Meet The Advisors

​Tal Heppenstall was the treasurer of UPMC from 2003 through 2020, served at President of UPMC Enterprises, UPMC’s corporate venture capital arm, from 2014 to 2020 and remains a Senior Advisor to UPMC.  As Treasurer, Mr. Heppenstall was  responsible for overseeing the day-to-day cash needs of UPMC, investment of its nearly $10.0 billion of cash and investments and its $5.5 billion of outstanding debt.  As president of UPMC Enterprises, Mr. Heppenstall led UPMC’s efforts to commercialize its managerial and health care expertise, particularly in the area of information technology and life sciences.  With a focus first on improving the quality, efficiency and patient experience at UPMC, the division and its partners took the solutions to the broader health care market.  Previously, Mr. Heppenstall served as managing director at RBC Dain Rauscher Inc., founder and president of PriMuni LLC, senior vice president at PNC Capital Markets and vice president at Butcher & Singer.  He earned a bachelor’s degree from the University of Virginia and a master’s degree from Carnegie Mellon University.  Mr. Heppenstall currently serves on the boards of the St. Margaret Foundation and UPMC Hamot.

Since January 2021 Mr. Stover has been CEO of NorthView Acquisition Corp., a Special Purpose Acquisition Corporation (SPAC) organized with a number of the most successful SPAC sponsors in the industry and successfully raised in excess of $190 million to invest in and partner with emerging growth companies.  From June of 2016 through December 2020 Mr. Stover was CEO of Interpace Biosciences where he raised approximately $100 million of equity capital, including attracting two of the sectors top tier private equity investors and gained the research coverage by five investment banking analysts.  While at Interpace Mr. Stover led the novel acquisition of a major pharma services diagnostic company that effectively doubled the size of Interpace Biosciences and provided a level of stability through the 2020 and revenue approaching $100 million.  Mr. Stover has served as a Director, Chairman of the Audit Committee and member of the Deal Committee and Compensation Committee of Onconova Therapeutics since 2017.  From 2004 to 2008, Mr. Stover served as President, CEO and Director of Antares Pharma, Inc., a Nasdaq-based specialty pharmaceutical and device company where he led the strategy to developing disposable combination drug/safety injection devices.  In addition, Mr. Stover has also served on the Board of Directors of Viatar CTC (Circulating Tumor Cell) Solutions, Arbios, Inc. Cernostics, Inc. and Gynetics. Inc.  In addition to other experience, Mr. Stover was CFO/COO of SICOR, Inc. a Nasdaq-based generic injectable pharmaceutical company sold to Teva Inc. for in excess of $3.5 billion.  Mr. Stover was also previously Chairman of the Board of the Ben Franklin Technology Center at Lehigh University, a venture partner for Sarnoff Research Center and was formerly a partner with PricewaterhouseCoopers (then Coopers and Lybrand).  Mr. Stover received his Bachelor’s Degree in Accounting and Finance from Lehigh University and is a Certified Public Accountant. 

Mr. Young has over 20 years of experience in financial and accounting operations, financial management and reporting, as well as budgeting, forecasting and strategic planning. Mr. Young

has extensive experience in the healthcare, logistics, energy, retail, and software industries, including several startups including companies that have experienced high growth periods. Mr.

Young currently serves as the Director of Finance for a startup software development company and previously served as the Vice President of Finance for Helomics Corporation. Mr. Young holds a Bachelors of Business Administration in Accounting from Niagara University as well as a Masters of Business Administration degree from LeMoyne College.

Mr. Congemi has over 25 years of experience in broadcast media. John served ESPN as a game analyst, working for their weekly College Football coverage. He has spent the last 15 years in the

same role covering the Miami Dolphins. John earned his Bachelor of Science degree from The University of Pittsburgh, where he led the Pittsburgh Panthers at quarterback as a scholarship athlete. During his time at Pitt, his achievements included being named the most valuable player in the 1984 Fiesta Bowl. He was also awarded the Blue Gold Award for his outstanding achievements in athletics in 1986. Additionally, in 2013, he was presented with the Award of Distinction, recognized by the University of Pittsburgh Varsity Letter Club. John was also part of the business development team at VICIS where they engineered the safest rated football helmet, working with the NFL and NFLPA’S biomechanical experts.

Mr. Loevlie has a Bachelor of Science in Chemical Engineering and graduated as a Presidential Scholar from West Virginia University's Honors College. Here, he conducted independent

computational research, modeling and optimizing chemical processes. This research was awarded second place at the 2018 American Institute of Chemical Engineers national conference. In

2020, Dennis earned a Masters of Science in Chemical Engineering from Carnegie Mellon University. At CMU he was able to take several courses on subjects such as machine learning, deep learning, and large-scale optimization. He was also able to compete in several hackathons where he implemented different machine learning algorithms to solve real world problems. Dennis was as a Student-Athlete.

Mr. Vardzel has over 25 years of executive management experience developing and implementing commercialization strategies and models for technology launches. His expertise includes equity financing, strategic planning, market intelligence, M&A, and new market development in both start up and established settings. He currently is an Executive in Residence at LifeX Ventures, a University of Pittsburgh startup accelerator responsible for portfolio management and funding initiatives. He was previously President & CEO of Helomics Corporation

(NASDAQ:POAI). He also routinely consults for several small-to-mid sized private equity firms advising on, in part, the feasibility of acquisition targets. Mr. Vardzel graduated from the

University of Pittsburgh as a Student-Athlete.