Lionheart Industrial Group History

The Inspiration Behind Lionheart Industrial Group.

Lionheart Industrial Group began in 2004 as Lionheart Ventures, the brainchild of CEO David S. Bovenizer. Mr. Bovenizer's passion for business was inherited. His paternal great grandfather, George W. Bovenizer, Sr., was a partner of Kuhn, Loeb & Co., a "gentleman's" investment bank back in the 1920s, that eventually became part of Lehman Brothers and was a leading bank in financing the expansion of the American railroad industry. Immigrating from Ireland in 1870 as a child, he was hired as an office boy in 1897 and rose to partner in 1928. The zest for acquisitions at Lionheart today has some of its roots in family heritage.

Mr. Bovenizer's maternal grandfather, Charles V. Schaefer, Jr., was an industrialist who acquired his first company in the 1950s, brought it out of bankruptcy and sold it to a larger corporation. One of the early companies was Everlasting Valve Co., which was a manufacturer of boiler blow down valves. The company was transformed into specialty applications where grit or other sludge-like abrasives made using traditional valve closures difficult. Examples include industrial coffee processors at Maxwell House and coal gasification plants in South Africa.

Before his successful business career, "Grandpa Charlie," who was the first in his family to go to college, put himself through engineering school directly following the Great Depression, graduating from Stevens Institute of Technology in Hoboken, NJ. His legacy to the school was establishing an annual award to recognize outstanding young entrepreneurs and technologists called the Charles V. Schaefer, Jr. Entrepreneur Award. Stevens honored him by naming the engineering college after him, the Charles V. Schaefer, Jr. School of Engineering and Science. For his epitaph he left this enduring mission: "with His grace, make a difference".

Not surprisingly, "Grandpa Charlie" was the early inspiration and role model for Mr. Bovenizer who is proud of the fact that, today, Lionheart Industrial Group exceeds the peak EBITDA (even adjusted for inflation) of all of his grandfather's companies combined.

This is a classic example of the apple falling close to the tree.