Rick Rickertsen

Mr. Rickertsen is a Managing Partner of Pine Creek Partners, a private equity firm specializing in partnering with management teams to acquire small companies. He has worked in private equity since 1987, bringing over 20 years of investment experience to Pine Creek.

Most recently, he was a Partner and COO at Thayer Capital, a Washington, DC-based private equity firm with over $1.5 billion of capital under management. At Thayer, Mr. Rickertsen was a founder of each of Thayer's three funds: Thayer III ($364 M), Thayer IV ($880 M) and Thayer V ($230 M). While at Thayer, Mr. Rickertsen led numerous investments and served as Chairman and Director of several companies, most notably SAGA Systems. Thayer's $30 M investment in SAGA yielded a return of over $300 M and an IRR of 458% per annum. Mr. Rickertsen was Chairman of the Board of this NYSE-listed company. During his tenure at Thayer, Mr. Rickertsen led or co-led over ten investments of approximately $400 M invested.

Prior to Thayer, Mr. Rickertsen was a partner at Hancock Park Associates from 1989 to 1993. Hancock Park, based in Los Angeles, specializes in acquiring small, family-held companies similar to those that will be targeted by Pine Creek. From 1987 to 1989, Mr. Rickertsen was an Associate at Brentwood Associates, a leading private equity firm in Los Angeles.

Mr. Rickertsen is the author of a book targeting entrepreneurial managers called Buyout: An Insider's Guide to Buying Your OwnCompany. Buyout has sold more than 30,000 copies and has been translated into Japanese and Russian. He completed his second book in 2006, Sell Your Business Your Way, an in-depth guide for entrepreneurs on the process of maximizing value in the sale of their companies. Mr. Rickertsen is a graduate, with distinction, of Harvard Business School and Stanford University.

Mr. Rickertsen is a Director of MicroStrategy Incorporated (NASDAQ - MSTR) and Convera Corporation (NASDAQ - CNVR). He is also the past Chairman of the Board of Trustees of Semester at Sea, a not-for-profit, global shipboard education institution affiliated with the University of Virginia.  He sailed on the Fall 1981 Semester at Sea voyage.