Feature
Story
Michael Morizio Steps up to the Plate
The Future of our
Passtime
By Jay Winchester
For Michael Morizio, the 2006 World Series between the
eventual world champion St. Louis Cardinals and the
American League champion Detroit Tigers was a special
event. It wasn’t because he’s fan of either team (he’s
not), and it wasn’t because he loves baseball (he does).
No, what made that series so special was that both
teams, along with four other Major League Baseball (MLB)
play-off participants, use his company’s product,
ScoutAdvisor. That’s six teams out of a total of eight.
For those keeping score at home, Morizio’s company hit
.750 during that year’s play-offs.
This year, only three of the eight play-off participants
are ScoutAdvisor Corporation (www.scoutadvisor.com)
clients. However, while this year’s play-off numbers
might be down, the company’s regular season average was
up. In all, 13 of the 30 teams in MLB use the scouting
and decision-making tool developed by Morizio and his
team, a .433 average. There are many superstar talents
playing at the major league level who would gladly take
that number for their averages. And the business
continues to grow. The company recently made its initial
foray into Japan, where baseball has been a popular
sport since 1920, by signing the Osaka ORIX Buffaloes as
a client.
If it’s true that baseball is a game of numbers, it’s no
wonder that so many teams use Morizio’s product.
Essentially, ScoutAdvisor is a centralized database of
baseball performance- and financial-related statistics
for every player in the majors and the minors. Its
customizable reporting features mean that team scouts
and front office personnel receive information that is
essential to the decision-making involved in player
development and acquisition. After all, in baseball the
name of the game is highly skilled, highly motivated
players. In today’s baseball climate those types of
players represent a significant financial investment for
ownership. Mistakes are costly, so clubs want to
maximize their chances for success at fielding a winning
team. As Casey Stengel, who achieved managerial glory
with the New York Yankees and experienced managerial
misery with the expansion New York Mets, put it, “I
couldn’t have done it without my players.”
The company is just the latest hi-tech endeavor for
Morizio, who has been involved in technology businesses
since the glory days of Lotus 1-2-3, which would be
circa 1983. “While employed at Raytheon, I began writing
simple, then later, complex applications, mostly in
DBASE III, RBASE, Lotus 1-2-3 and Lotus Symphony,”
Morizio recalls. “I was later hired by Lotus as a QA
Engineer to build test programs. I became Manager of
Quality Assurance, where I often was brought in for
customer consultations.”
He discovered that there was much about the position he
enjoyed. Eventually, he moved into a role of Global
Sales Engineer, which combined his engineering and
people skills. It started a life on the road that took
him around the world covering such global accounts as
PricewaterhouseCoopers, Deloitte & Touche, FedEx,
Coca-Cola and others. He wound up being promoted to
Global Account Executive for Lotus, and then for IBM
when it purchased Lotus Development in 1995.
His role within IBM enabled him to work with key IBM
business partners, one of which was E Solutions
Corporation here in Tampa. Eventually, Michael took an
executive position with the Tampa web development and
hosting company. “While at E Solutions, we developed
huge software applications for some of these same global
accounts I had been covering while at Lotus and IBM,” he
recalls. One of those applications was ScoutAdvisor.
Sometimes, the entrepreneurial spirit is born when an
executive looks at one of the company’s products and
realizes there is more potential inherent in that
product than in any of the company’s other ventures.
When this is the minority point of view, events
sometimes dictate that a departure is in order, both for
the executive and the product. This was the destiny of
Michael Morizio and ScoutAdvisor. “Entrepreneurs have
strong beliefs about a specific market opportunity and
are willing to accept a high level of personal,
professional and financial risk to pursue that
opportunity,” Morizio says. “I believed that
ScoutAdvisor was a jewel in the crown of E Solutions
that needed to be further cultivated and promoted within
some other vertical markets. Properly nurturing and
growing that business meant extricating the ScoutAdvisor
product line and staff out of the protection of the
parent company into its own private entity.” Seven
months ago, both Morizio and the product were extricated
from E Solutions. “This took a great deal of foresight,
focus, planning, acceptance of risk, and a lot of prayer
on my part,” Michael says.
