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Entrepreneurial Alums tell their stories

Entrepreneurial Luncheon Speakers & Date of Speech

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Entrepreneurial Luncheon Speaker Series – Speakers’ Biographies

Ed Driscoll '83 - May 1, 2008

Ed Driscoll is an experienced entrepreneur who has founded a variety of high growth service and infrastructure companies. As co-founder, chairman and CEO of WAM!NET Inc., Driscoll led the company from a two person start-up to a publicly reporting global IT service provider with over $1.5 Billion in contracted revenue. In the process he raised over $1 billion in capital through a range of financial facilities. Today, the company manages the entire network infrastructure for the US Navy and Marine Corps handling all classified and unclassified voice, video and data. In 2007 the company was acquired by Harris Corporation.

Driscoll is currently CEO of Rational BioEnergy, LLC, a management and engineering company focused on developing technology and managing facilities that convert biomass into renewable fuels and chemicals. He is also a principle in Watershed Entertainment, LLC., a financier and producer of entertainment properties.

Prior to WAM!NET, Driscoll founded and served as president of Cybernet Systems, a systems integration company for the film and graphics media industries. Before Cybernet, he was general manager of Roland Marketing, Inc., a produce marketing, packaging and growers agent company. In 1984 Driscoll co-founded Eagle Mountain Films, a producer of entertainment media. He has since acted as Executive Producer for several film projects including A Sense Of Tradition For The Second Century, Yonnondio and Sweet Land.

He serves on the boards of AVC, a network of medical clinics, the Science Museum of Minnesota and the Donald McNeely Center for Entrepreneurship at St. John’s University. Previously Driscoll served on the board of the Center for Graphic Communications Management and Technology at New York University. He was selected as Ernst and Young’s Entrepreneur Of The Year in 2000.

Driscoll holds a Master of Business Administration from the University of St. Thomas and a Bachelor of Arts in Economics from St. John’s University. A native Minnesotan, he and his wife Michele live in Chaska Minnesota with their two small boys.

David Rom '91 - March 6, 2008
David Rom is the CEO, Director and Founder of Platinum Bank.  David is responsible for organizing Platinum Bank and gaining regulatory approval as the only new bank approved in Minnesota in 2006.  The Bank counts 14 of the 100 investors as SJU alum.  Platinum Bank is a community business bank located in Oakdale, MN which has embraced and supported the implementation of many ‘green’ technologies inside its building design and business practices. The green building opened in the fall of 2007 with much media coverage.

Mr. Rom has a diverse background in the banking industry spending the first four years in both Denver and Kansas City.  David spent five years with Deloitte & Touche leading a bank consulting team and five years as Chief Financial Officer and Chief Operating Officer with a twin cities based bank.  Mr. Rom has significant experience in bank finance, loan portfolio management, operations, mergers and acquisitions, and regulatory affairs. 

Mr. Rom spends considerable time volunteering with local community groups, including the Oakdale Business and Professional Association and Co-Action educational scholarship fund in school district 622.  Mr. Rom is a third degree member of the Knights of Columbus and volunteers for numerous community events.

Mr. Rom has a Bachelor of Science degree in Accounting from Saint John’s University in Collegeville, Minnesota. David married Lori Linn (CSB ’93) and relocated to the twin cities in 1995.  David and his wife, Lori, have four young children ranging in ages from 2 to 9 years.  David enjoys spending his free time with his family and coaching his children’s various sports teams. 

David Hardwick '60 - November 8, 2007
David Hardwick has participated in the laser and fiber optics business since 1960 when he graduated from St. John 's University with a degree in physics. Right after college, he went to work for a research team at Honeywell.  Since then he has been a Development Engineer, Manufacturing Manager, Marketing Product Manager and leader/CEO of several start-up laser and fiber optics companies.  He is currently semi-retired and living in New England.

