Global Video’s Liz Sweeney has traded her general manager’s position for president of the 12-year digital services and replicating company, having purchased it from founder and former owner George Marton.
The new company has opened in more spacious offices at 1700 W. Hubbard St., vacating the 230 E. Ohio space where Marton had started the original duplicating company in 1998.
Marton, who had left Global about a year ago to run a large local machinery company, had thought about closing the company. Instead, he offered it for sale to seven-year employee Sweeney.
Sweeney did not divulge the sale price, except to say it was “mutually acceptable,” and that it will be a long-term payout.
She is the president of a newly formed corporation.
“I feel blessed to have this opportunity to stay in this industry that I’ve enjoyed since I was 17 — I’m now 45,” she says with a chuckle. “The industry is changing — I feel it’s already changed 100 times — and I hope to continue to change with it.”
When Global Video closed its 12-year old VHS duplication facility last December, five staffers were retired, leaving a four-person staff, plus Sweeney to handle a streamlined way of offering new, digitizing services to customers, many of them indie filmmakers.
Staffers continuing the business with Sweeney are engineer Steve Biddle, editor/technician Ellen Callahan and customer service/sales Joe Witowski.
Among Global’s clients are Kartemquin, Tod Lending’s Nomadic Pictures, The Colonie, AKA Media, Plan B, Jim Saric’s Midwest Outdoors’ fishing show, and many independent filmmakers.
George Marton’s son, Adam Marton, briefly managed Global Video after his father left the company, “but I never signed on for the long haul,” he says.
Adam Marton heads his own AM Films, an active corporate and TV show production business. “I didn’t have time for both businesses. Liz has been like a daughter to George, so it was a natural succession for both of them.”
