Richard (Dick) Sweeney was a co-founder of Keurig in 1993 and joined the company full time as one of its first employees in 1996. At Keurig, Dick is responsible for Manufacturing, Quality Control, and Field Service. Dick brought to Keurig more than 25 years of experience in manufacturing, product development and consulting behind industrial and consumer appliances. Prior to Keurig, he was VP, Manufacturing for Canrad-Hanovia, a manufacturer of scientific and UV lighting. Dick also served as VP, Operations for V-M Industries, a consumer appliances manufacturer and importer. Dick has developed several US and International Keurig brewer and packaging patents. Dick received his BS from New Jersey Institute of Technology and his MBA from Fairleigh Dickinson University.
William B. Gartner, Arthur M. Spiro Professor of Entrepreneurship, Clemson University
William B. Gartner is the Arthur M. Spiro Professor of Entrepreneurship at Clemson University. Prior to joining Clemson he was on the faculty at Georgetown University, the University of Virginia, San Francisco State University, and the University of Southern California. He is one of the co-founders of the Entrepreneurship Research Consortium, which initiated, developed and managed the Panel Study of Entrepreneurial Dynamics. His service to the entrepreneurship field has included two consecutive terms as Chair of the Academy of Management Entrepreneurship Division (1985 + 1986), special issue editorships for the Journal of Business Venturing (JBV) and Entrepreneurship Theory and Practice (ETP), and Editorial Board memberships with the Academy of Management Review (AMR), Journal of Management (JOM), JBV, ETP, and the Journal of Small Business Management (JSBM). His research has been published in AMR, JBV, ETP, JOM and JSBM; won awards from the Academy of Management, ETP, and the Babson-Kauffman Entrepreneurship Research Conference; and has been funded by the Kauffman Center for Entrepreneurial Leadership, Coleman Foundation, U.S. Department of Education, Small Business Foundation of America, the Los Angeles Times, the Pacific Gas and Electric Company, the Corporate Design Foundation and the National Endowment for the Arts. His research on nascent entrepreneurs explores how they find and identify opportunities, recognize and solve startup problems, and undertake actions to successfully launch new ventures. He is also collecting and analyzing the stories entrepreneurs tell about their entrepreneurial adventures.
Jennifer Prosek, Founder and CEO, CJP Communications
Friday, January 14: 11:45am - 1:30pm
Jennifer Prosek is the founder and CEO of CJP Communications (CJP), a leading international public relations and financial communications consultancy with more than 70 professionals in New York, Connecticut and London. The secret to CJP’s success has been Prosek’s ability to develop, motivate and deploy her employees to be more entrepreneurial within their own positions. This strategy is the premise of her first book, Army of Entrepreneurs: Create an Engaged and Empowered Workforce for Exceptional Business Growth which is based on CJP’s business model and will be published in February 2011 by AMACOM, a division of the American Management Association. Prosek has earned numerous honors. She was a finalist for the 2010 Ernst & Young Entrepreneur of the Year award and was named an “Emerging Power Player” by PR Week magazine, which lauded her for “combining an MBA education and instinct.” She was also inducted into the Arthur Page Society, which includes chief communications officers and CEOs of the world's leading public relations agencies. In 2007, Prosek was ranked among the “40 Under 40” leaders to watch by PR Week. Prosek received her MBA from Columbia and a bachelor’s degree from Miami University in Ohio. She lectures frequently at leading business schools, including Columbia, and entrepreneurial and business groups including the Yale Chief Executive Leadership Institute.
Lee Rainie is the Director of the Pew Internet & American Life Project, a non-profit, non-partisan “fact tank” that studies the social impact of the internet. The Project has issued more than 250 reports based on its surveys that examine people's online activities and the internet's role in their lives. Lee is a co-author of Up for Grabs, Hopes and Fears, and Ubiquity, Mobility, Security, a series of books about the future of the internet published by Cambria Press and based on Project surveys. He is also co-authoring a book for MIT Press about the social impact of technology with sociologist Barry Wellman that will be published in mid-2011. The working title is Networking: The New Social Operating System. Prior to launching the Pew Internet Project, Lee was managing editor of U.S. News & World Report. He is a graduate of Harvard University and has a master's degree in political science from Long Island University.
