a loss of $4.1 million, or 15 cents a share, in the year-earlier period. Revenue grew 10.4% to $35.7 million.

Revenue from Princeton Review’s test-preparation services unit, which accounts for more than half of the company’s total, surged 21%, to $17.1 million. Admissions-services revenue declined 7.4%, to $3.4 million, due to lower counseling revenue related to a discontinued contract. Revenue from K-12 services was flat at $11.6 million.

Chicago Daily Law Bulletin Article on LEX and Experiencia

Attorney General Lisa Madigan and Experiencia President Elaine Mondschein in the LaSalle Bank branch at Exchange City looking over loan documents.



Chicago Daily Law Bulletin
March 29, 2007 Volume: 153 Issue: 62

Taking over the town, legally
By John Flynn Rooney
Law Bulletin staff writer

Chicago law firms are being asked to jump on board a program that helps the city's public school students acquire real-life skills.

The program allows 5th- and 6th-grade students to spend a day at ''Exchange City,'' a 25,000-square-foot facility located at 770 N. Halsted St.

The students ''come to the center and run an entire city,'' Howard A. Tullman, chair of Experiencia Inc., said in a telephone interview Thursday.

Experiencia has developed a program called the Exchange City Immersive Learning Program in which students work through a proprietary curriculum with their own teachers in their own classrooms for about 40 hours. The curriculum is based on state and national classroom standards for government, economics, math, social studies and entrepreneur studies. That prepares the students for the day they'll spend at the Exchange City learning center.

Tullman and Illinois Attorney General Lisa M. Madigan are encouraging law firms to help select and sponsor individual Chicago public schools so the students can participate in the program.

At least 50 area law firms are being sought to donate $3,500 each to provide scholarships so that CPS students can participate in Exchange City, according to Tullman, who is a lawyer.

Madigan will serve as honorary chair of Experiencia Inc.'s special Law Day program — titled ''Lex'' after the Latin for ''law'' — on May 1, the date when Law Day is observed nationally to expand public awareness of how laws and the justice system affect people. The contributions are being sought from the law firms under the Lex program.

The theme of this year's Law Day is ''Liberty Under Law: Empowering Youth, Assuring Democracy.''

Not all Chicago public schools can afford to have students participate in the program without financial assistance, according to Tullman.

''The Experiencia Exchange City Program provides a wonderful opportunity for CPS students to put what they learn into action,'' Madigan said in a press release. ''With the help of many law firms, CPS students from all over Chicago can have this learning experience.''

The Exchange City program opened in Chicago last May. But similar programs have operated in other cities for 20 years, Tullman said.

The program, which is in place in Houston, Memphis and other cities, is also available to private and charter school students, Tullman added. More information about the programs can be found at www.experiencia-world.com.

Experiencia trains teachers, who in turn train the students. There is an eight-week curriculum that culminates in the day that the students spend at Exchange City.

While at the facility, the students write and enforce their own laws and elect a mayor and a judge. The students also operate their own bank, publish a newspaper, videotape a television program, write resumes and deliver mail.

''My impression is … that the kids get an opportunity to work as a team, so they learn teamwork, communication and leadership skills, which is crucial for the rest of their life,'' Tullman said.

There are also educational benefits to students participating in the program, such as an increase in achievement test scores, Tullman added.

''They know how to operate a checkbook, create a resume [and] apply for a loan,'' Tullman continued. ''They [also] learn about hundreds of types of jobs and careers that they would never have previously known about.''

Michael E. Fox, a name partner in Fox, Hefer, Swibel, Levin & Carroll Ltd. in Chicago, said Thursday that he will make a financial contribution to the program and his firm probably will also donate money.

''We expect exciting things from this,'' Fox said.

Nice Article on Glen Tullman in New Issue of Time Magazine

Although Glen sometimes forgets how he got his start in business and who his first employer was, the good news is that he continues to steal copyrighted HAT Words of Wisdom so I will always have a source of income in my later years - even if I have to sue him to get it. Actually, I couldn't be prouder of his many accomplishments and especially his charitable work with Juvenile Diabetes. Congrats, Bro.