Dave has held a variety of positions in the laser field.  He has co-founded several companies including Auxora Photonics, Confluent Photonics and IPG Photonics.  IPG recently had a successful stock offering (IPO) and is now a public company with a market capitalization approaching one billion dollars.

David has been active in the Optical Society of America (OSA) for many years, has served on their Board and is currently on the board of the OSA Foundation.  He is a consultant to IMRA America and advises several venture capital groups on the phontonics industry. 

Mark Flynn '78 Speaker September 2007
Mark Flynn formed Trilogy Capital Partners, a Menlo Park California-based private investment and advisory firm, in 1997 following 13 years of investment banking experience with emerging growth companies.  Prior to that, Mark headed Salomom Brothers Global Software and Internet investment banking practices.  Trilology's website states:  "Trilogy is committed to finding the next Cisco, Amgen or Nike - companies that revoluntionize their fields, create great products and deliver exceptional performance for their investors.  We highlight companies with strong management and a compelling business model."

Mark recieved his BA from Saint John's University in 1978 and his MBA from Harvard Business School in 1984.  Mark is also a CPA. In his early career years he served as Principal at Arthur Young & Company from 1978-82 and again in 1985 after earning his MBA.  He served in their National High Technology Practice as well as the accounting and consulting practice groups.  From 1985-1987 he served as Vice President of LF Rothschild and Company.  He was General Partner at Volpe, Welty & Company form 1987-1993 and Director of Technology Banking at Salomoon Brothers, Inc. from 1993-1997, before founding Trilogy Capital.

Mark Flynn currently serves on the Board of several privately-held emerging growth companies.  He is also a member of the Saint John's Board of Regents, is Chairman of its Investment Committee and is a founding member of its Private Investment Fund.  Mark and his wife, Diane, live in Menlo Park, California. They have three children:  Lisa, Christine and Matthew.

Ron Tarro -81  Speaker July 2007
Ron Tarro is the President and CEO of SD, Inc, a Delray Beach, Florida based telecommunications software and services firm.  He greaduated from St. John's University in 1981 with a degree in Mathamatics and a minor in Computer Science.  He later earned a Masters of Science from the University of Minnesota in Mangement of Technology.

Ron began his career as a software developer and project manager at IBM in Rochester, MN.  He held management positions in IBM's sales and marketing division before joining the management consulting group within Ernst & Young.  There he managed projects involving product strategy and strategic market analysis for global information technology and telecommunications clients including Motorola, ITT Areospace and Defense, Microsoft, Hewlett Packard and others.  Locally he managed information systems strategy projects at Dayton Hudson, Carlson Companies, St. Paul Companies and others.  Along the way, Ron managed the consulting firm's collaborations with MIT, Boston University and others.

Ron joined SDD in 2000 as its President and CEO.  SDD develops software tools and management services which help owners of private voice and data networks provide excellent services to visitors, guests and tenants of their properties. SDD's communications managmenet products manage the telephone and internet revenues for hundreds of the largest and most prestigious commercial properties across North America, Europe and the Caribbean.  Customers include Walt Disney World, Ritz Carlton Hotels, Four Seasons Hotels and virtually every casino in Las Vegas. 

Ron is married to Dina Tarro, a Florida native and general legal counsel for SDD.  They have two children, Dominic age 9 and Lucia age 7.  Ron plays clarinet, saxophone, and the flute and is a member of the 70 musician Symphonic Band of the Palm Beaches where he is the organization's President.

Stephanie Wolf - 73   Speaker May 2007
Stephanie Wolf is the CEO of SportsMind, one of the nation's largest organizational change management consulting practices.  A multi-talented business leader and consultant with a broad range of professional and personal interests, Stephanie upholds the high standards of performance that SportsMind clients like Capital One, Frontier Communications, and Microsoft have come to expect.  Stephanie sharpened her bottomline business skills in excutive positions with companies including Montgomery Wards, Neiman-Marcus, Nutri/System and Jenny Craig.  Committee to nurtuing talent, she recently helped a new group of clothing designers launch the ProportionofBlu, an innovative fashion company that uses the Golden Ratio in all of its designs.  The designers and their men's and women's jeans and sweaters have been featured in Vogue, WWD and numerous high-end fashion magazines and are currently shold in boutiques in the US, Japan, Europe, and the Middle East.

