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(Source enr.com - Date 3/23/03)

By Judy Schriener

Citadon Chairman Rob Majteles, who engineered the merger of Cephren and Bidcom last year to form Citadon, has decided that his days of running companies are behind him. The former Cephren CEO told Citadon employees yesterday in an e-mail with the subject line "Good-Bye" that after two years with the organization he was leaving.

"I don't want to do this anymore," says Majteles. "I have run companies for going on 12 years. I've averaged four out of seven nights out of my own bed over a 10-year period, and I don't like that anymore." The former investment banker and lawyer previously was CEO of ULTRADATA, a software company serving financial institutions, and CAMAX Systems Inc., a software firm serving mechanical engineers.

More germaine to Citadon, Majteles says, "It's a perfect time to make this change. Bernard [Fried, Citadon's new CEO] in place, everybody's settled and all the craziness seems to be behind us." Fried moved from an executive position at Bechtel in early April.

San Francisco-based Citadon is an Internet company that specializes in collaboration and e-business in the construction industry.

The 36-year-old Majteles doesn't know what he wants to do next, and he has the luxury of not having to worry about getting a job. "I'm looking forward to repotting myself as an investor, but a CEO never more," he says. "I've been blessed with my first two [CEO gigs] giving me enough success to allow me some flexibility." Everyone who knows him well knows he has wanted to get out of the managerial role, other than to manage his stock portfolio. He describes himself as "a major stockholder" in Citadon.

Majteles [pronounced MY-tuh-less] spent two years at Cephren/Citadon, taking the firm from an early Internet company called Blueline Online to Cephren and finally Citadon. It is one of the largest dot-coms serving the construction industry.

A Citadon company official was not available for comment late yesterday.

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