760_ Government funding and having fun growing the business
Larry corralled Russ Farmer for an interview for Profile of a Leader Series here on w3w3® Media Network. Corralled is an appropriate word as Russ grew up on a farm and owns a farm with his wife Karen. In addition, he is an extremely successful business person and he has helped numerous companies rise to financial success. Larry probed into his past to find out what helped make him who he is. Larry asked, "Who was someone who influenced you in your early life?" Russ had a very interesting answer, "When I was at Arthur Anderson they had a 'big brother', mentor program. My big brother was also my manager on an audit I was working. The guy intimidated and abused me as a staff member to the point where he totally destroyed me for a period of time. What came out of that, over time, was a reflection on who I was, my life goals, and I concluded that was neither how I wanted to be treated nor how I wanted to treat other people. To this day I reflect on that as a major turning point in my professional growth. It had a very substantial influence on who I am and what I do." Larry also wanted to know what influenced his values and beliefs. "Undoubtedly it was as an individual, as a youth growing up on a farm. We had a good size family, and we started working in the field from the time when we were old enough to walk and be productive - I pulled weeds in the field when at six years old and as you got older, at ten you were driving tractors out in the field and working a good day's work. By the time you were 13-14, you were driving a truck to the beet dump. The work ethic we created and the attitude towards people, the way farmers treated each other and worked together, was just a marvelous, very positive experience, that I carry with me today." There's more...
Related Links: PBC, Inc Home || ADA Technologies || SBIR Info || Looking for Money Channel || Commercialization || Profile of a Leader || Keywords: Russ Farmer, PBC, Inc, SBIR, ADA Technologies, Entrepreneurs, Funding, Grow Your Business - Channel: Profiles
Bytes: 11458448 - 12/21/09 LISTEN to Russ Farmer

766_ Being happy, enjoying life and making money
PBC began in 1988 and continues to grow. In 2010 PBC will be merging with Meeting the Challenge. This is part 2 of 2 of a Profile of a Leader interview with Russ Farmer, founder of PBC. The merger will allow Russ to spend more time with ADA Technologies (PBC's first client). Russ describes himself as a bootstrapper and that's what ADA does. Russ attended a program at DU put on by the Positive Life Foundation. So many people Russ met were unhappy and complaining, he felt somewhat out of step because he was happy and enjoyed life. Regardless of the work he was doing, he was happy with his life. When he went to this program with Art Linkletter, and other top notch speakers, he learned that he wasn't strange, it was those folks who couldn't be happy. From that moment on he became more comfortable being positive and happy. He still meets people who say 'you can't always be happy'. Russ's advice to a young person, "Do what you love to do and you can almost always figure out a way to do it successfully. If you're not having fun - change it. Life is too short and sweet not to really enjoy life. People that don't enjoy their job spend 5/7ths of their life in misery - that's a crazy way to live! You can always find something that you enjoy doing. Learn to play the game. Life is a beautiful and fantastic game."
Related Links: PBC, Inc Home || ADA Technologies || SBIR Info || Looking for Money Channel || Commercialization || Profile of a Leader || Keywords: Russ Farmer, PBC, Inc, SBIR, ADA Technologies, Entrepreneurs, Funding, Grow Your Business, Amended Silicates, Meeting the Challenge > Channel: Profiles 9499391 bytes - 1/4/10 LISTEN to Russ Farmer, SBIR Expert

759_ In order to do that he had to give up his tenure
David Allen, Associate Vice President for Technology Transfer at the University of Colorado is featured in the Profile of a Leader Series here on w3w3® Media Network. Before they got into the Leader Profile, Larry asked for David's forecast for the coming year. David said, "It's going to be a tough year. The economic horizon is looking a little brighter than it has for the last 12 months or so, but we're not seeing any financing, very little activity in M&A at our level; We see some of the ice starting to crack and hopefully melt; But for new companies and new ventures, which is our bread and butter, there's very little. I'm an eternal optimist and I know it's going to get better. For years we've known we would be in a revenue trough (we talked about this on your show before). We planned for that, we're going to be able to make it through that." David has a very interesting background and Larry had many questions including, "Who influenced you the most, he said his parents more than anyone else. But he thought about Elinor Ostrom who has won the Nobel Prize for Economics this year. She was David's advisor when working on his PhD at Indiana University. She is an absolutely wonderful person. What I learned from her was a sense of patience, to challenge yourself and surround yourself with bright intelligent people. I am immensely pleased to see her win, the first woman to ever have done that." Larry asked, "Can you imagine a failure you couldn't overcome, you had to live with?" David was a professor at Penn State, he had an opportunity to go to the Business School - in order to do that he had to give up his tenure. Tenure is hard earned, a torturous process and he was turning his back on it. His friends and colleagues thought he was insane...there are many leadership suggestions...listen for more...
Related Links: CU TTO Home || CU TTO Channel || Available Technologies || CU TTO Blog || Profile of a Leader || Keywords: David Allen, Technology Transfer, University of Colorado, Profile of a Leader, Elinor Ostrom, Nobel Prize for Economics > Channel: Profiles >> Bytes: 13415939 - 12/21/09 LISTEN to Dave Allen