She melds her professional and personal pursuits through long-term commitments to the Design Institute, the Transformational Leadership Council, as well as the Tripura Foundation in India, which seeks to improve the quality of life around the world.  Stephanie is also the co-author of "40 Days to Prosperity", a well-received guidebook to spiritual well-being.  An avid world adventurer who strives to expand her experiences and capabilities and apply them to her professional and personal life, Stephanie has climbed Mt. Kilmanjaro and undertaken expeditions with friends in Italy, Chile, Argentina and India.  A resident of Sausalito, California, she has a B.A. degree from the College of St. Benedict and has done graduate work at the University of Texas.

Buzz Benson -76 Speaker March 2007
Buzz Benson is Managing Director and a founding member of SightLine Partners, a venture capital firm that invests in emerging growth medical technology companies. SightLine Partners was formed in 2004 to acquire and manage the healthcare venture capital funds of Piper Jaffray Ventures. Prior to SightLine, Buzz founded Piper Jaffray's dedicated venture activities in 1992. Prior to this position, he co-headed Piper Jaffray's Investment Banking activities focused on the healthcare industry for six years.

In addition to his over 17 years of venture capital experience, Buzz has been actively involved in a broad range of transactions for healthcare companies including mergers and acquisitions, corporate partner agreements, public offerings and private placements of equity and debt.  Buzz is currently an active Board member on seven private medical device companies and the Private Equity Partners subsidiary of Piper Jaffray. He is also on the Board of Advisors for the Private Investment Fund of St. John's University and the Center for Entrepreneurial Studies, Carlson School of Mangement, University of Minnesota.

Prior to joining Piper Jaffray in 1986, Buzz was a partner at Stonebridge Capital, a partnership investing in emerging publicly traded companies. Previously, he was an investment officer with Cherry Tree Ventures and a manager in the public accounting firm of Arthur Andersen & Co.

He graduated from St. John's University in 1976 with a degree in Accounting. Buzz lives in Eden Prairie Minnesota with his wife Vicki. They have three children, Drew (SJU '06), Katlyn (Carlson School '08) and Kelly (EPHS '08).

Fred Senn '64 - Speaker November 9, 2006

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Fred Senn graduated from SJU in 1964 with a major in Art and a minor in English. Fred has been in the advertising world his whole career. He is a founding partner of Fallon Worldwide and has beeen an account executive and partner there for 25 years. Today, Senn's role at the agency is less involved with account management and more involved with talent development as Fallon expands both its scope of services and its geographic reach.  In this capacity, he is the "Chief Learning Officer," runs Fallon University, and guest lectures at the University of Minnesota's Carolson School of Management.

Senn earned his stripes in the automotive adverstising category, first with five years developing campaigns for Porsche, then a full decade working for BMW. In addition to his advertising career, Senn is also an experienced driving instructor for Porsche, Audi and BMW clubs in Minnesota. He has raced in 911 Porsce club competitions throughout the last 10 years.

Senn recently teamed with his partner, Pat Fallon, to co-write Juicing the Orange: How to Turn Creativity into a Power Business Advantage. The book, published by Harvard Business School Press in July, 2006, was written in commemoration of Fallon Worldwide's 25th anniversary. The book outlines a compelling approach to actively building creativity into the organizational culture and leveraging that creativity into campaigns that deliver measurable results.

He has had a wide array of volunteer experiences as well. He joined St. John's Board of Regents in 2005. He has voluntarily helped a number of nonprofits create successful advertising campaigns including Minnesota Business Partnership and the MN. Dept. of Tourism. Fred lives in Edina with his wife Heidi. He has two children and one grandchild. When he is not at Fallon or racing cars he is taking classes at the Edina Art Center.