Penny K. Pickett, Associate Administrator for Entrepreneurial Development, U. S. Small Business Administration
Saturday, January 15: 11:45am - 1:30pm
Penny K. Pickett is Associate Administrator for Entrepreneurial Development having completed the transition in agency leadership as Senior Advisor to the Administrator at the SBA. She served as an advisor on the President's Transition Team in 2008. Previously, she served as president and member of the Board of Directors of the Washington D.C. Technology Council, a member-driven organization assisting with strengthening the business environment for the technology community in the Washington D.C. region. Prior to that, Pickett served as business director at the Telecommunications Development Fund. In that role, she created resources to provide technical and management support to help companies achieve their capital financing objectives. As part of that effort, she launched online courses in equity financing and corporate governance, she developed extensive referral networks of entrepreneurial resources, and she expanded investor outreach and technical assistance to entrepreneurs nationwide.
Michael H. Morris, N. Malone Mitchell Chair in Entrepreneurship, Oklahoma State University
Michael Morris holds the N. Malone Mitchell Chair at Oklahoma State University and is head of the School of Entrepreneurship. He has published seven books and over 150 peer-reviewed journal articles. Dr. Morris is co-editor (with Duane Ireland) of the Prentice-Hall Entrepreneurship Series. He currently serves as Immediate Past President of USASBE, and has been Chair of the AMA’s Marketing and Entrepreneurship Taskforce and editor of the Journal of Developmental Entrepreneurship. An innovator in curriculum design and program development, his entrepreneurship programs have been recognized by U.S. News and World Report, the Princeton Review, USASBE, Entrepreneur Magazine, and the Leavey Foundation. Dr. Morris has received the Edwin and Gloria Appel Prize and a regional Ernst & Young Entrepreneur of the Year Award. He is a former Fulbright Scholar and a GCEC “21st Century Entrepreneurship Research Fellow.”
Greg McCann, Founder, McCann Consulting Group, Inc.
Sunday, January 16: 8:30am - 9:45am
As an author, educator, consultant and speaker, Greg McCann works with family enterprises in the areas of succession, communication, conflict resolution, gender issues, and with a special emphasis on helping the next generation succeed in both their careers and lives. McCann was founder and director (1998-2006) of the Family Enterprise Center at Stetson University, where he led the effort to develop the nation’s second minor and first undergraduate major in Family Business. He continues to serve as a tenured full professor of Business Law and Family Business at Stetson University. McCann addresses national trade associations, universities and family business forums on “Applied Intelligence,” “Personality, Power and Persuasion in Family Enterprise,” “Process Consulting and Working with Families,” and “The Next Generation: Its Eight Biggest Challenges.”
As a researcher and author, McCann has published many valuable works on family enterprise and is a regular contributor to GenerationMagazine, Family BusinessMagazine, and Family Business Review. His most recent book, When Your Parents Sign the Paychecks (JIST, 2007), received a bronze medal in the career category at the 2008 Axiom Business Book Awards.
McCann is member of the National Speakers Association and is certified in, has presented extensively, and has written about the Myers-Briggs Type Indicator (MBTI), including special applications to family business.
McCann is a graduate of Stetson University (B.A.) and the University of Florida, College of Law (J.D.) and has served on the Board of Directors of the Family Firm Institute (2005-2008). He was awarded the institution’s 2006 Barbara Hollander Award acknowledging him for a lifetime of achievement in family enterprise education. He is also certified in Family Wealth Advising from the Family Firm Institute, Inc.
Richard (Dick) Sweeney was a co-founder of Keurig in 1993 and joined the company full time as one of its first employees in 1996. At Keurig, Dick is responsible for Manufacturing, Quality Control, and Field Service. Dick brought to Keurig more than 25 years of experience in manufacturing, product development and consulting behind industrial and consumer appliances. Prior to Keurig, he was VP, Manufacturing for Canrad-Hanovia, a manufacturer of scientific and UV lighting. Dick also served as VP, Operations for V-M Industries, a consumer appliances manufacturer and importer. Dick has developed several US and International Keurig brewer and packaging patents. Dick received his BS from New Jersey Institute of Technology and his MBA from Fairleigh Dickinson University.
