DiSTI Leadership

Kevin Benoit is one of the four founding Partners of Dos Rios Partners and led the investment in DiSTI, as well as additional investments in Virtex, iKan, and Pro EM. Before forming Dos Rios, Kevin worked as an investment banker with Simmons & Company International and was a Vice President at Blue Sage Capital, where he was responsible for evaluating, structuring, diligencing, and modeling investment opportunities. Along with working extensively with Blue Sage’s investments in Environmental Design, Ashbrook-Simon Hartley, Parker Uniforms, Controlled Recovery (later R360 Environmental Solutions) and Primus Sterilizer, he also graduated with honors from the University of Texas at Austin with a BBA in Finance.

Joe Swinski is a founding partner of the DiSTI Corporation. Recognized as an industry leader with more than 20 years of experience in the simulation and training industry, Joe began his career at the University of Central Florida Business Incubator, a landmark of central Florida’s simulation and training community. Joe pioneered the development and use of interactive Virtual Maintenance Trainers with the military and today DiSTI is the recognized world leader in this rapidly growing field that now is seeing dramatic commercial demand. Under his leadership, DiSTI has more than doubled its revenue and staff and launched numerous products including its flagship product, GL Studio, and virtual training software, VE Studio.

Joseph Mercer is Vice President at Dos Rios Partners. In 2012, Joseph started his career as an Investment Banking Analyst at Raymond James where he advised on numerous transactions, including mergers and acquisitions, public offerings and private placements. He attended Baylor University, where he earned a BBA with Honors in Business Fellows, Accounting, Economics and Finance.

Having spent more than 40 years in the in electronic information services and IT industries, John Regazzi currently serves as Chairman of the board of directors for DiSTI. John is also a published author, having written two books for information executives: Infonomics and the Business of Free and Scholarly Communications: From Content as King to Content as Kingmaker. In addition to his publications, he has also designed, launched, and managed some of the most innovative and well known information services in the professional communities including the Engineering Village, Science Direct, Scirus, Scopus, and many other electronic information services.

Having already served on several not-for-profit boards over the course of his career, Jim joined the board of directors for Akoya Capital in 2009. Jim Appleton has not only served on the faculty of the American Management Association, but has also been a frequent speaker on the subjects of organizational performance and business leadership at charitable, professional, and business events. An Economics graduate of Bowdoin College, Jim is a very experienced sales and is a P/L leader across two industries in addition to currently being on the Board of Directors for DiSTI.