David Casper '59 - Speaker September 14, 2006

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Mr. Jasper is CEO and co-founder of several incubators for small business including the University Technology Center, an 180,000 square-foot former high school. Over 90% of small businesses entering the centers are successful. Mr. Jasper is also CEO of Ross Hime Designs a robotics research company with over 15 Patents and several licenses active. It is seeking licenses in the medical, aeronautical, military, and entertainment industries.

Because Mr. Jasper enjoys creating new smaller businesses, he left Control Data in 1979 to form his own business, Quest Management Associates, a corporate umbrella for several unrelated ventures. In addition to the above listed projects, Mr. Jasper acquired the first privately owned OMINMAX Theater in Seattle in 1981, which was suffering heavy losses. He successfully turned around the OMNIDOME and then merged it into an IMAX theater chain in joint venture with National Geographic Society.The theaters are located at National Parks and places of historic interest. Mr. Jasper learned how to form businesses while employed at Control Data Corporation. He was hired as a computer programmer, and worked his way up to corporate executive, by demonstrating his talent for creating and improving the company's various businesses including its multi-million dollar thrust into the national timesharing market and the CYBERNET computer network system.

Mr. Jasper has also co-founded a non-profit organization Urban Ventures Leadership Foundation, which has an annual budget over $2 million aimed at improving living and working conditions in the Central neighborhood of Minneapolis.

Mr. Jasper has a Bachelor of Science degree in Physics and highly values the time he spent at Saint John’s. He lives on Grey Cloud Island, Minnesota with his wife Sharon and is the father of six children with twelve grandchildren. He is active in his church and tutors in low income schools among other things. He also is co-author of the book: The New Entrepreneur: Business Visionaries of the 21st Century. Semi-retired now Mr. Jasper enjoys creating art through oil paintings.

Tom Schlough '64 - Speaker July 12, 2006

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Tom Schlough graduated from Cathedral High School in St. Cloud in 1960, attended SJU from 1960 to 1962 and graduated from the University of Minnesota in 1965 with a B.S. in Mechanical Engineering.  He spent two years in the U.S. Army, serving one year in Viet Nam as an Ordnance officer.

Tom joined Park Tool Company in St. Cloud following his military service in 1969. Tom and his wife, Joyce, purchased the company from his parents in 1976. The company, now known as Park Industries, manufactures and markets stone fabricating equipment for customers throughout North America. Park customers manufacture architectural stone products such as granite countertops, stone veneer for residences and business buildings and stone landscape products.

Park Industries expands its product lines and services nearly continuously in response to the ever-changing needs of the globally competitive stone industry. Today it is the largest manufacturer of stone working equipment in North America. Currently, Park customers have over 5,350 machines in operation in over 20 countries. Park revenues have grown from under $1 million in 1976 to $75 million in 2006. Parks website says:The company’s Vision is to be a "Benchmark Company in customer and associate satisfaction". What does that mean? Put simply, Park Industries strives to be an example of what a great company should be in the eyes of its customers and associates (employees).

Tom is planning to retire from his current position as President in January 2007 to concentrate on chairman of the board responsibilities and keeping the business in the family. Tom and Joyce have three children ages 31 to 38 who are all involved in the business and three grand children. Their daughter, Chris is a graduate of the CSB, their elder son Mark is a graduate of SJU and son Mike attended St. John’s and graduated from the University of Minnesota.

Dan Korman ‘71 - Speaker May 10, 2006

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Dan Korman is the founder and Partner in Korman Marketing Group (KMG) based in Dallas, Texas. KMG provides Experiential Marketing solutions that build and enhance consumer loyalty, channel performance and employee productivity. “We create environments that inspire customers, sales people and employees to purchase, sell or deliver our clients' brands and their associated promises." With more than 100 employees, KMG and its Senior Management Team possess a wealth of combined experience in designing and building successful Experiential Marketing programs for Fortune 500 companies.

