ROBERT W. WIEN
President & CEO

Robert W. Wien, BA, MBA, JD, is a seasoned investment banker with almost three decades of experience as a senior advisor to companies, managers and owners. He has deep working and personal relationships in the business, financial and legal communities internationally, and has initiated and successfully completed hundreds of transactions and advisory engagements involving public and private companies across a broad array of industries, including construction and building products, real estate, energy and alternative energy, manufacturing, retail and consumer products, healthcare and biosciences and technology. Consistent with the founding philosophy of Mid-Market Securities, Mr. Wien brings large firm expertise and domestic and international processing capabilities to the middle market.

Mr. Wien is an Adjunct Professor of Law at New York Law School where he teaches "Private Capital Markets: Valuation, Capitalization and Transfer of Private Business Interests."

Mr. Wien began his investment-banking career with Dean Witter Reynolds Inc., after practicing law with Skadden Arps Slate Meagher & Flom, LLP. At Dean Witter he was Regional Director of Mergers and Acquisitions for the Southwest region for ten years and co-founder of the Restructuring Group. He was a Director in the Corporate Finance and the Real Estate Groups at Coopers & Lybrand, LLP and thereafter joined Josephthal & Co., Inc. where he was a Director of Mergers & Acquisitions and then Director of Investment Banking. Immediately prior to the formation and the registration of Mid-Market Securities as an NASD/SIPC registered broker dealer, he was EVP, Head of Investment Banking at vFinance Investments, Inc. Prior to joining Skadden Arps, Mr. Wien was a Staff Attorney for the Third Circuit Court of Appeals and a law clerk to Hon. Vincent L. Broderick, United States District Court, Southern District of New York.

Mr. Wien can be contacted at (212) 400-4048, fax (646) 292-5141,
mobile (914) 907-9528 or rwwien@mid-marketsecurities.com

J.D. FRIEDLAND
Senior Managing Director

JD Friedland brings more than 15 years of experience initiating, structuring, negotiating and financing transactions and advisory engagements for public and private Healthcare companies in the U.S. and internationally.  The breadth of his clients includes the full panoply from medical devices, pharmaceuticals (OTC and prescription), healthcare services and distribution, from startups to mature companies.  His client list includes such prominent firms as Abbott Laboratories, Aetna, Fresenius and Pfizer.  Prior to joining Mid-Market Securities, Mr. Friedland founded Epsilon Securities where he continues to serve as CEO.  Previously, he was head of U.S. Healthcare for Rothschild Inc.  He has also held senior positions in the Healthcare Groups at Lazard Frères, Wasserstein Perella (later Dresdner Kleinwort Wasserstein) and Cowen & Company.

Mr. Friedland received a Master of Business Administration degree from the Wharton School of the University of Pennsylvania. He holds a Bachelor of Science degree in Business Administration from the University of Southern California.

Mr. Friedland can be contacted at (212) 758-0196, fax (212) 242-8855, or JD@mid-marketsecurities.com
 

MICHAEL J. LEVENSON
Senior Managing Director                               

Michael J. Levenson has a wealth of business experience to offer to our clients, having spent 38 years in leadership positions across many industries. Born and raised in Texas, his professional background includes more than10 years in the commercial banking industry in the Southwestern United States, including holding the office of bank President. Mr. Levenson also founded and operated two successful companies in the oil and gas industry, including oil and gas exploration and natural gas gathering and processing.  Mr. Levenson also led the acquisition of and operated a $275,000,000 revenue food service company, which he later took public and listed on the NYSE. He served 7 years as its Chairman and CEO and was the majority shareholder. In addition, Mr. Levenson has 10 years experience as Chairman and CEO of a commercial/high-end residential/development and construction partnership, operating in Central Texas. His advisory expertise, knowledge and skill lies in the private placements of debt and equity financing, limited partnerships, senior bank financing, subordinated debt placement and structuring, transaction structuring, mergers and acquisitions, asset divestitures and valuation, business planning and analysis and negotiation assistance. His unique entrepreneurial approach to any client's transaction is based on decades of hands-on personal business experience, coupled with financial acumen. Mr. Levenson's extensive experience offers our clients the critical opportunity to work with a straight forward knowledgeable professional who adds value to our client by providing efficient and unique solutions and expert execution of transactions and financings.

Mr. Levenson can be contacted at (212) 400-4052, fax (914) 730-9806, or levenson@mid-marketsecurities.com

ROGER McDANIEL
Senior Managing Director

Roger McDaniel has more than twenty years of financing experience, primarily in energy finance and project finance. He specializes in strategic and financial advice to energy and other companies, with specific focuses on the acquisition and divestiture of assets and on raising both equity and debt capital for companies and projects in various stages of development. He brings his experience as a senior project finance advisor with Lehman Brothers and Madigan Resources, a senior project finance lender and advisor with WestLB, and a utility M&A and project finance advisor with New Harbor, after having begun his Wall Street career as an attorney with Cleary, Gottlieb, Steen & Hamilton, specializing in financings.

