About Us

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Kevin Griffin -  Chairman - 

Kevin Griffin is an entrepreneur at heart and has founded several organizations starting with Showtime Foods on Cape Cod in 1987. He spent 5 years in corporate sales for America Online Inc. - and then went on to purchase his family’s business, Griffin Publishing Co. in 2000. He owned, operated and grew the business over the next 15 years until it was sold to Shelby Publishing in 2015. After a few years of transitional consulting, he founded Semiotic Marketing International in 2020. In 2022 Mr. Griffin founded Integrated Employment Screening - a leading US background check company. Mr. Griffin is also the Executive Director of The Northeast Wholesale Food Distributors Association (NEWFDA). Established in 1875, NEWFDA is the nation’s oldest food association. We are dedicated to serving the needs of the Northeast Food Distribution community by helping wholesalers, manufacturers, brokers and others network with top executives in our industry. Our annual scholarship program has granted over $1 Million Dollars in scholarship awards to students of our member families!

  

Sam Besnoff -COO  

Sam is unique in that he knows a lot machinery and especially 3D printing.  Sam built our first bikes by first building the bike jig, then ordering the special steel we use, bending the pieces so they fit perfectly in our bike jog.   The  welding the pieces to make the best and strongest frame.  It took us 2 years find Sam, he is that good.

John Sortino - Founder -   

John Sortino is the founder and former CEO of The Vermont Teddy Bear Company (VTBC). Within 15 years, John turned a peddler’s cart business - making teddy bears - into a $100 million stock public offering by starting with a $50,000 loan. During John's tenure, VTBC was named one of America’s fastest growing companies three years in a row by Inc. Magazine (88th, 55th, 50th), “Best Customer Service in New England” by NECSR, and the “Best Company in America” by Dunn and Bradstreet, Coopers and Lybrand (now PricewaterhouseCoopers) and The National Foundation of Independent Businesspeople. Also under his pioneering leadership, VTBC received the Yankee Award for “Best Public Relations.” John was also named to the top 100 marking people in Advertising Age.

John is also a founding member of The Chicago Bike Company, which he began and then sold to a group Investors. John’s book, “The Complete Idiot’s Guide to Becoming a Successful Entrepreneur” has sold over 55,000 copies. John comes from a family with a long history of entrepreneurs, both grandfathers, father and brother are entrepreneurs.