Dan Korman has more than 30 years of experience in the consumer packaged goods and technology industries, with particular expertise in trade and channel marketing and sales management, both in the U.S. and internationally. In addition to his experience with Scott Paper Company and Texas Instruments, Dan, in the mid 1980's, co-founded and later sold a marketing and sales support company. In 1998, with a mission to address clients' marketing communications needs through the emerging medium of Experiential Marketing, he formed Korman Marketing Group.

Dan believes that every project KMG undertakes must be grounded in the client's business goals and marketing and sales objectives. To supplement and support this vision, KMG adheres to a structured approach for program design and execution, as well as to a code of conduct that ensures the integrity of its client relationships.

Dan lives in Dallas with his wife Elaine Kauffman.  He has lived in Dallas for over 18 years, he says primarily because of his aversion to cold and snow.

Kim Culp - speaker March 8, 2006
People are confused about who Kim Culp is. Is he a salesman, a property manager, a developer, contractor, banker, property owner, syndicator, or a fundraiser? It depends on who you talk to and on what day. He is sure his wife believes he plays golf for a living.

Officially, Kim is the Chairman of the Minnesota Region of M&I Bank. He assumed this position with the sale of Century Bank to Marshal & Ilsley Corporation, the parent of M & I Bank, in 2002 for a reported $66 million in cash and stock. He founded the Eden Prairie based Century Bank with Sheldon Wert in 1991. That bank had 20% annual growth in deposits throughout the 1990’s under his leadership. He is also currently the CEO and President of The Excelsior Group, Inc, a Real Estate services company based in Eden Prairie.

Kim came to banking from a long career in various aspects of real estate. He was founder and owner of The Shelard Group and is currently its CEO. He was founder and owner of a number of businesses including a construction company, a building maintenance company and a multi-family housing property management company. He is also currently a member of the Board of Directors of Ryan Construction and of the Marshall BankFirst Corp.

Kim is an “iron range Catholic” who graduated from St. Johns with a BS in government. Kim and his wife Carol (CSB ’74) have five children aged 13 to 28. Currently he is an active community volunteer including membership on the Boards of Catholic Charities, Common Bond Communities, Common Hope, Minneapolis Community College and was recently the chair of a major capital campaign for Benilde-St. Margaret’s High School.

Dan Shimek - speaker, November 9, 2005

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Dan graduated Little Falls High School in 1965 and from St. John’s University in 1969 with a B.S. degree in Chemistry.  He spent two years in the army including a tour of duty in the President’s Honor Guard at Fort Meyer, Virginia. He began work for 3M in 1971 as a research chemist.  He left 3M in 1986 after holding a variety of business management positions to join Heat-N-Glo on a full time basis.

The fireplace business, which he and his brother Ron started in 1975, grew from a $3 million dollar company in 1986 to a $100 million dollar company in 10 years.  In 1996 Heat-N-Glo merged with Heatilator forming the largest hearth products manufacturer in North America—Hearth & Home Technologies. In 2003, Dan “retired” from his position as President with the company annual sales being in excess of $500 million. Since his “retirement” he has actively helped start 5 businesses and is currently president of Fire Stone Home Products—a company focused on outdoor products.

He is a sports, outdoor and golf enthusiast who lives in Apple Valley, Minnesota with his wife Kay. They have four childred ages 17-24. His oldest daughter Jessica is a St. Thomas graduate and he has two children attending Colorado University at Boulder. Their youngest daughter is a junior at Holy Angels Academy.

Karen Oman '75 - speaker, September 13, 2005
Karen Oman is the founder and President of Certes Financial Pros, an organization specializing in the placement of high level financial professionals in industry-leading companies on a project and permanent basis. Certes Financial Pros has 170 employees and 2005 revenues near $20 million.