Today, the company employs four full-time employees and
six contractors, outsourcing any other company
activities not associated with its core business. The
firm operates out of three locations: its headquarters
here in Tampa, and offices in Boston, MA, and St. Paul,
MN. Its prospects for the future appear sound, with
trends for net income indicating a 19% net profit margin
after the first nine months of independent operations.
While the company’s vision is all about being the leader
in decision-making software for professional sports
organizations in the world, its mission statement might
seem at odds with that. It reveals that the mission of
ScoutAdvisor Corporation is “…to pursue a Godly
excellence in business by using our time, talents and
testimonies as good stewards of Christ, through a
software company founded on biblical principles.”
To help ensure that he fully understands the practical
business, personal and spiritual implications of such a
mission, Morizio, a devout Christian, attends the
monthly meetings of The C12 Group. Morizio explains the
group and its function, saying, “C12 is geared toward
helping CEOs and other key business players to lead
thriving profitable businesses with a commitment to a
Biblical perspective, coupled with like-minded peer
counsel and accountability.” A national organization,
the Tampa Bay chapter of C12, is its oldest, largest and
most active chapter.
Michael counts the local C12 Area Chair, Scott
Hitchcock, as one of his primary mentors, something he
thought was long gone from his professional life. “Until
joining C12, I had thought the ability to have a mentor
at my age a lost opportunity,” he says. “To the contrary
and to my astonishing surprise, I have a new and vibrant
mentoring relationship with Scott.” He also counts the
pastor of his church, also named Michael, as a mentor.
Both are key relationships for him. “In each case, these
men poured themselves out to help me,” he says. “Their
examples have caused a yearning in me to do the same for
others.” Currently, Michael is involved in mentoring
roles with his two sons, two key employees and a close
personal friend.
When not on the road Morizio describes his favorite seat
as one on a Delta 25D, where he is free to “go into my
computer” without having to answer the phone. Morizio
passes time in Bible study; playing with the family
dogs, Cha Cha and Rosie; reading and socializing. “I can
sum up my favorite extracurricular activities this way,”
he says. “Good friends, fine wine, and something with
garlic.” Was it mentioned that Morizio’s heritage is
Italian?
Perhaps that explains his fondness for another activity
closely associated with Italians: opera. Michael
sings…he just doesn’t do it for a living, at least not
anymore. But his love affair with song began early on.
“I was a singer as a boy, and at 18 knew I had a gift
that was very different from those of my peers,” he
recalls. “It seemed that singing opera was my gift, so
off I went.” He graduated from music school, received a
full scholarship to the Boston Conservatory to earn a
Masters in Music with a concentration in Voice/Opera,
and embarked on a singing career. However, that career
was sidelined slightly by the birth of his first child
at the ripe old age of 24. “I decided that I’d better
learn to find a line of work that had more sustaining
power.” That led him into technology.
Nevertheless, he soon found that music held more than
one attraction for him. “I met Nancy, the most beautiful
soprano- and soprano voice- to happen upon the Boston
scene during my tenure there,” Michael says. “I was
divorced, and Nancy was soon to be my new bride. We have
both sung many solo engagements as well as duet
engagements since.” They continue to make beautiful
music together.
Morizio finds music to be spiritually invigorating.
“Music is a thing of beauty that consists of the
opposing elements of sound and silence, organized in
time through tempo and meter,” he declares. “The form of
music that is most spiritual in my opinion is the human
voice. What else can send those shivers up your spine as
when you hear a good singer perform?”
Looking at his life, and his profound love of music,
Morizio testifies that his most heartfelt desire is that
expressed in Psalm 140:33: “I will sing to the Lord as
long as I live; I will sing praise to my God while I
have being.”
To those seated in the box seats and bleachers of life,
that sounds like a hit.
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