Prior to joining Veronis Suhler Stevenson in 1990 and his return to the firm in 2002, Mr. Benford served for several years as a director and chief financial officer of Hi-Shear Industries, a New York Stock Exchange listed company. Before working for Hi-Shear, Mr. Benford was the corporate vice president of Warner Communications, where he specialized in mergers, acquisitions, divestitures, and other corporate development activities. During his seventeen-year career at Warner, previously Kinney National Services, Mr. Benford was involved in the acquisitions of Warner Brothers, Franklin Mint Corporation, The Garden State National Bank, and numerous cable television businesses; the formation of the Warner-Amex cable joint-venture and many other media-related businesses; and the start-up phase of many new business enterprises. He was also responsible for overseeing and monitoring Warner's venture capital investment portfolio, which totaled in excess of $75 million. In addition, Mr. Benford was involved in the divestiture of all of Warner's non-entertainment businesses, including Warner's interests in National Kinney Corporation; its New York funeral service business; the Eastern Mountain Sports retail business; and Uris Buildings Corporation, a New York City commercial real estate business which was sold to Olympia & York Ltd. for approximately $550 million. Before joining Warner, Mr. Benford was a principal at Arthur Young & Company. Mr. Benford holds a BBA from St. Francis College and is a Certified Public Accountant.

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