Michael Pocalyko
Pocalyko in 2011
Born (1954-12-24) December 24, 1954
Fountain Hill, Pennsylvania, U.S.
EducationMuhlenberg College
Harvard Kennedy School
Wharton School
Occupations
SpouseBarbara Snelbaker Pocalyko
Websitemichaelpocalyko.com

Michael Nicholas Pocalyko (/poʊˈkælɪkoʊ/; born December 24, 1954) is an American businessman and writer.

Pocalyko is the managing director and chief executive officer of Monticello Capital, a boutique investment bank in Chantilly, Virginia, specializing in high technology and green enterprises.[1] He is a Sarbanes-Oxley public company audit committee financial expert and corporate board audit committee chairman.[2] His novel The Navigator, a literary financial thriller, was published in 2013 by Forge Books, an imprint of Macmillan Publishers.[3][4]

In March 2023, Pocalyko attracted media attention for his involvement in the suicide of Eden Knight.[5]

Early life and education

Pocalyko was born in Fountain Hill, Pennsylvania in the Lehigh Valley. He grew up in Bethlehem Township, Pennsylvania in a devout Hungarian Lutheran blue collar family.[6][7] His father Walter Pocalyko was business manager of the public school districts in Bethlehem, Sharon, Antietam, and Bangor and a local Democratic political figure.[8][9] His mother Anna M. (Pagats) Pocalyko was an office manager for the brokerage firm of Janney Montgomery Scott.[10] His paternal grandparents were Ukrainians who immigrated first to Canada and then to the United States; his maternal grandparents were Hungarians who arrived in the United States at Ellis Island.[7] His paternal grandmother Dora Bendera (Ukrainian: Дора Бандера) was born in Galicia in the family of Ukrainian nationalist Stepan Bandera.[11]

He began writing for newspapers at the age of sixteen when his first article was published in The Globe-Times.[12] His editor was John Strohmeyer.[13]

In 1972, he graduated from Freedom High School in Bethlehem. He attended Muhlenberg College in Allentown, Pennsylvania, where he also was a union steelworker in the ingot mould foundry at now-defunct Bethlehem Steel and a professional musician.[14] He is a member of Sigma Phi Epsilon fraternity.[15] In college he published poetry in literary magazines[16][17] and chaired a symposium on the work of novelist John Hawkes; its proceedings became a widely cited book of literary criticism, A John Hawkes Symposium: Design and Debris, that he co-edited with Anthony C. Santore for publisher James Laughlin at New Directions.[18]

Pocalyko graduated from Muhlenberg in 1976. He received his Master in Public Administration degree from Harvard Kennedy School in 1985. He earned his Master of Business Administration degree from the Wharton School of the University of Pennsylvania in 1995.[19] He was a Trustee of Fairleigh Dickinson University[19] and named by the International Association of University Presidents to the United Nations Commission on Disarmament Education, Conflict Resolution and Peace.[20]

Pocalyko has published a number of papers on a variety of subjects, especially in the areas of defense, international affairs, and corporate governance. He is a member of the Council on Foreign Relations[21] and was on the CFR's bipartisan independent task force co-chaired by Madeleine Albright and Vin Weber that authored the influential study In Support of Arab Democracy: Why and How.[22] He has publicly credited economist Thomas Schelling[23] and political scientist Richard Neustadt,[24] both at Harvard Kennedy School, as his most influential teachers.

Career

Pocalyko was commissioned as an officer in the US Navy in 1976 and qualified as a naval aviator in 1977. He later became dual-warfare qualified at sea as a surface warfare officer. He served in the US Atlantic Fleet flying the SH-3, SH-2, and SH-60 helicopters, deploying in destroyers and frigates in the LAMPS and LAMPS Mark III platforms.[25] During his career as a pilot, Pocalyko made more than 1,000 helicopter small deck landings.[26]

He served in the Multinational Force in Lebanon and was the pilot in command of the only helicopter airborne at the moment of the Beirut barracks bombing on October 23, 1983.[27] He also commanded special intelligence missions in the Persian Gulf.[28]

In the mid-1980s he was desk officer for the Navy’s Forward Maritime Strategy and then special assistant to Vice Admiral Henry C. Mustin II in the office of the Chief of Naval Operations.[29] In the early 1990s he was on the personal staff of Secretary of the Navy H. Lawrence Garrett III during the Tailhook scandal.[30] In his 1998 book Against All Enemies, investigative journalist Seymour Hersh wrote approvingly about Pocalyko's role as a veterans advocate with respect to the controversial Persian Gulf War Syndrome during his years in the Office of the Secretary of Defense from 1993 to 1995.[31]