Thursday, Mar. 29, 2007

Chasing Paper from Medicine.
By Unmesh Kher



Glen Tullman didn't invent information technology, but he is one of those people who figured out early how to aim it with effect. Case in point: the 3 billion often illegibly marked paper prescriptions that Americans get from their doctors each year. Tullman, CEO of the electronic health records company Allscripts, would like to whittle that number to zero. Prescription errors, he points out, injure 1.5 million and kill 7,000 patients annually--and most mistakes could be avoided if scripts were written electronically. "Seven thousand deaths is the equivalent of one Boeing 737 crashing every week for a year," he says. "If one of them crashes, there's an investigation and a public outcry." In January, Allscripts teamed with Dell and a host of technology, insurance and health-care firms to launch the National ePrescribing Patient Safety Initiative (NEPSI). The consortium will provide electronic prescribing free to doctors across the country. Tullman estimates the cost at about $100 million over five years.

The NEPSI project captures part of what motivates Tullman to work. "The opportunity to make a difference, to tackle a big problem, is what gets me excited," he says. But he isn't all high moral purpose. So there's another biggie: pleasure. In creating, succeeding, repeating. "You spend way too many hours doing it to not have fun doing what you do," he says. "And when you're having fun, it's not work."

Judging from his résumé, Tullman has had a ton of fun. A bureaucrat turned serial entrepreneur, Tullman began his career in the Office of Management and Budget of the Carter and Reagan administrations, then earned an advanced degree in social anthropology at Oxford. "Working in Washington was a great experience," he says. "But it also helped me understand that the problems we face in the country won't be solved there. They'll be solved locally, and business will have to play a critical role."

After returning, he began working with his brother, who had started CCC Information Services, a company that had automated claims processing for the paper-weighted insurance industry. Under Tullman's eventual leadership, CCC went public and quadrupled sales, to $120 million. Mission accomplished, Tullman in 1994 took over as CEO of Enterprise Systems, which provides management software to hospitals (for, say, scheduling operating rooms). He took that firm public as well and sold it for some $250 million three years later.

Allscripts was bleeding red ink when Tullman arrived in 1997. Its business then boiled down to repackaging medicines for resale to physicians. Tullman refinanced Allscripts and focused it on providing information systems to doctors. Tullman and his team believed advances in technology were increasingly moving procedures away from hospitals and into clinics and doctors' offices. "That's a big trend because you get higher quality at lower cost," he says. In some respects, the solution was early: the medical community has taken its time coming around, but the e-health industry has gathered momentum over the past couple of years, and Allscripts is now growing fast. Its sales increased 89%, to $228 million, in 2006; earnings increased 23%, to $12 million.

Tullman's success has allowed him to point his infotech mind-set elsewhere. He invests in start-ups, mostly in health care and education, the two sectors he believes are in deepest crisis. One company, Extended Care Information Network, automates the difficult process of finding extended-care facilities for debilitated patients. Another, Experiencia Inc., is an educational venture that puts grade-schoolers through eight-week courses in economics and science and then immerses them in simulations that bring their learning to life--running a city, dealing with an ecological disaster.

Indeed, Tullman sees teaching as central to his work: coaching executives to become leaders. And instilling a sense of responsibility, which is what drives the NEPSI project--in part. Being profitable is, of course, crucial. Tullman reckons that NEPSI will cost Allscripts $30 million over five years. But he's also betting that doctors who get a dose of e-prescribing will someday want to buy a full suite of programs from the company--to cover everything from lab tests to full medical histories. "In the interim," says Tullman, "we're going to save millions of Americans from injury and save thousands of lives." In the interim, that's not a bad return on investment.
•

Purchases at the Gage Beaux-Arts Auction in Seattle

It was a pleasure to support the Gage Academy of Art at the recent Beaux-Arts Auction and to buy a few very interesting pieces:

Bo Bartlett

"Untitled"



Suzanne Brooker

"Dreaming"



Geoffrey Flack

"Standing Female Nude"

