Within the first UIF guiding principle, we maintain the fundamental truth that every human being is a unique individual, each autonomous, self-contained and endowed with ultimate individual worth. This applies to our associates, i.e., all of our UIF Uncommon Individuals who continue to create our UIF Virtual Mentor™ making and improving this site’s infrastructure and UIF mentoring resources available for you.
UIF values, mission, guiding principles and method establish our UIF Uncommon Individuals’ commitment to strive passionately to cultivate mentoring resources to assist in the development, focusing and the pursuit of each Individual Participants dreams. Individually, each UIF Uncommon Individual is an example of the dreams and navigation necessary on anyone’s life journey that our UIF philosophy upholds. We acknowledge that it is not by accident but rather by our dedication and working together that our UIF Uncommon Individuals unite in an uncommon vision – an inspirational idea consistent and harmonious with our dreams for Uncommon Individual Foundation.
Richard Caruso
I am fortunate to be a son of emigrant parents from Italy. Fortunate, because my parents understood the critical importance of living in an environment where you are able to create opportunities for yourself and others. My parents had no real expectations for me other than for me to finish high school and to be a good citizen; they are my first and most enduring mentors. Through them I got the message early in life that I had to envision the possibilities of my world by and for myself. With the support of my high school coaches, Mr. John Boyd and Mr. Larry Keys, I applied to college looking for a football scholarship. With the encouragement of my college coaches, Bob Pittello and James Garrett, I went to college, enjoyed college football and became interested in the opportunities that an education provides. In my senior year I applied to graduate school and, thanks to the recommendation of the schools Professor Ressler, I received a fellowship and teaching assistantship, which made it financially possible. Seven years after graduate school I married my caring wife Sally, and we have two sons, Jonathan and Peter. All three continue to champion my ventures as I have tried to be supportive of their endeavors.
A year out of graduate school while working for a national accounting firm, I became a CPA only to realize that I was not interested in being an accountant. Notwithstanding my education and a secure job with a great firm, the entrepreneurial spirit and desire from my childhood began to push me to do other things. Coincidental with the moment when I knew how dissatisfied I would be with the typical career path that lay ahead, a creative financial start up company offered me a position, which I immediately accepted. I spent twenty years, the first five struggling and the last fifteen, growing a very successful company. During this growth, I also started Provco Group, an entity investing in entrepreneurial activities. Throughout college and my early employment, Russell Baum, Doris Berger, Frank Slattery, Ed Zalinski and many others too numerous to mention, assisted in defining my life journey. In 1986, I founded UIF as a means of giving forward. Three years later I returned to school to do post-graduate research on the topic of mentoring. I also began to develop dreams for my future and started Integra LifeSciences to try to achieve them. With Provco Group and UIF, I am fortunate to have engaged, Jerry Holtz, Gary DiLella, John Crosby, Brenda-Jayne Wiltshire, Terry Weiss and Mark Lamboy. With Integra LifeSciences, Stuart Essig has been a brilliant leader and clearly Integra would not be what it is today without him. Judi O’Grady has been dedicated, supportive and essential with the regulatory approvals necessary to bring Integra’s and the world’s first Regenerative Medicine products to market.
In describing my founding purpose for UIF, I used the term ‘giving forward’ deliberately, because ‘giving back’ implies you should wait until you are ready, willing and able. From my perspective, the greatest gift one person can give another, is the opportunity to become an authentic Uncommon Individual. I sincerely believe we should all be encouraged, and encourage others, to be ourselves and give forward throughout our lives. This certainly is the mission of UIF.
John Crosby
My farmer father and school teacher mother were my inspiration in understanding that education could shape my dreams and make a difference in my life’s journey. Curiously, now as a grandfather, I often delight in occasions where my granddaughters provide interesting aspects of mentoring to each member of our family’s lives.
When I look at the various paths which woven together make the fabric of my life, I am astonished by the improbability of my own story. I find it hard to believe that a dust-bowl kid from a dry-land cotton farm in West Texas, due to hard work, unusual effort and uncommon diligence, could persevere against all odds – let alone that I would create the successful career that I have enjoyed. Following my mother’s example, I began my professional career into education. The next several decades of dedication into my professional endeavors catapulted me to become superintendent of schools in one of the top ten school districts in the country (invited to visit President Reagan in the White House) and to become a valuable contributor to life and an uplifting example to others.
Despite failure and success and age, I am, at my core, an Uncommon Individual. I will continue to formulate new dreams that contribute to my personal satisfaction. But most importantly, I will seek undertakings through which I am able to make meaningful and lasting contributions to mankind.