While a serving naval officer in Washington he was senior fellow of the Atlantic Council of the United States. A longtime observer of Russia, he traveled in the former Soviet Union with Goodpaster and Ambassador Paul Nitze and wrote then-controversial positions supporting Russian and Ukrainian defense conversion; economic development of the new nations formed from the Soviet Union; NATO expansion; and deep reductions in nuclear weapons as the Cold War ended.[32][33][34]

He retired from the Navy in the grade of commander in 1995.

Investment banking and business

Pocalyko formed a corporate financial advisory firm in Washington D.C. that became Monticello Capital, a privately held boutique investment bank and private equity firm based in Northern Virginia and from 2003 to 2008 with offices in New York City.[35] He co-founded Monticello Capital with Stephen Frey, an investment banker and author of financial novels who had been a vice president at JP Morgan and Westdeutsche Landesbank.[36] Since 1997 Pocalyko has been a managing director at Monticello Capital.[37]

He has served on more than a dozen corporate boards[38][39] and is a "public company audit committee financial expert" under the Sarbanes-Oxley Act.[40] He was a director and audit committee chairman of defense contractor Herley Industries, brought in after that company’s chairman was indicted.[2] He also chaired the board of TherimuneX Pharmaceuticals, a biotechnology company in Doylestown, Pennsylvania.[41]

Politics

In 1984, Pocalyko became one of The Heritage Foundation's "Third Generation," the "young leaders of [an] army of conservative activists."[42] It was his "Third Generation Military Leadership" that first gained him national notice on the political stage.[43] Pocalyko served terms on the Fairfax County Industrial Development Authority[44] and on Virginia's Commonwealth Competition Council, appointed by Governor Jim Gilmore as the governor's representative and remaining during part of the administration of Governor Mark Warner.[45]

He was a district chairman for six years in the Republican Party of Virginia.

1999 Virginia House campaign

In 1999, he was the endorsed Republican candidate for the Virginia House of Delegates from the 36th District, in Reston and western Fairfax County, and ran against incumbent Democrat Ken Plum, then chairman of the Democratic Party of Virginia.[46] Pocalyko campaigned as a "progressive Republican" in the left-leaning district with strong backing from Senator John Warner, a Capitol Hill mentor, and from Governor Jim Gilmore. He took conservative positions on limited government, fiscal matters and taxation (although he refused to sign the Americans for Tax Reform "Taxpayer Protection Pledge"[47]), law and order, Second Amendment rights, faith-based initiatives, and backing the death penalty, but was moderate on issues like the environment, immigration, and public education.[48] He was among the very few Virginia GOP candidates who met with gay community leaders; he pledged active support for expanded gay and lesbian rights and appeared at Log Cabin Republican events.[49][50] Pocalyko was criticized by The Washington Post for a leaflet distributed by his campaign accusing his opponent of "voting to protect child molesters who murder children."[51]

Pocalyko lost to Plum by 61.83 percent to 35.42 percent of the vote.[52]

Writing

Since the 1970s, Pocalyko has published newspaper features, academic papers, essays, reviews, and opinion pieces. His novel The Navigator was published by Forge Books, an imprint of Macmillan Publishers.

Special Investigations Limited Company

Pocalyko is currently the CEO of Special Investigations Limited Company, described as "a professional services firm and government contractor in the investigations, intelligence, and cyber sectors."[53][54]

In March 2023, Special Investigations faced criticism for Pocalyko's role in allegedly luring a transgender woman back to her family in Saudi Arabia, where she was forced to detransition and later died by suicide.[5][55][56]

Personal life

Pocalyko married his classmate Barbara Snelbaker after their college graduation in 1976. They have two children. He lives in Reston in Northern Virginia and on the Blue Ridge in the Shenandoah Valley.[57]