Art Chicago 2007 in Art in America

Leonard Koscianski Show at OK Harris

Feminist Show featuring Adela Leibowitz Work

Lovely Dark and Deep - Women Artists Retake the Fairy Tale

Nice Review of Feminist Art Show including ORLY COGAN

Art in Brief
By JENNIFER RILEY
March 22, 2007

WOMEN'S WORK: Homage to Feminist Art
Tabla Rasa Gallery

Under the title "Women's Work: Homage to Feminist Art," Tabla Rasa and the Feminist Art Journal present an all women's exhibition that gathers together the work of 20 artists, each represented by one work. Coincident with several exhibitions this spring devoted to feminist art, this show reflects curator Cindy Nemser's view that for a woman to create art is a feminist action, whether political in intent or not.

The show offers no overt organizing theme other than the fact that the work is made by women. While this is chaotic at first glance, several themes link the works, which span from the 1970s to 2006. Work by artists with formidable careers hang comfortably next to near unknown talents. Ms. Nemser has selected sculpture, video, embroidery, photography, pastels, charcoal drawing, and abstract and figurative paintings. The works range from the political — Sue Coe's 1992 etching "Thank You America ( Anita Hill)" in which America is spelled "Amerikkka" — to the witty and personal — Orly Cogan's hand-stitched bed cover with figures in various states of undress and play.

Themes from the realms of psychology and mythology figure prominently. Two monumental self-portraits from Hanna Wilke's "Intra-Venus Series #7 Feb. 20 and Aug. 18, 1992" command the room from the back wall. Ms. Wilke's chilling gaze, a mixture of vulnerability and acceptance, is captured during treatments for cancer, the disease that shortly thereafter claimed her. Velvet ropes cordon off the images for practical reasons — they are unframed, frontmounted chromogenic supergloss prints — and become a metaphorical threshold.

Nearby, Audrey Flack's bronze head, "Amor Vicit Omnia," with tubes oozing paint and a handgun spun into Medusa-like locks, is a distant relative of a mythological Gorgon. Eleanor Antin's chromogenic print "Alice's Dream for Roman Allegories" extends this dialogue and seems to be speaking to a delightful set of portraits: "The Blue Dress" by the 90-year-old Chelsea-based painter Sylvia Sliegh and Audrey Anastasi's darker "Psychodrama Mama."

March 28 until May 13 (224 48th St. at Second Avenue, Brooklyn, 718-833-0305).

New Art from Volitant Gallery in Austin Texas

New Art from Volitant Gallery in Austin, Texas


Terri Thomas

Terri Thomas envisions her life-sized oil paintings as mirrors for our collective notions of 'duality,' 'femininity,' 'beauty,' and 'perfection.' Despite the powerful visual language of her videos, paintings, digital stills and performances, there is more than initially meets the eye. Employing a diaristic approach laden with references to consumer imagery, societal stereotypes, cultural fascinations, and art history itself, Thomas' works are charged with ambiguity. By appropriating mass media imagery and her own image, and reworking both with a critical eye, Thomas examines how society and we as individuals are caught in an ubiquitous web of self-production imagery that is at once repulsive and enticing.



"Twin/Singleton"




"Artist as Barbie Triptych"




Artist's Statement

Identity In The Age Of The Image
by Terri Thomas

"A culture always cultivates what it honors." - Plato

As a society, we are enthralled with facsimiles, illusions and notions of "Beauty" and the "Double". So much so, that we prefer the image to the object, appearance to substance, fantasy to reality, form to content, and copies to their original.

We create simulations of self that are romanticized concepts of who we wish to be. Representations are so realistic that enhanced images in fashion magazines, cinema's artificial heroes, TV celebrities, and even the "standard", ubiquitous mannequins in department stores work their way into the construction of our identities. These manufactured ideals intoxicate us to the point we aspire to embody them. Rather than reflecting who we are, these fabrications become a new desire, a new goal.

