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| Caruso poses with New York Yankee legend Yogi Berra. |
It would be too easy by half to say that Joe Caruso ’70, Florida Tech trustee, has always been willing to step up to the plate in the world of business. Too easy because Caruso’s minor league baseball franchises are but two of his nine businesses under the umbrella of the Omnifirst Group.
While he enjoys baseball, it’s his passion for business, not the diamond, which led him to ownership of the Trenton Thunder and the Lakewood Blueclaws.
“As an investment banker, I was contacted by a group who decided they weren’t strong enough to move forward (with the teams), so my partners and I decided to do it ourselves,” said Caruso. “In the early 1990s, we did a lot of due diligence and research. We were one of the first minor league organizations to introduce computerized ticketing and seat charts. We introduced bar coding to the minor leagues on season tickets to keep track of who actually attended games.”
If you think that doesn’t sound like the kind of romantic talk that normally surrounds the national pastime—tales of pastoral summer days and men playing a boy’s game—then Caruso would agree with you.
“Anything I do is about business. If you fall in love with the product, you’ve missed the point. I like baseball, but it’s always about managing and growing the business,” said Caruso.
Caruso’s latest business venture takes him far away from the diamond, into the world of servers and small business computer needs.
The business, WorldExtend, provides a product, SecureIDA, which gives employees of small businesses a way to securely and reliably access work files from remote locations. This ability, long enjoyed by larger businesses and organizations, has been a boon for the Thunder. It’s a case of one of Caruso’s businesses benefiting another.
“SecureIDA makes it easy to add a new remote user to the system in a matter of minutes. Once you are added to the system, it becomes simple to take care of any eventuality immediately,” said Bill Cook, director of public relations for the Thunder. “So, if team news breaks in the evening, such as a player being called up to the Yankees, I can now access the network from any location to add his photo and background to our Web site.”
Much like baseball, Caruso enjoys computers, but he’s quick to point out that he’s not an information technology guru.
“I only involve myself in businesses I’m passionate about—technology, health care and entertainment,” said Caruso. “I seldom start out as the expert so I surround myself with partners who are the experts. That’s really
my model.
“We believe WorldExtend has the kind of mass appeal and smart pricing to make a difference—that’s the key thing I look for in any business. My core value is to be the best every day at providing broad products that are priced right and can be disruptive in our target industries. My two current business launches in the health insurance space combined excellent branded products from high profile companies offered under exclusive relationships by my companies. The path to market with my expert partners has achieved national traction that neither public company achieved on their own.”
As the years have passed, Caruso has kept the lessons he learned while a student at Florida Tech and has used them to further his business success.
“At Florida Tech, the one thing you learned was discipline,” he said. “To graduate on schedule and have an active social life, you have to learn discipline and commitment to what’s important to you, to what matters.”
Caruso is just as passionate about his personal life as he is about business success.
“I have a terrific home life with my spectacular wife, Lisa. I have two wonderful sons from my first marriage and my first grandson was born in April,” he said.
While he may be a first-time grandfather, he’s also enjoying his role as a step-dad to Lisa’s 14-year-old son.
“It’s given me a fantastic opportunity to revisit raising children, only now trying to keep up with them in the computer age.”
Jay Wilson |
