Corporate Report

Corporate Report

by Sean Roth | Real Estate Editor

First Advantage Corp. buys Fiserv's CredStar

St. Petersburg-based risk mitigation and business services firm First Advantage Corp. has purchased the assets of CredStar, the mortgage credit reporting business unit of Brookfield, Wis.-based Fiserv Inc.

Terms of the deal have not been disclosed.

"CredStar represents a carefully chosen strategic fit that will help us expand the market share of our Lender Services segment," First Advantage president and CEO Anand Nallathambi said in a press release. "Combined with our market presence and scale, this acquisition helps us with consolidation benefits and will provide an excellent opportunity to work with Fiserv as a strategic alliance partner in the credit union and banking industries."

CredStar is based in Los Angeles and operates satellite offices in Arlington Heights, Ill.; Phoenix; and Philadelphia. The company provides credit information solutions to its mortgage lender clients via WebStar, a Web-based platform that delivers quick credit report and integrates with most major loan originating systems.

Teltronics lands

marketing deal with GTI

Chantilly, Va.-based Government Telecommunications Inc. has reached a partnership agreement with Sarasota-based communications-systems company Teltronics Inc. The agreement calls for GTI to market and sell the Teltronics small- to medium-sized telecommunications systems to the federal government under a GSA agreement.

"The teaming of Teltronics and GTI strengthens our commitment in providing the Government with state-of -the-art communications services and support," Richard Begando, executive vice president of sales and marketing for Teltronics, said in a press release.

Teltronics already provides voice and data products to many of the largest school district in the United States and government networks worldwide.

Current GTI customers include The Department of Justice, GSA FTS, the Social Security Administration, the Department of Agriculture, the Department of Defense, U.S. Air Force, Air National Guard, the Department of Justice, U.S. Postal Service and the Federal Bureau of Prisons.

Former Hope Hospice officer

joins John R. Wood as CIO

Don Wenninger has been named chief information officer for Naples-based residential real estate firm John R. Wood Realtors Inc.

Wenninger formerly served at Hope Hospice in Fort Myers as CIO and vice president of information technology services and served in a similar capacity for McData in Broomfield, Colo., and Vixel in Bothell, Wash. He also authored the book "100 Questions Every CIO Needs to Answer."

UTEK sensor company

sold to Santa Barbara firm

MachineTalker Inc., a Santa Barbara, Calif., company that develops smart security networks, has acquired Micro Wireless Technologies Inc., a wholly-owned subsidiary of Tampa-based UTEK, in a stock transaction.

Micro Wireless Technologies Inc. holds an exclusive license to a technology developed by researchers at the University of South Florida. USF scientists have developed a technique, which embeds physical and chemical property sensing capabilities into an RF transmitter system. The technology has the potential to create an environmental sensor with telemetry capabilities.

"The addition of these telemetric micro-sensors will permit the formation of wireless clusters of sensors around each MachineTalker to monitor and process patterns of change at a remote location," Roland Bryan, MachineTalker's president, said in a press release. "Each Talker [sensor] can analyze its own sensor data and can make local decisions or share content with other Talkers as an intelligent node on a wireless mesh network. We believe that with this technology our customers will be able to deploy small detectors, serviced by a local processor as part of a larger network for monitoring intrusion or environmental changes."

UTEK works with companies to facilitate their acquisition of externally developed technologies from universities and research laboratories.

Port Manatee crane officially unveiled

Port Manatee in Palmetto has officially introduced its $3.9 million Gottwald mobile harbor container crane. The crane made its first pick up from a Fresh Del Monte Produce ship on Dec. 19th.

"We've been waiting a longtime for this moment and we owe so much to so many," David L. McDonald, executive director of Port Manatee said in a press release. McDonald is credited with orchestrating the agreement that brought the crane to the port through the public-private partnership between Logistec USA and the Florida Department of Transportation.

Weighing 460 tons, the crane can lift 100 tons, the equivalent of more than two Boeing 737 jet airplanes.

The port currently handles a modest number of containers, but that number is expecting to grow rapidly. Port officials expect to eventually move up to 600,000 containers a year.

Aside from planning future growth, the crane was also important for the port to retain Del Monte. The produce company's five-year lease had just come up for renewal, and it pushed for a cargo crane as a condition of signing a new five-year deal.

The Gottwald HMK 6407 crane is the first of its kind to be delivered in the United States.