Mr. McDaniel has advised clients on financings using venture capital, private equity, private and public debt, tax-exempt bonds, leveraged leasing, limited partnerships, public stock offerings, interest rate hedging and gold loans, as well as asset and corporate M&A transactions. His clients have come from a number of industries, including ethanol, environmental resource recovery, regulated and unregulated power, transportation, water and wastewater infrastructure privatization, waste-to-energy, metals and mining, oil and gas, telecommunications, and space. Financings have ranged from a $10 million venture capital financing to a $1.4 billion independent power project financing.

Mr. McDaniel received a B.A. in Philosophy from Stanford University and a J.D. from New York University School of Law.

Mr. McDaniel can be contacted at (212) 400-4049, fax (914) 798-6698,
mobile (914) 953-7333 or mcdaniel@mid-marketsecurities.com.
 

Christopher D. Westgate
Managing Director

Christopher D. Westgate, MBA, CBI, brings discipline, temperament and focus honed from more than eighteen years in Aviation, as an Aviation Officer, Captain and Pilot of Boeing 727’s, 737’s, 757’s and 767’s, Director of Operations, Director of Training and Aviation Finance Consultant. 

Mr. Westgate couples formal academic training from a top MBA program with extensive experience as a Certified Business Intermediary advising small and mid-sized companies and their owners across a wide array of industries including but not limited to Aviation, Real Estate, Construction, Retail, Food Service, National and International Governments, Manufacturing, Consumer products and the Biological Sciences.  He has significant experience with valuations, SBA and private sector financing, succession and strategic planning and buy-side and sell-side advisory.  In addition Mr. Westgate has been a founder and participant in several startup businesses.

Prior to joining Mid-Market Securities, Mr. Westgate founded Westgate Group, LLC located in Miami Florida, a lower middle market mergers & acquisitions and commercial real estate practice where he continues to serve as CEO and President.  

Mr. Westgate is a former US Navy Officer and Enlisted service member.  He spent seven years in the U.S. Navy and served during the Gulf War.  Mr. Westgate is fluent in Spanish and has extensive business and consulting experience in Latin America, Europe, Africa and Asia.

He received a Masters of Business Administration degree from the University of Chicago School of Business, with concentrations in Economics, Finance and Strategic Management.  He holds a Bachelor of Science degree in Biology from Salisbury University.

Mr. Westgate can be contacted at (786) 220-2942, fax (786) 220-2932, mobile (305) 439-1315 or cwestgate@mid-marketsecurities.com

DR. JOSEPH D. BEN-DAK
Of Counsel: Strategy, International Technology

Dr Joseph D. Ben-Dak has more than thirty years of experience as a consultant, financial and strategic counselor and advisor, to Governments, Banks, Public and Private Companies, Not-for-Profits and senior executives, managers and policy makers around the world.

Dr. Ben-Dak’s current client list includes Italian, Japanese and Korean groups organizing intelligence systems to guide leadership in global security policy contexts. He has helped define opportunities that include original systems of unobtrusive intervention in product development, measurement of community innovation and undersea resource harvesting.

Dr. Ben-Dak recently completed work as Chairman of a Washington, DC task force evaluating government investments in critical technologies. He has developed computer solutions and support systems for DOD and HSD. He has accomplished similar tasks in programs for higher education, language proficiency and health delivery needs.

Serving the United Nations as the Principal Advisor, Science and Technology and Public Management, to the UN Secretary General, and the founder and Chief of the United Nations Global Technology Group, Dr. Ben-Dak has initiated and established successful technology and science businesses in numerous countries including most of OECD, Israel, Africa, China, Russia and the Arab World. He has had extensive administrative and academic licensing experience in institutions including Professorships at Haifa, Israel and Sao Paulo Universities, Visiting Senior Scholar, Papua New Guinea’s Institute for National Planning, and Visiting Professor at Seoul National University and Kyung Hee University. He was instrumental in the original programming of Korea's KAIST/KIST, and the earliest introduction of formative evaluation to Japan's MITI (now METI) and similar major Asian Institutions.

Dr Ben-Dak served as the Academic Director, Israel's Air Force School for Senior Officers. This program pioneered top personnel multitasking training of technology and management including preparation of first time ever curricula.

He was elected fellow of AAAS in Mathematics and Economics and won the US National Academy of Science Dissertation Award for Peace Studies and Sociology. Dr. Ben-Dak is a graduate of Hebrew University, Jerusalem in Sociology and Middle Eastern Studies. He also has Masters Degrees and PhD's in Methodology and Organizational Sociology and in the Program of Research on Conflict Resolution, all from the University of Michigan. He has done post-doctoral work in the Social Impact of Science Policy at Lund University, Sweden and Conflict Resolution at Oslo University, Norway and, in 1994, along with the President of Mongolia, jointly received the first honorary doctorates from the Technical University of Mongolia.

Dr. Ben-Dak is also involved in cultural exchanges and reconciliation foundations such as "Seeds for Peace" and "Foundation for Arab-Israeli Reconciliation, FAIR".
Dr. Ben-Dak can be contacted at jdbendak@mid-marketsecurities.com