Technology has become our ally in our relentless pursuit of these projected ideals. Rather than question what is real, original, or valuable, we have become obsessed with our potential double — some "new & improved" self, as we choose to "nurture" ourselves rather than choosing our inherent "nature". However, our culture's obsession with notions of "Beauty" and "Perfection" traps us in a state of either "self-preservation" or "self-persecution." In attempts to self-preserve, we document, enhance, and refigure our bodies to maintain appearances. We are conditioned to experience self-persecution and a distorted self-esteem as we attempt to avoid, or give in to, the no-win confines of the media and its beauty myth.

In striving for the realization of an idealized self, it may be that our individual goals are becoming increasingly the same. We are both the consumers and the consumed. First, we create the simulations and parodies, then, they create us. As a result, our societal projected ideals, replicas, and stereotypes lead to superficial and stereotypical behavior. Because of what we honor, we allow ourselves to be shaped by verisimilitude and identity becomes production.


Artist's Statement 2:

Prints, videos, drawings and life-sized paintings are best viewed as mirrors for our collective notions of ‘otherness/duality,’ ‘beauty’ and ‘perfection.’
As a twin who has spent 15 years in the fashion industry, I am fascinated by the way the media perverts the idea of twins, turning them into identity-less icons in order to sell products, negating individuality and creating stereotypes. I am also interested in how the media breeds envy and shame through fabricated ideals, spectacle and imagery that fuels our desire for self-improvement.

Using personal narratives laden with references to consumer imagery, societal stereotypes, cultural fascinations and art history, my work is based on concern for how we are conditioned to desire, identify with and be informed by the media. My personal experiences are flattened, fictionalized, and fabricated until they become the products and ideas I criticize.

By combining my own images with appropriated mass media imagery, I examine how society and we as individuals are caught in a ubiquitous web of self-production that is at once repulsive and enticing.



Artist's Resume


Born 1967 Detroit, MI.

Education

2004 Bachelor’s of Fine Art, Corcoran College of Art + Design,
Washington, D.C.

Solo Exhibitions

2006 “U-Genics,” invited by John Markey & Chris Slover, Volitant Gallery, Austin, Texas
2004 “Indivi/duality,” curated by Scip Barnhart, Mac Feely Gallery, The Arts
Club of Washington, D.C.

Group Exhibitions

2007 “5 x 7 2007,” organized by Sue Graze, Arthouse at the Jones Center, Austin Texas
2006 “Temporal Happiness,” invited by S Gaulager & C Disabato, Aved Gallery, Austin, Texas
2006 “Humans,” curated by James Baird Gallery >Pouch Cove, Newfoundland, Cananda
2006 “Red Hot” exhibit, invited by Chris Cowden at Women & Their Work, Austin, Texas
2006 ”Invitational Show,” organized by Rachel Koper at Gallery Lombardi, , Austin, Texas
2005 “The Others,” selected by Lytle Pressley at Spazio, Austin, Texas
2005 “Faces of the Fallen,” organized by Annette Polan, The Women in Military Service for
America Memorial, in the Arlington National Cemetery.
2005 “Uncommon Vision,” curated by William Newman at the Monroe Gallery, in The Arts Club
of Washington, D.C.
2004 “Academy 2004,” curated by Jamie L. Smith at Conner Contemporary Art Gallery, Washington, D.C.
2004 “All Senior Show,” in Gallery #2 at The Corcoran Museum of Art, Washington D.C.
2004 “BFA Thesis Exhibit,” in the Hemicycle, Corcoran Museum of Art, Washington D.C.
2004 “Together with U,” organized by Chris Williams at South Gallery 3, Baltimore, MD.