William B. Gartner is the Arthur M. Spiro Professor of Entrepreneurship at Clemson University. Prior to joining Clemson he was on the faculty at Georgetown University, the University of Virginia, San Francisco State University, and the University of Southern California. He is one of the co-founders of the Entrepreneurship Research Consortium, which initiated, developed and managed the Panel Study of Entrepreneurial Dynamics. His service to the entrepreneurship field has included two consecutive terms as Chair of the Academy of Management Entrepreneurship Division (1985 + 1986), special issue editorships for the Journal of Business Venturing (JBV) and Entrepreneurship Theory and Practice (ETP), and Editorial Board memberships with the Academy of Management Review (AMR), Journal of Management (JOM), JBV, ETP, and the Journal of Small Business Management (JSBM). His research has been published in AMR, JBV, ETP, JOM and JSBM; won awards from the Academy of Management, ETP, and the Babson-Kauffman Entrepreneurship Research Conference; and has been funded by the Kauffman Center for Entrepreneurial Leadership, Coleman Foundation, U.S. Department of Education, Small Business Foundation of America, the Los Angeles Times, the Pacific Gas and Electric Company, the Corporate Design Foundation and the National Endowment for the Arts. His research on nascent entrepreneurs explores how they find and identify opportunities, recognize and solve startup problems, and undertake actions to successfully launch new ventures. He is also collecting and analyzing the stories entrepreneurs tell about their entrepreneurial adventures. 
Jennifer Prosek is the founder and CEO of 
Lee Rainie is the Director of the Pew Internet & American Life Project, a non-profit, non-partisan “fact tank” that studies the social impact of the internet. The Project has issued more than 250 reports based on its surveys that examine people's online activities and the internet's role in their lives. Lee is a co-author of Up for Grabs, Hopes and Fears, and Ubiquity, Mobility, Security, a series of books about the future of the internet published by Cambria Press and based on Project surveys. He is also co-authoring a book for MIT Press about the social impact of technology with sociologist Barry Wellman that will be published in mid-2011. The working title is Networking: The New Social Operating System. Prior to launching the Pew Internet Project, Lee was managing editor of U.S. News & World Report. He is a graduate of Harvard University and has a master's degree in political science from Long Island University.
Penny K. Pickett is Associate Administrator for Entrepreneurial Development having completed the transition in agency leadership as Senior Advisor to the Administrator at the SBA. She served as an advisor on the President's Transition Team in 2008. Previously, she served as president and member of the Board of Directors of the Washington D.C. Technology Council, a member-driven organization assisting with strengthening the business environment for the technology community in the Washington D.C. region. Prior to that, Pickett served as business director at the Telecommunications Development Fund. In that role, she created resources to provide technical and management support to help companies achieve their capital financing objectives. As part of that effort, she launched online courses in equity financing and corporate governance, she developed extensive referral networks of entrepreneurial resources, and she expanded investor outreach and technical assistance to entrepreneurs nationwide.
Michael Morris holds the N. Malone Mitchell Chair at Oklahoma State University and is head of the School of Entrepreneurship. He has published seven books and over 150 peer-reviewed journal articles. Dr. Morris is co-editor (with Duane Ireland) of the Prentice-Hall Entrepreneurship Series. He currently serves as Immediate Past President of USASBE, and has been Chair of the AMA’s Marketing and Entrepreneurship Taskforce and editor of the Journal of Developmental Entrepreneurship. An innovator in curriculum design and program development, his entrepreneurship programs have been recognized by U.S. News and World Report, the Princeton Review, USASBE, Entrepreneur Magazine, and the Leavey Foundation. Dr. Morris has received the Edwin and Gloria Appel Prize and a regional Ernst & Young Entrepreneur of the Year Award. He is a former Fulbright Scholar and a GCEC “21st Century Entrepreneurship Research Fellow.”
As an author, educator, consultant and speaker, Greg McCann works with family enterprises in the areas of succession, communication, conflict resolution, gender issues, and with a special emphasis on helping the next generation succeed in both their careers and lives. McCann was founder and director (1998-2006) of the Family Enterprise Center at Stetson University, where he led the effort to develop the nation’s second minor and first undergraduate major in Family Business. He continues to serve as a tenured full professor of Business Law and Family Business at Stetson University. McCann addresses national trade associations, universities and family business forums on “Applied Intelligence,” “Personality, Power and Persuasion in Family Enterprise,” “Process Consulting and Working with Families,” and “The Next Generation: Its Eight Biggest Challenges.”