References

  1. ↑ "Green IT in the Public Sector with Michael Pocalyko and Tony Cicco". Archived from the original on 2016-03-04. Retrieved 2012-03-16.
  2. 1 2 Herley Announces Election of Michael Pocalyko to Board of Directors, January 12, 2010
  3. ↑ "Publishers Marketplace: Dealmaker: Kathleen Murphy (Agent)". Archived from the original on 2023-03-12. Retrieved 2013-05-23.
  4. ↑ "New Releases: 6/11/2013 | Tor/Forge's Blog". Archived from the original on 2013-08-17. Retrieved 2013-09-09.
  5. 1 2 Zoledziowski, Anya; Marchman, Tim (March 16, 2023). "A Young Saudi Trans Woman Is Believed Dead After Being Lured From the US and Forced to Detransition". Vice. Archived from the original on March 16, 2023. Retrieved March 16, 2023.
  6. ↑ ""Commodity trap, bad technology and greed sealed Beth Steel's fate," Allentown Morning Call, November 8, 2001". Archived from the original on 2014-04-27. Retrieved 2012-03-16.
  7. 1 2 ""Democracy in Arab world will have Islamic flavor," Allentown Morning Call, June 14, 2005". Archived from the original on 2013-01-28. Retrieved 2012-03-16.
  8. ↑ "Nancy J. Freeman, "Business Manager Appointed," Allentown Morning Call, March 6, 1984". Archived from the original on 2014-04-27. Retrieved 2012-03-16.
  9. ↑ 1969 Progress Report, Township of Bethlehem, Northampton County, Penna.
  10. ↑ "Anna M. Pocalyko Obituary, Allentown Morning Call, April 26, 2001". Archived from the original on 2014-04-27. Retrieved 2012-08-22.
  11. ↑ "Dora B. Pocalyko Obituary, Allentown Morning Call, November 4, 1991". Archived from the original on 2014-04-27. Retrieved 2012-03-16.
  12. ↑ Special Correspondent Report, "Patriot Band Pleases Deep South Audience," Bethlehem Globe-Times, December 31, 1970
  13. ↑ "Full Disclosure Necessary," The Reston Connection (November 10, 1999)
  14. ↑ ""In Bethlehem, USWA broke its moral compact," Allentown Morning Call, January 19, 2003". Archived from the original on 2013-01-28. Retrieved 2012-03-16.
  15. ↑ " '76 'Berg Buzz & Beyond 1,1 (October 2011)" (PDF).
  16. ↑ "Chain," Arcade 29,1 (Fall 1974)
  17. ↑ "Dexter," Fusion 1,2 (Spring 1977)
  18. ↑ Santore, Anthony C. and Pocalyko, Michael N., eds. A John Hawkes Symposium: Design and Debris (New York: New Directions Pub. Corp., 1977) ISBN 9780811206716
  19. 1 2 "Inside FDU: New Trustees Named (June 2000)". Archived from the original on 2010-05-27. Retrieved 2012-03-16.
  20. ↑ ""Class Notes," Muhlenberg Magazine (December 2010)" (PDF). Archived (PDF) from the original on 2012-01-25. Retrieved 2012-03-16.
  21. ↑ "Council on Foreign Relations". Council on Foreign Relations. Archived from the original on July 27, 2014.
  22. ↑ "In Support of Arab Democracy - Council on Foreign Relations". Archived from the original on 2012-01-27. Retrieved 2012-03-16.
  23. ↑ ""Final Word," Business Today 45,1 (Spring 2008)". 24 March 2008. Archived from the original on 2011-08-09. Retrieved 2012-03-16.
  24. ↑ Harvard University, John F. Kennedy School of Government, MPA Class of 1985 Reunion Class Book (May 21, 2005)
  25. ↑ "Naval Aviation Museum Foundation National Flight Log". Archived from the original on July 11, 2012.
  26. ↑ ""Records," Naval Aviation News 72,4 (May-June 1990)" (PDF). Archived from the original (PDF) on September 1, 2009.
  27. ↑ "Carol L. Bowers, "Marine Museum Honors Marines Who Served, Died in Beirut," American Forces Press Service, October 15, 2008". Archived from the original on April 14, 2012. Retrieved March 16, 2012.
  28. ↑ Carlos C. Campbell, "From Pilot to Politician: Pocalyko's Passion," Washington Metro Herald, October 22, 1999
  29. ↑ "Naval War College Press". www.usnwc.edu. Archived from the original on June 16, 2012.
  30. ↑ "Susan Snyder, "Navy Secretary Speaks at Muhlenberg, Defends Base Closing," Allentown Morning Call, August 26, 1991". Archived from the original on 2014-04-27. Retrieved 2012-09-11.