Awards

2004 /00 Dean’s Merit Scholarship - Honors Graduate
2002 Dr. William Newman Award – Outstanding Achievement In Painting.
2001 Foundation Faculty Award-Outstanding Achievement in Painting and Drawing

Publications

2006 Volitant Catalog, “U-Genics,” Interview with Joe Martin Hill (whom is on the curatorial team assisting Robert Storr in the preparation of the Venice Biennale for 2007).
2006 Undecided Review - Terri Thomas’ “U-Genics,” November 7th, 2006.
2006 In The Works: An Art Blog – “U-Genics” Review, September 30th, 2006.
2005 Spazio’s Artist Spotlight, November 2005.
2004 Washington City Paper, “ Thinking About Art: August 2004”, by Louis Jacobson
2004 WPAC (Washington Projects for the Arts-Corcoran) 2004 Catalog
2004/02 Corcoran College of Art + Design Catalog

Collections

Transitions Institute, Dallas, TX.
Stephen M. Potts & Associates, Inc. Dallas, TX.
Larry Leon & Associates, Dallas, TX.
Toni & Guy, Dallas, TX.
A & C Ventures, San Francisco, CA.
First Street Inc., San Francisco, CA.
Private collection of the Cartwright’s, Marina Del Rey, CA.
Private collection of Frauke and Cornell Faultin, Washington, D.C.
Private collection of Emilie and Stephen Becker, Austin, Texas
Private collection of Megan and Chris Slover, (owner of Volitant Gallery), Austin, Texas.
Private collection of Judith and Howard A. Tullman, Chicago, Illinois.
Additional Private Collectors throughout the U.S.


Artist's Biography

Terri Thomas: Biography

Terri Thomas was born in 1967 in Detroit, Michigan. As a twin raised by a single mother, she grew increasingly aware of the range of complex body issues that preoccupy most females. She showed artistic talent from an early age, fascinated by the scope of emotion her grandfather, a professional artist, was able to infuse into his paintings.

To get closer to the art world Terri pursued a career in the fashion industry. As a hair stylist, a job well done meant a day filled with hopeful transformations in which desirable makeovers turned into reality. While she developed close relationships with her clients, often acting as their confidant, Terri became more and more concerned with the ever-increasing emphasis on physical perfection and the means to which people would go to achieve this standard.

She also became concerned with the commoditization of beauty. Terri began to feel anesthetized toward the feelings and discomforts of the models she was surrounded by; they were often little more than the tools of the industry, continually cast off for their non-compliance or “imperfections”. Soon she was unable to decipher if her work in fashion was empowering or if it was contribution to a growing contemporary problem.

One day Terri stumbled upon an article in a fashion magazine about painter Jenny Saville entitled Skin Deep. Saville’s raw, expressionistic bodies were powerful portrayals of the many issues that had begun to consume Terri’s thoughts.
After moving to Washington, D.C. in 2001, Terri decided to give up her 15-year career in fashion and pursue an art degree at Corcoran College of Art & Design.

Influenced by the work of artists like Cindy Sherman, Douglas Gordon, Marc Quinn, Jeff Koons and Vanessa Beecroft, Terri began painting large-scale cinematic, seductive paintings that analyzed how self-perception is affected by the media.
Since graduating from Corcoran with honors in 2004, Terri’s work has expanded to include installation, video and photography. Her work continues to challenge preconceptions about beauty and explore how the utopian promises of the media both feed and reconcile anxieties about the self. Her work has been shown in multiple group and solo exhibitions throughout the country. The artist currently lives and works in Austin, Texas.

New Art from Bucheon Gallery

New Art from Bucheon Gallery in San Francisco

ECKARD ETZOLD

"Police Door"

New Art From James Harris Gallery - Seattle

New Work from James Harris Gallery

ANGELA FRALEIGH

"If Understood Lately"




Gallery Notes:

James Harris gallery is pleased to present if not, winter an exhibition that includes both monumental paintings and intimate works-on-paper by New York-based painter, Angela Fraleigh. Regardless of scale, Fraleigh’s work is unified by an unrelenting inquiry into social constructs of beauty and gender. Obscuring stereotypical imagery of couples caught in embrace with ambiguous power structures, the work is fueled by tension. Vulnerable figures embrace, but revulsion and desire, violence and lust appear in tandem. Distinguishing pleasure from struggle is complicated by the rich pours of paint that grip the figures and often envelopes the compositions.

The exhibition will consist of two grand paintings. In both works, two figures tumble across the canvas awash a sea of color. In one, the figures are camouflaged by pours of green, blue and white paint; in the other, abstract pours dominate less though they too subtly conceal the figure’s embrace.

