The Aurus Advisors Team

Richard Augustus  raugustus@aurusadvisors.com.

Rich is the President and co-founder of Aurus Advisors, Inc., a FINRA registered broker/dealer that provides collateralized finance and investment banking services to sophisticated fund managers and corporate clients. Mr. Augustus is also the President and Chief Operating Officer for Select Laboratory Partners, Inc., a healthcare services company based in Greensboro, North Carolina. Prior to founding Aurus in 2002, Mr. Augustus served as Chief Operating Officer of Automated Data Exchange (ADX), a privately held software company and was primarily responsible for substantially improving operating performance and raising over $70 million from venture, private equity and corporate investors. Prior to this, Mr. Augustus spent 15 years working primarily in the Capital Markets Division of Merrill Lynch and held various positions including Managing Director in the Global Equity Financing Division (London), Director of Global Equity Swaps, and Product Manager for Equity Derivatives. While at Merrill, he was responsible for structuring and investing in a broad array of arbitrage transactions for sophisticated investors and for the firm's account. He also acted as the primary relationship manager for many of the firm's largest hedge fund clients assisting them in all areas of their businesses including portfolio management, trading, financing and operations. Mr. Augustus has a degree in accounting from Fairfield University and is a certified public accountant (inactive.)

Joseph Russo  jrusso@aurusadvisors.com.

Joe co-founded Aurus Advisors in 2002 shortly after retiring from a successful 35-year career at Merrill Lynch. Prior to retiring, Mr. Russo was a Managing Director in the Global Equity Financing Group, a division of Merrill Lynch Capital Markets. In this role, he had operating responsibility for the firm's Global Prime Broker and Securities Lending activities that also included Merrill's Equity Swap business. During his tenure, Mr. Russo was the primary architect responsible for the development of Merrill's global equity financing business that grew to be a significant contributor to the firm's overall profitability. In addition to his operating responsibilities, Mr. Russo was also Merrill Lynch's designated relationship manager for many of the firm's largest hedge fund clients.

Robert McDonough  rmcdonough@aurusadvisors.com.

Robert joined Aurus Advisors after spending 23 years at Bank of America/Merrill Lynch where he was a Managing Director in the Prime Brokerage Risk and Margin Group. In this role, he was responsible for managing the risk of all structured financing transactions including hedge fund, closed end fund and single stock financing executed on BofA/Merrill's Prime Brokerage platform. Prior to this, he was responsible for all hedge fund, mutual fund and market maker lending activity for the firm's Corporate Credit Group. Mr. McDonough has an MBA in Finance from Pace University, a degree in accounting from CW Post Long Island University and is a certified public accountant.

Jason Wacha  jwacha@aurusadvisors.com

Jason has deep experience in the corporate, securities and technology licensing fields. He served as a senior associate and helped to run a corporate and securities practice group at one of the country's most respected high tech law firms (Wilson Sonsini Goodrich & Rosati). He has also served as the associate general counsel of a publicly traded hardware (semiconductor) company and as the general counsel and member of the executive staff at two Silicon Valley software companies (including at the world's leading embedded Linux® software company). Jason has been senior counsel on hundreds of transactions in the corporate/securities and technology licensing areas, has been a key advisor to many start-ups, has led numerous companies through IPOs and follow-on public offerings, and has continued as counsel to publicly traded companies. Jason has also served as senior counsel in multiple mergers and acquisitions, spanning the range from small start-ups to publicly held corporations. He has helped to raise hundreds of millions of dollars for both private and public companies. As general counsel, Jason additionally has supervised his companies' worldwide legal and corporate policies and practices, and developed and implemented worldwide intellectual property strategies. Jason's clients have included companies in all of the following industries: software and hardware; semiconductors, biotechnology and medical devices; consumer products; e-commerce; technology services; financial services; industrial products; publishing; and medical and behavioral health services. Jason has degrees in both economics and English from Stanford University, and a doctorate in law from the University of California (Davis), where he was an editor of the U.C. Davis Law Review.