  31. ↑ Hersh, Seymour M. Against All Enemies: Gulf War Syndrome, The War Between America's Ailing Veterans and Their Government (New York: Ballantine, 1998) ISBN 9780345427489
  32. ↑ (Rapporteur) The Future of Russian-American Relations in a Pluralistic World (Washington: The Atlantic Council, 1992)
  33. ↑ (Rapporteur) The Future of Ukrainian-American Relations in a Pluralistic World (Washington: The Atlantic Council, 1992)
  34. ↑ Brady, Rose. Kapitalizm: Russia's Struggle to Free Its Economy (New Haven: Yale University Press, 1999) ISBN 9780300082623
  35. ↑ "Monticello Capital firm brochure (2007, 2012)". Archived from the original on 2012-01-25. Retrieved 2012-03-16.
  36. ↑ "About Stephen Frey". Archived from the original on January 30, 2011.
  37. ↑ Alicia Biggs, "Catching Your Business Before A Fall" Loudoun Business 5,6 (May 2008)
  38. ↑ ""Battle Stations," NACD Directorship 38,1 (January/February 2012)". Archived from the original on 2014-04-27. Retrieved 2013-09-09.
  39. ↑ Distinguished Eagle Scout Award Citation, Boy Scouts of America, Washington DC, October 3, 2011
  40. ↑ "Herley Industries, Inc. SEC Schedule 14D-9 Solicitation/Recommendation Statement (March 16, 2011)" (PDF). Archived (PDF) from the original on February 17, 2012. Retrieved September 9, 2013.
  41. ↑ ""TherimuneX Pharmaceuticals, Inc. Management Team" Retrieved 2013-09-30". Archived from the original on 2013-09-23. Retrieved 2013-09-09.
  42. ↑ Hart, Benjamin. The Third Generation: Young Conservative Leaders Look to the Future (Washington: Regnery Books, 1987) ISBN 0815969244
  43. ↑ "Where It's Happening". March 4, 2016. Archived from the original on 2016-03-04.
  44. ↑ "Clerk's Board Summary: Report of Actions of the Fairfax County Board of Supervisors, September 25, 2000" (PDF). Archived from the original (PDF) on July 9, 2013. Retrieved March 16, 2012.
  45. ↑ "Competition Watch 8,1 (July 2003)" (PDF). Archived from the original (PDF) on 2010-01-15. Retrieved 2012-03-16.
  46. ↑ William Branigin, "District 36: Plum Faces Lively Opponent," Washington Post (October 28, 1999)
  47. ↑ "@mikepocalyko July 30, 2011 Twitter.com "In my 99 campaign I never signed #pledge"". Archived from the original on December 15, 2022. Retrieved January 25, 2016.
  48. ↑ "The Pocalyko Campaign Toughens as Vote Nears," Reston Times (October 27, 1999)
  49. ↑ Robert A. Jones, "Pocalyko Cites Need for Change, Reaches out to Moderates," The Reston Connection, October 20–26, 1999
  50. ↑ "Election 99: 36th House of Delegates – Mike Pocalyko," The Connection, McLean, Virginia (October 27-November 2, 1999)
  51. ↑ "Smear Time in Virginia". The Washington Post. October 27, 1999. p. A30. Archived from the original on March 15, 2023. Retrieved March 15, 2023.
  52. ↑ Commonwealth of Virginia, State Board of Elections, "Election Results, November 2, 1999 General Election" Archived December 28, 2012, at the Wayback Machine
  53. ↑ Liebman, Jennifer (January–February 2022). "Michael Pocalyko, CFE". Fraud Magazine. Association of Certified Fraud Examiners. Retrieved March 16, 2023.
  54. ↑ "Michael Pocalyko at BASD Nation". BASD Nation. Retrieved 2023-03-15.
  55. ↑ Leonard, Lana (March 16, 2023). "Family forced Saudi trans woman Eden Knight to detransition. Now she's dead". LGBTQ Nation. Archived from the original on March 16, 2023. Retrieved March 16, 2023.
  56. ↑ Riedel, Samantha (March 17, 2023). "A Saudi Trans Woman Is Presumed Dead After Claiming She Was Forced to Detransition". Them. Archived from the original on March 18, 2023. Retrieved March 18, 2023.
  57. ↑ Alexander Walker AIA, "Designing Hamatreya" Custom Wood Homes 5,2 (Summer 2007)
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