Our Team

 Senior Managing Director & CEO

(412) 355-2604

keevican@renaissance-partners.com

Since co-founding Renaissance Partners, LLC  in 1986, Senior Managing Director and CEO,  Leo (Lee) A. Keevican, Jr. has steered the investment banking and business services firm with a clear vision: Focusing on the needs of entrepreneurial-minded clients. Mr. Keevican has worked on acquisitions, recapitalizations and sales of a number of manufacturing, distribution and service companies. His experience includes the structuring of complex acquisitions and financings for companies in a wide range of businesses and industries. The Pittsburgh Post-Gazette called Mr. Keevican a "middle-market merger maker"

Mr. Keevican began his work with private equity sponsors with the sale of a large Pittsburgh-based industrial company to Kohlberg Kravis & Roberts (now KKR). Since that time, Mr. Keevican has had extensive involvement with private equity transactions, including working with over 40 private equity and venture capital groups in their transactions, in the United States, Mexico, Europe, North Africa and South America.

Among his accomplishments, Mr. Keevican represented the private equity purchasers of Rouge Steel from Ford Motor Company. Beginning with the management leveraged buyout of Motor Coils Manufacturing Company in Braddock PA, he orchestrated a series of transactions into the creation of MotivePower, the largest remanufacturer of railroad locomotives in the United States -- ultimately completing a merger with Westinghouse Air Brake Company to form Wabtec.

Most recently, Mr. Keevican has represented the fastest growing bank in the country since its founding in 2007. He represented the bank in its capitalization, its initial public offering, and its acquisition of a large investment management firm.

He is a former member of the Board of Directors of the United Way of Allegheny County and the West Penn Chapter of the March of Dimes. He currently serves as a Director of the Shadyside Hospital Foundation. Mr. Keevican is also active in major fundraising campaigns for the Hillman Cancer Center and the Little Sisters of the Poor and Catholic Charities.

He is a 1971 honors graduate of Yale University where he majored in economics and was a member of the Yale Ivy League Championship Football team. Mr. Keevican continued his formal training in economics at The Pennsylvania State University. He received a law degree from Boston University Law School in 1975.

 Principal

(412) 355-2605

jbauerle@renaissance-partners.com

Since cofounding Renaissance Partners, LLC in 1986, James F. (Jim) Bauerle has assisted companies throughout America’s heartland.  He is particularly known for his experience in banking and other financial services.  

For Renaissance Partners clients, he has conducted assessments of their business needs and implemented plans to meet those needs.  These have included management buyouts of industrial and commercial businesses, debt and equity restructurings, negotiation or renegotiation of contracts with suppliers or customers, as well as tapping government financing to foster economic development.

He has played a leading role in a number of innovative projects, including the following:

• Chartering and serving as legal counsel for the largest de novo banking company in American history (measured by initial capitalization).
• Triage and turnaround of two national banks following credit and liquidity crises.
• Development and financing corporate headquarters for two Fortune 500 companies.
• Sales or financing of shale gas assets in Ohio, West Virginia and Pennsylvania involving real estate, pipeline construction, gas exploration and development, and resolution of disputes over business acquisitions in the natural resources industry
• Pioneering use of letter stock in the insurance business.

Mr. Bauerle has served as a director or executive officer of companies in the banking, insurance and equipment leasing businesses.  His work has been included in case studies at the U.S. Department of the Treasury and the Federal Reserve System. 

In the community, Mr. Bauerle served as board chair for Three Rivers Employment Service, Inc., a nonprofit agency that assisted underemployed and unemployed young persons in their efforts to secure jobs with a future. He also served Calvary Episcopal Church, Western Pennsylvania’s largest Episcopal congregation, in multiple lay leadership roles.

Jim is a Phi Beta Kappa graduate of Oberlin College and earned his law degree from Cornell University in 1979.  He is admitted to practice law in the state courts of Ohio, Pennsylvania and West Virginia and in U.S. federal court.

Associate

(412) 355-2625

jimsheiel@renaissance-partners.com

 Mr. Imsheiel assists Renaissance Partners with corporate finance and merger and acquisition assignments for clients. He holds the LL.B. degree from the University of Nicosia (Cyprus) and an LL.M. degree from the University of Pittsburgh, where he focused on business organizations and transactions. His international business experience includes projects in Europe and the Middle East as well as in the United States. In the course of that work, Mr. Imsheiel gained familiarity with business customs and cultural sensibilities of counterparties in the transactions being completed. He also has experience in arbitration and mediation matters, including preparation of written awards in those proceedings. 

Senior Advisor

(412) 355-2600

 jgofoeller@renaissance-partners.com

Joe Gfoeller, Jr. is a Senior Advisor to Renaissance Partners. Previously, he served as General Partner of GMG Capital Partners L.P., a venture capital investment firm he co-founded in 1997. Prior to GMG, Mr. Gfoeller was one of the founding partners of Stolberg Partners, established in 1993. At Stolberg Partners, he had extensive experience investing in the private equity middle market, particularly in the manufacturing and distribution industries. Prior to Stolberg Partners, Mr. Gfoeller served as a Vice President of Weiss, Peck & Greer from 1988 to 1993 and as a partner of its buyout group from 1992 to 1993. From 1983 to 1986, Mr. Gfoeller was with the First National Bank of Boston as a Credit Officer and Workout Specialist, working in the United States and Latin America.

Mr. Gfoeller has served on several corporate boards, including those of TecTraum Inc., Flanders Filters Inc., Iverify Inc., Lancope Inc., Phobos Corporation and StorageApps Inc., among others.

In addition to his professional responsibilities, Mr. Gfoeller is a member of the Council on Foreign Relations and is an active supporter, through the Gfoeller Foundation, of archaeology projects in Armenia. Mr. Gfoeller speaks Spanish, Portuguese, and German. He received a Masters of Business Administration degree in Finance from the Wharton School at the University of Pennsylvania in 1988, an Master of Arts degree, with honors, in Economics and Latin American Studies from the Johns Hopkins School of Advanced International Studies in 1983, and a Bachelor of Arts, magna cum laude, Phi Beta Kappa, in International Studies from The Ohio State University in 1981.Senior Advisor

Principal

(412) 355-2632

  jhall@renaissance-partners.com

John L. Hall, CPA, CFE, has more than 40 years experience serving Midwest and Texas Gulf Coast companies in executive and managerial roles.  His experience has equipped him to address financial and operational issues at both macro and micro levels.  As a result, he is able to achieve results that otherwise require layers of manpower and extended time to accomplish.  

His experience and skill as both a certified public accountant and certified fraud examiner help him identify issues others may overlook.  As a result companies can more quickly return to optimal performance levels.  He served significant executive or managerial roles at the following companies:

• New Castle (PA) Rolling Mills, New Castle, PA
• Erie Brewing, Erie, PA
• Wheeling Pittsburgh Steel Company
• KMA Manufacturing, Vanport, PA
• Schlumberger, Houston, TX
• Moltrup Steel Products, Beaver, PA

 Hall earned the B.S. degree in accounting at Notre Dame University and the M.B.A. degree at West Virginia University. Principa