Ed VonderBrink spent 33 years at the Grant Thornton accounting firm, so he's done the hard-charging executive thing.

With a new business school dean at Xavier University wanting to kick up activity at Xavier Entrepreneurial Center to provide more services for outside entrepreneurs, VonderBrink, 59, decided to step aside as the center's director at the end of May.

After a few minutes of hemming and hawing, he came clean with the real reason he's leaving: "I don't want to work that hard."

In four years at XU, VonderBrink helped start a minor in entrepreneurship that's popular both inside and outside the Williams College of Business. But Ali Malekzadeh, who's nearing the end of his first year as dean of the college, said he wants to take the Entrepreneurial Center "to the next level."

"Now we need to provide more services to the outside entrepreneur," Malekzadeh said.

"He and I are philosophically at the same place," VonderBrink said. "The question is, how fast can we get there with someone like me?"

Legal limbo

Six weeks after it was scheduled to be completed, Games Inc.'s $1.125 million acquisition that included licenses for the online version of games such as Monopoly and Risk is in limbo.

Games, run by downtown businessman Roger Ach, claimed April 30 that seller Atari Inc. had defaulted on the deal by making a free version of the games available on other Internet sites. Once it closes the deal, Games plans to charge monthly or annual fees to subscribers.

"The whole business model is in jeopardy if we're going to charge $30 to play it and you can go somewhere else and play it for free," chief financial officer Myles Cairns said.

Three days later, Atari responded by claiming Games Inc. was in default for not paying $3 million in upfront royalties and blocking the redemption of $1 million in Games Inc. preferred stock.

"Games believes that these are business issues that can be worked out between the parties," the company said in a quarterly filing this week with the U.S. Securities and Exchange Commission.

Also in the filing: Games Inc. continues to struggle financially. The company lost nearly $2.7 million for the first nine months of its fiscal year, ended March 31. That's about $1 million smaller than the loss for the same period last year.

Revenue more than doubled to $355,269. The company has received more money from Internet advertising and providing services to state lotteries.

Dear sir

If nothing else, Douglas Barry is pretty persuasive on paper.

The Pennsylvania high-school senior wrote letters to dozens of America's top CEOs asking for their advice on how to become a top executive. Those who responded included Federated Department Stores' former chief Jim Zimmerman and Procter & Gamble's A.G. Lafley.

Barry published the responses in a new book, called Wisdom for a Young CEO.

Lafley told Barry to look beyond textbooks for good coaching and diversity.

"Embrace a mindset of 'humble confidence,' a belief in your abilities tempered by recognition that you must never stop learning to be and stay effective as a leader," he advised.

Zimmerman, who retired as Federated CEO last year, pointed out the importance of flexibility and drawing the best out of people around you.

"I'm just glad that by the time you're ready to take over the CEO's office, I'll be ready to retire," Zimmerman wrote. "I wouldn't want to be competing with you!"

E-mail cpeale@enquirer.com