This seductive imagery that lies at the root of the work's success is heightened by Fraleigh's provocative formal process. The artist begins each painting by exquisitely rendering the gestures of the figures. Through the medium, Fraleigh captures the nuance and intensity of passion. Explosive puddles of glossy paint are layered on and left to leak between the nudes, balancing the work between abstraction and figuration. The push and pull of the richly colored surface adds additional layers of tension between the figures, emotional embraces are ruptured by color.

In addition to the large-scale paintings, there will also be a number of smaller watercolors in the show. Loosely rendered with washes of color and pencil, Fraleigh's works-on-paper have an ethereal atmosphere. The compositions convey spontaneity and movement.

As Claire Barliant, Associate Editor of Artforum stated Fraleigh’s painting “plays on ambiguities…at once vulnerable and fierce, concealed and exposed.” if not, winter highlights these observations, also revealing how masterfully Fraleigh captures the seductive beauty and powerful fluidity of paint.

FLASHPOINT NEWS

Flashpoint Downtown Location Announced - Open Houses Begin March 31



A Great View from the 5th Floor




Entry Area



Lobby

FLASHPOINT NEWS

Flashpoint Announces HAT as President/CEO

Tullman Named CEO of Flashpoint Academy

Flashpoint Academy announced today that Howard A. Tullman, Chairman of the Boards of The Cobalt Group, The Princeton Review and Experiencia, Inc. and President Emeritus of Kendall College is the lead investor in a group which has made a substantial investment in the new college (scheduled to open in September 2007) and that Mr. Tullman has assumed the role of President and CEO of Flashpoint Academy, effective immediately. Ric Landry, the founder of Flashpoint, will remain actively involved in the new school as the Chairman of the Board of Directors.

Chairman Landry noted that “Howard’s involvement delivers on our promise to shareholders, faculty, students and parents to provide the best and brightest leadership for Flashpoint Academy. Howard’s track record in the digital media arts and educational arenas is unequaled in its brilliance and we look forward to Flashpoint becoming the premier digital arts program in the mid-west if not the country”

Tullman is the founder of numerous Chicago-based businesses in a wide variety of fields as well as an expert in entrepreneurship and change management. He has worked and lived in Chicago for more than 30 years and has employed thousands of business, technical and creative individuals in over a dozen successful businesses. He is a particularly important addition to the Flashpoint management team because, in addition to being a seasoned entrepreneur and a long-time adjunct business professor at the Kellogg school, he is an accomplished and award-winning computer game designer and developer, the founder of several of the country’s largest online music websites, one of the earliest developers of many of the computer animation techniques which have now become industry standards, and an established author, screenwriter and director with several projects currently under development. Tullman’s first website was selected for inclusion in the Permanent Research Collection of the Smithsonian Institute. His various products and projects have won numerous industry and peer awards over many years.

In the last 5 years, Tullman has turned his considerable talents and attention to the pressing need to improve education at all levels in and throughout the City of Chicago. He was responsible for the dramatic financial and institutional turnaround of Kendall College and its move (after 75 years) from Evanston to a brand-new, state-of-the-art campus in Chicago on Goose Island where it has quickly become the City’s premier culinary and hospitality school (and one of the top 3 culinary schools in America) as well as an important player in online early childhood education studies.

Tullman points out that he is especially excited about building a brand-new school like Flashpoint because this is such a crucial time and tipping point in the development of new educational methods. He said that “we need to educate our students in areas that no one knew yesterday and prepare our schools for what no one knows today. And we need to provide our graduates with faster, more cost-effective and more direct paths to concrete and immediate employment opportunities in today’s explosive digital media fields where the best jobs are waiting. Flashpoint means just that to me – in the moment, in a flash and to the point…no muss, no fuss, no wasted time or effort – just results.”