765_ Here there are service providers and funding sources
This is part 2 of 2 of a Profile of a Leader interview with David Allen, Associate Vice President for Technology Transfer at the University of Colorado
The turning point in Dave's career was coming to Colorado. The thing that continually amazes Dave is the nature of the business community here in Colorado compared to where he was in Pennsylvania and Ohio. Dave continued, "Here the entrepreneurial climate, the DNA of the community, whatever you want to call it, it's not a difference in degree, it's a difference in kind. Here there are service providers and funding sources, but more than anything else there are people who understand it - that's different than most other places. They are willing to put in the time to support to younger people (TechStars), or what we do at the Boulder Innovation Center." Dave describes much more and he also gives some great advice to young people, "Constantly put yourself in situations where you are surrounded by smart people and figure out ways you can provide value, be prepared for those interactions, it can relate to school, your business community, friends, but challenge yourself." Listen, there's more...
Related Links: CU TTO Home || CU TTO Channel || Available Technologies || CU TTO Blog || Boulder Innovation Center || TechStars || Keywords: David Allen, Technology Transfer, University of Colorado, Profile of a Leader, Boulder Innovation Center, TechStars, Entrepreneurs Channel: Profiles 14638810 bytes - 1/4/10
LISTEN to Dave Allen, Associate Vice President, CU TTO

758_ Change Your City: Social Entrepreneurship
Meet this 39 year old dynamo; Peter Kellner, CEO, JD who has turned around 320 companies primarily in South America, and created in excess of 80,000 jobs at $2.5 billion. Peter Kellner was featured in Barron’s, “New Faces of Philanthropy,’ December 2008. Larry interviewed Peter during his world-wind tour in Colorado talking about social entrepreneurism and Ashoka. Peter is the managing partner and founder of Richmond Management, primarily a venture capital firm that invests in technology & related services in the US. They also invest overseas and have been investing in media principally in China since late 1990s and is still very active there. Peter has a great team in place and that allows him time for his passion - Endeavor. Endeavor was started 11 years ago with Peter and his co-founder Linda Rottenberg, modeled on Ashoka an organization that vets and selects social entrepreneurs and started by his dear friend, Bill Drayton. Peter went to Bill and said, "Bill can I stand on your shoulders"; and I read this Thoreau quote, "and I want to call this thing Endeavor. I want to build an organization just like Ashoka, but I want to fund business entrepreneurs in the emerging world. Not micro credit entrepreneurs, I'm looking for Steve Jobs in Istanbul, people who can create massive wealth for their societies, inspiring stories, jobs and really lead cultural change around environmental development within their countries", which is, I think, the key to progress. So here we are eleven years later and Endeavor is in eleven countries. As a social entrepreneur, Peter co-founded Endeavor, a pioneering organization promoting entrepreneurship in emerging markets. Peter is on the board of Obopay, Inc., Voxiva, Inc. and AdChina, Inc. He is a member of the Board of Trustees of The Allen-Stevenson School, a boy’s school in New York City, as well as the Board of Ashoka Youth Venture. Peter was in Colorado to help launch the 'Change Your City' Campaign in Denver. Denver Mayor John Hickenlooper is also supportive of the campaign...listen for more...
Related Links: Richmond Management || Social Entrepreneur Channel || Ashoka || ACG Denver Channel || Profiles of Leaders || Keywords: Peter Kellner, Social Entrepreneur, Ashoka, Richmond Management, Endeavor, Bill Drayton, ACG, DU, Change Your City > Channel: Profiles/SocEntrp 21027907 bytes - 12/14/09 LISTEN

600_ "The word for the next two years is prudency," says Roy Dimoff
"Knowing what you don't know is as important as knowing what you do know," said Roy Dimoff, Chairman and CEO of ViaWest during a Profile of a Leader interview with Larry. Before getting into the history and learning lessons, Roy gives an overview of where Viawest is today, and what they plan on doing during these shaky economic times. "Growth rate north of 35% and now stands as the largest privately held data center and managed service company in the US, you know it’s really a tremendous opportunity to look at your systems, look at your processes, look at your efficiencies, look at the number of times you touch the customer and really try to streamline some things. Really take this as an opportunity to look at your business as a whole – now is a good time to look on everything we do and see if we can do it better, how we can be more efficient, how we can bring more to the bottom line. A lot of our competitors back in 99-2000, they had raised hundreds of millions of dollars and of course ViaWest total equity investment back then was like $34 million – and we were one of the few survivors. So, it’s been very interesting. A lot of the lessons we learned back then are very applicable today even though the industry is different and ViaWest is in a much different position. But the key is Larry; we are still the very prudent group that we were back in 2000 and refusing to take things for granted." Roy started his first entrepreneurial effort at age 25. Years before that he worked in the produce department at a Canadian grocery store. Then after a couple of successes as an entrepreneur he was involved in an IPO. It was there he learned that when an expert advisor says that strategy could be 'problematic' he should listen. So you listen, there's more...
Related Links: ViaWest || Green Solutions || Leader Profiles || Blog || Keywords: Roy Dimoff, ViaWest, Data Centers, Leaders, Team, Management, Green Grid, Computers, Telecom, Canada >> Channels:Leader Profiles Bytes: 11100476 >
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