DURHAM, N.H.—The University of New Hampshire will induct five alumni entrepreneurs into its Alumni Entrepreneur Hall of Fame at a double ceremony Friday, Oct. 1, 2021. The nomination deadline and induction ceremony for the 2020 cohort was postponed due to COVID-19. Both 2020 and 2021 inductions will take place during Homecoming Weekend. Nominations for the 2021 selection will be accepted through June 1.

“With over 10,000 UNH alumni who are entrepreneurs and a record number of nominations, one can imagine the enormous challenge the committee had to select the 2020 inductees,” said Ian Grant, executive director of UNH’s Entrepreneurship Center and chair of the selection committee. “What is more impressive is the range of industries and innovations of the 2020 nominees and the passion they have not only for their industries but the communities they volunteer in.”

The 2020 inductees, in alphabetical order, are:

• Tim Collins ’85, founder and president of EBSCO Information Services (EIS), an internal business with more than 3,000 employees and over $2B in sales. In 1983, while attending UNH, he co-founded Data Base Communications Corp., a company specializing in summarizing articles in popular magazines, which was later purchased by EBSCO Industries, Inc. and became EBSCO Information Services. He has overseen very strong organic growth as well as a steady stream of 60+ strategic acquisitions. EIS is now the leading online research service serving educational institutions and public libraries, offering the most-used databases in the world. In 2015, he was recognized for his contributions to the information industry by the National Federation of Advanced Information Services as the recipient of its Miles Conrad Award. He is a founder of the Museum of the American Revolution in Philadelphia. The Collins Career and Resource Center at the UNH Peter T. Paul School of Business and Economics bears his name.
• Andrea “Andy” Coville ’82, CEO of Brodeur Partners, a global communications agency. She was named CEO in 2000, the year of the dot-com crash and 9/11. Despite the challenges facing her company, she diversified and restructured Brodeur Partners from its core foundation in technology to business-to-business, consumer products and healthcare markets. She is recognized for her innovation in bringing science and sensory-based insight to the creative process. Specifically, she developed and refined the concept of Relevance, a strategic platform for helping organizations and their brands go beyond the immediate and link communications to behavioral change. She is the author of two books on the subject, the latest “Creating Relevance in a Time of Uncertainty,” released in February. Her philanthropic and board work has included the New England Crohn’s and Colitis Foundation, the Verde Valley School and work for nonprofits such as Children’s Hospital Foundation, the United Nations Foundation, the Grayken Center for Addition, the Jimmy Fund, and the National Colorectal Cancer Foundation.
• Rick Marini ’94 is a serial entrepreneur with more than 20 years of operating and investing experience in the technology space. He founded, grew and successfully sold three companies and is an active angel investor in 55 tech start-ups including eight companies now valued at $1 billion or more. In 2018 he was named a "Top 50 Angel Investor" by Forbes. Marini is the co-founder & managing partner of Catapult Capital, a private equity firm that focuses on transactions in the technology space. The firm's most recent buyout was Grindr for $620 million. He currently serves as the chief operating officer of Grindr. His professional successes include founding BranchOut, raising $49 million before being acquired by a publicly traded recruiting company, and co-founding Tickle.com in 1999, which won the “Rising Star” Webby Award before being acquired by Monster Worldwide for $100 million. He is regularly featured in national press as a thought leader on entrepreneurship and early-stage investing. He was national co-chair of technology for President Obama.
• John Morison III ’76, chairman and CEO of Hitchiner Mfg. Co., Inc., which produces intricate steel and super alloy castings using enhanced versions of the millennia old “lost wax” or investment casting process. He was part of a team that managed an investment in a new plant and equipment in Mexico, positioning the company to defend and grow its offerings in the golf market, even as U.S. golf brands began to “offshore” their supply base. Hitchiner’s golf business grew to over $50 million in annual sales. In the mid ‘90s, he led the team that identified a new market for automotive parts, creating a business with up to $100 million in annual sales. He was appointed president and CEO in 1995 and chairman in 2002. Hitchiner has a long history of community service and support for local nonprofits, including scholarships for high school students in Wilton and Amherst, dream sponsors of the Boys and Girls Club of the Souhegan Valley and a scholarship for UNH students. He is a member of the UNH Foundation Board, the Currier Museum board of trustees, and the board for the nonprofit RiverMead Retirement Community.
• Matthew Robinson ’09, ’11G, co-founder and VP of engineering for MMS Analytics, Inc. which markets its product and services under the brand Talon. He co-founded MyMedicalShopper (now Talon) in 2014, which began with a mission to provide price transparency in healthcare. Thanks to his company’s developments and advocacy at the federal level, there is now a nationwide, comprehensive suite of products to help employers, their employees, advisors and TPAs drive consumerism throughout the healthcare purchase. He was one of six co-inventors recently granted a patent for “Methods and systems for managing healthcare costs.” In 2019, the company was valued at just under $20 million and based on current growth, projected revenue to be over $100 million by 2026. Robinson co-founded his first company, Regaalo, while completing his master’s at UNH, and was runner-up in the 2011 UNH Holloway Competition. He is an active supporter of NH startup companies and the community, donating his time to local organizations like the Great Bay Stewards.

Selection for the UNH Alumni Entrepreneur Hall of Fame is based upon alumni who (a) have achieved entrepreneurial success with ventures as a founder, co-founder or owner, and (b) have given back to the community in a meaningful way.

The Peter T. Paul Entrepreneurship Center (ECenter) is home to the Alumni Entrepreneur Hall of Fame. The center is the co-curricular heart of ideas, innovation and entrepreneurship at UNH. Not part of any one college by design, its goal is to create the next generation of leaders with an entrepreneurial mind-set who can see opportunities and identify creative solutions others have missed, one idea at a time.

The University of New Hampshire inspires innovation and transforms lives in our state, nation and world. More than 16,000 students from all 50 states and 71 countries engage with an award-winning faculty in top-ranked programs in business, engineering, law, health and human services, liberal arts and the sciences across more than 200 programs of study. As one of the nation’s highest-performing research universities, UNH partners with NASA, NOAA, NSF and NIH, and receives more than $110 million in competitive external funding every year to further explore and define the frontiers of land, sea and space.