He financed, designed, built and opened the Immersive Learning Center of Experiencia, Inc., located a block away from the new Kendall College, where tens of thousands of Chicago elementary school students are being trained in innovative new programs to be young scientists and entrepreneurs in a 25,000 square foot facility that houses a complete mini-Chicago as well as 4 natural habitats and over 60 species of live animals. Tullman was also instrumental in selecting the location and assembling the parties now building the British School of Chicago which will be relocated to a brand new facility just 3 blocks north of Kendall College on Halsted Street.

Tullman is a graduate with honors of Northwestern University and a graduate with honors of its Law School as well where he served as Chairman of the Editors of the Law Review and was elected to the Order of the Coif. Tullman was appointed by President Clinton to serve as a member of the President’s Committee on the Arts and Humanities.

Flashpoint, The Academy of Media Arts and Sciences …………. “You know who you are, we know who you can be”


For Additional Information Contact:

Mary Owczarski
Flashpoint, The Academy of Media Arts and Sciences
28 North Clark
Chicago, IL 60602
312-332-0707
Or visit www.tfa.edu*

*Updated 7/9/12

New Art from g2 Gallery - Fort Guerin

Artist's Statement:

Writing has always been a struggle for me. I would sit down and attempt to write stories, only to find that it was much harder than painting. I assumed that if I spent the same time on my writing as I did with my painting, I would be able to develop my writing into something that would be bearable. Well that never happened, and I always felt guilty about taking time away from my painting. I finally arrived at a compromise of combining imagery with text. The images act as a spring board in developing a story. From a distance, the miniature text appears as lines in the background. However, as you approach the painting and realize that what you thought were lines are actually words, you are drawn in and the painting takes on a certain intimate quality. The text ultimately becomes part of the aesthetic quality of the painting.



"Listen to the Night Move"



"Friday Nights"



"Punk Rocker"

Midwest Business Piece on Flashpoint Academy

Flashpoint Academy in Chicago to Provide Digital Media Training
Published on 3/6/2007




CHICAGO – Call it the 21st century mailroom. For generations, the best way to obtain real-world exposure to the media industry was to push paper for an agency or studio.
Beginning this fall, though, high school graduates interested in producing digital media can cultivate their craft at a new academy with classes in Chicago’s Loop and a sound stage on the west side.

Flashpoint Academy is the brainchild of Lake Forest, Ill.-based private equity professional Rik Landry.

After managing early stage investment firm MBC Global and running a few enterprises of his own, Landry is teaming up on Flashpoint with Chicago-based entrepreneur Howard Tullman and other local angel investors.

Tullman, who founded CCC Information Systems in 1980, is a pioneer of digital media productions. He produced CD-ROM games based on the “Where’s Waldo?” series and Arnold Schwarzenegger’s film “Eraser” as well as early Web sites for Downbeat and Rolling Stone magazines.

More recently, he seems to be targeting educational ventures and is the chairman of Chicago-based Experiencia as well as the Princeton Review.


Flashpoint Academy is located at 28 N. Clark St. in the heart of Chicago’s Loop.



Among the topics discussed with Landry and Tullman in Monday’s Chicago Sun-Times column were the genesis of Flashpoint, its value proposition and Chicago’s place within the evolving media and entertainment landscapes.

On Why They Started Flashpoint


Landry: Teaching is an 18th century model.
There is so much information flow now. What you learn by standing around is much more than I learned going to high school. This idea has been around in my little brain for eight years. How do you get a kid into an environment where he is that passionate and focused and he be happy to be there 40 hours per week?

When game technology revenue worldwide blew by the film industry, that was it for me. That was in August and bang: I hit the button and we started.

Tullman: You are looking at the convergence of the entertainment business with game technology, which is now bigger than the film business.

This is an interesting new generation. There are a lot of kids who are talented but they don’t test well and don’t want to be a doctor or lawyer. This is what the mayor is all over: How do I get these kids to become successful members of the city?

On Value Proposition For Parents, Students


Tullman: In 24 months, we can create people with portfolios who can hit the ground running and make compensation levels that are four and five times what a typical liberal arts college graduate will make. They will have a proven track record because they will have spent their time working in the industry.
There isn’t a business in America that doesn’t need Web talent. Web talent is going to be music, sound and animation. In order to just be in business, your Web site is going to be your front door. We think on both ends there will be substantial demand to get in and substantial demand to get out.