Terry Weiss
I am a firm believer that every experience carries the potential to teach and therefore the potential to learn. In that sense, I have had too many mentors to even try to list them, from the originality of John Coltrane to the Zen of Mario Andretti (yes that phrase goes with that name) to the keen insight of Richard Feynman, each has contributed to me professionally and personally. And, of course, there are those that I have the had the luck to touch me personally, such as my wife and my kids (kids are great mentors, but you have to listen really hard) and my friends Jeff Hunsberger and Lewis Loren who have each in their own way have taught me to think and be.
Professionally, my career has been a serious of happy accidents ultimately leading to the flowering of my own entrepreneurial goals in starting Mentis Solutions and IntelliFlex Technologies to help develop and further my goal of bridging the gap between the way people think and the way computers want us to express ourselves.
My association with UIF is one of those happy accidents. The Foundation’s mission serves as a reminder of our professional and personal responsibilities to “pay it forward” and I look forward to the opportunities to touch and be touched that the Foundation uniquely provides.
Brenda-Jayne Wiltshire
Lifelong learning and travel have been the most permanent mentoring resources from which I continue to benefit. An abundance of educational opportunities combined with the constant rhythm of global exploration have shaped my personal expectations as well as informed my world view.
Both American and European backgrounds have influenced a lifetime of diverse experiences animated by sublimely inspirational individuals throughout. A career beginning within the disciplines of engineering and architecture has been further ignited through a wide range of international entrepreneurial ventures. Having survived a precipitous explosion of professional success very early taught me the importance of investing myself in meaningful enterprises of significant value. This perspective expanded the horizon of endeavors, spanning across many unrelated domains from the accounting industry to the graphic arts. In the years just prior to joining UIF, I succeeded in the completion of several independent, full-scale, multi-million dollar corporate identity projects – from germination to final product – all within 24 months of one another.
My most enduring living passion (beyond learning and travel) into which I continue to invest my time, energies and interest, is the concentrated study and understanding of the creation of America. The revolutionary ideal of a new ‘state of being,’ as envision and created by the Founding Fathers, is the fundamental foundation that is built of, by and for the thriving American Dream. Whether manifest here or abroad, it is this inspired idea which makes possible the ultimate living reality for every Uncommon Individual – the personal fulfillment of unique promise contained within the passionate pursuit of Individual Happiness.
Dimitri Vassiliou
Dimitri Vassiliou has an exceptional background including a broad variety of expertise and experience. Born in America to Greek parents, Dimitri began his life with an international exposure, spending four years of early childhood in Japan and Indonesia. His multicultural roots combined with a global perspective continue to shape his worldview, both personally and professionally. His career reveals a remarkable balance that successfully incorporates his passionate interests into his business ventures, resulting in an interesting blend of vocation and avocation. Equipped with a unique set of skill, talent and drive, Dimitri brings an unusual combination of knowledge and know-how to all of his endeavors.
Mr. Vassiliou began building his professional foundations while completing his undergraduate studies at Lehigh University. In 1995, during his junior year majoring in international business with a minor in geology, Dimitri became one of the founding partners of an early-to-market browser-based internet design firm (continually in business and currently known as INetU; owned by a former partner). Immediately upon graduating, he was offered a corporate management position with AT&T, where he became the youngest sales engineer managing multiple markets, responsible for new product development, distribution and training throughout several U.S. sales territories. From the beginning of his engagement, through his efforts over an eighteen-month period, he became distinguished as AT&T’s most successful sales engineer consistently producing the highest revenues. In 1999, PECO-Adelphia, a Pennsylvania-based communications company, recruited Dimitri to head the development and deployment of their newest line of internet connectivity products. Soon after accepting the position, he was chosen as one of ten corporate experts advising management regarding long-term growth strategies. During his two-year tenure, Philadelphia became the highest grossing market for Adelphia’s internet products in the nation. Based on this success, through an invitation from his former Adelphia VP, Dimitri quickly transitioned into the private equity start-up arena. His two years at NetCarrier became Dimitri’s springboard from which he launched his own internet company. Olympia Design, the first of dozens, was his initial independent entrepreneurial venture. Dimitri has contributed to the UNCOMMON INDIVIDUAL FOUNDATION’s technology development for almost a decade, first as an internet design consultant until most recently, when in 2007 he accepted his present position as UIF Director of Operations.
Dimitri has advanced his learning well beyond the classroom. He is an accomplished musician and is one of the founding partners of Cheapo Records, a privately-owned recording studio. An enthusiastic student pilot for most of his adult life, in June 2007 he became a certified private pilot (VFR single engine fixed wing). An active amateur in the practice of martial arts, he holds a black belt in Tae Kwon Do.