Landry: In the game technology business, you have a funnel of ideas. While there may be some that are commercially viable and we can do something with, we are not counting on that. Flashpoint intends to charge a $25,000 annual tuition for the two-year program.

On Flashpoint’s Place Within Chicago’s Digital Media Industry


Tullman: Chicago is the absolute hub of the pinball machine and video world and has been for the last 35 to 40 years.
You also have film coming back to Chicago. On the North Shore, you have plenty of parents who say their kid has spent the last three years playing video games and working on a computer. The kid has no interest in going to a traditional, four-year thing.

Everything is about instant gratification these days. You tell people four years and that is a lifetime. You tell somebody they are going to be on the cutting edge of technology in the game industry, animation business or in film and you are talking about a different thing.

We are training kids today with things we did not even know yesterday. We are building schools for things we won’t know until tomorrow.

Chicago Sun-Times Article on Flashpoint Academy

Flashpoint brain trust well-schooled in digital media
(http://www.suntimes.com/business/spirrison/282857,CST-FIN-spirr05.article)

March 5, 2007

BY BRAD SPIRRISON Sun-Times Columnist

Entry level video-game developers earn fatter paychecks than many experienced accountants, health care professionals and (gulp) journalists. While many of us are not in the position to press the vocational reset button, today's teenagers weaned on digital media have educational and employment options that barely existed even half a generation ago.

"We are training kids today with things we did not even know yesterday, and we are building schools for things we won't know until tomorrow," explained Howard Tullman, serial entrepreneur, new media impresario and recently appointed chairman of Flashpoint Academy.

Beginning this September, Flashpoint will offer two-year training programs for high school graduates interested in pursuing careers in game development, computer animation, film and recording arts. The 40-hour-per-week program will include classroom instruction in the Loop at 28 N. Clark as well as applied training at a soundstage a few blocks northwest of the United Center. Approximately 400 students are expected to enroll this fall with plans to accommodate up to 1,000 in the coming years. Annual tuition is $25,000.

"Students will be trained on real world stuff," said Flashpoint founder and Chief Executive Ric Landry, previously of Lake Forest-based early stage investment firm MBC Global. "Most teaching is based on an 18th century model. But there is so much information flow now that you can learn more just standing around than I learned going to high school."

Landry, 60, first pondered the idea of a digital media academy eight years ago while his son was studying film and sound at Columbia College. Last year, as the video game industry grew to $30 billion worldwide, Landry pointed and clicked his way to a business plan. A few weeks ago, Jim Hoesley of Credit Suisse First Boston introduced Landry to Tullman, now a significant investor. They are in the process of raising a seven-figure investment round.

Tullman, 61, founded CCC Information Systems in 1980, and has spent the last 15 years conceiving, funding and directing several companies in the new media and education industries. His credits include producing CD-ROM games based on the Where's Waldo? series and Arnold Schwarzenegger's film Eraser, as well as early Web sites for Downbeat and Rolling Stone magazines.

More recently, Tullman saved culinary institute Kendall College from financial ruin and serves as chairman of the Princeton Review and Experiencia Inc. Experiencia operates a learning center focusing on civics and science for elementary school students, and is a block from Kendall at the corner of Halsted and Chicago Avenue.

Regarding his Flashpoint investment, Tullman said, "In 24 months we can create people with portfolios who can hit the ground running, and make compensation levels that are four and five times what a typical liberal arts college graduate will make. If you had to pick the leading industries for the next 10 years, this is where you put your money."

Mayor Richard M. Daley Visits Exchange City

Mayor Richard M. Daley, just days before his historic election win, visited Exchange City for a tour and breakfast with a number of supporters. The Mayor was extremely excited to receive a KEY to the City.

Presenting the KEY to the City to the Mayor



The Mayor spoke to the group and then posed for pictures with all guests



The Breakfast was co-hosted by Jan Starr and Glen Tullman



The entire Experiencia Staff visited with the Mayor.