Karen graduated from the College of St. Benedict in 1975 with a BS in Accounting and gained her CPA status in 1977. After working as an accountant for many years of escalating responsibility (this means very long hours in finance speak), Karen realized that she needed to find a balance, and this could no longer be compromised. She began to consult for the same Fortune 500 companies she once worked for and immediately saw a need for high level financial executives who could join a company for a brief time, emerge themselves seamlessly into the culture, and hit the ground running. Her work load grew, and with that, her staff. In 1994, she created Certes.

Today, Karen leads her company through tremendous growth while sharing her views on building company culture and creating award winning employee-oriented communities to companies, universities, and organizations around the country. The philosophy which separates her company from others is, “Treat others as you would like to be treated…It works in business too!”

Since her company’s inception in 1994, she has been recognized for her leadership and creativity including “National Best Employer,” from Working Woman Magazine, one of the ten best bosses in America, from Fortune Small Business Magazine, “Ernst Young Entrepreneur of the Year,” and “Woman Business Owner of the Year”.

Greg Lais '78-speaker, July 12, 2005
While a senior at St. John's, Greg Lais founded Wilderness Inquiry, the oldest and most extensive outdoor education and travel program in the world for people of all ages, backgrounds, and abilities. Since 1978, Wilderness Inquiry has served more than 175,000 people on wilderness trips throughout the world, including thousands of people with disabilities such as quadriplegia, Muscular Dystrophy, Multiple Sclerosis or traumatic brain injury.www.wildernessinquiry.org

Greg and fellow SJU Alum Paul Schurke pioneered outdoor education programs and training curriculum that use the wilderness to facilitate greater acceptance of human diversity. Greg Lais has also created adaptive outdoor recreation equipment, such as one-armed paddles, significantly increasing mobility for persons with disabilities. He has personally guided hundreds of Wilderness Inquiry trips integrating people of all abilities, including those with physical, cognitive and emotional disabilities. Trips have included kayaking in Costa Rica, British Columbia and Lake Superior, horse pack trips in the Colorado Rockies, and canoeing in the Boundary Waters, the Everglades, Australia, Russia, Alaska and throughout Canada.

Author of numerous articles, books and reports, Mr. Lais is the primary author of two Congressional studies regarding access to Wilderness and Federal recreational lands. He has received numerous awards for his work, including the National Therapeutic Recreation Society Organization of the Year, SJU Alumni Achievement Award, the Minnesota State Council on Disability Distinguished Service Award, and the Jim Renne Leadership Award from the Association of Outdoor Recreation and Education.

Born in St. Paul, Greg Lais received his BA in Psychology from St. John's and his MBA from the University of Minnesota's Carlson School. He and his wife Patti live in Minneapolis and are the parents of Roseanne and Martin Lais. In addition to Wilderness Inquiry, Mr. Lais currently serves on the boards of Risen Christ School and the Ann Bancroft Foundation.

John Fruth - speaker, May 11, 2005
John Fruth grew up in Brainerd, Minnesota and attended Saint John’s Prep, where he wrestled on the SJU wrestling team as a high school student. While attending St. John’s University he began working in the contact lens business and left college before graduation to work full time.

Mr. Fruth’s entire career has followed the ever-changing contact lens industry. He worked at both Bausch & Lomb and CooperVision with ever-increasing levels of responsibility, including running Canadian operations and becoming a member of the senior team at CooperVision. Mr. Fruth left CooperVision in 1983 to start his own business manufacturing and marketing private-label of contact lenses. He founded Ocular Sciences, Inc. in 1985 and has been Chairman of the Board and Director since the company’s inception. He was the Chief Executive Officer from 1985 until May 1999 and President from 1985 to October 1997.  In April 2000, Mr. Fruth resumed the position of Chief Executive Officer and President until a successor was named.

Ocular Sciences, Inc. manufactures a broad line of high quality, competitively priced soft contact lenses marketed directly to eye-care practitioners. The company's lenses are brand and product differentiated by distribution channel. Ocular's unique lens technology makes thinner lenses that are easier to handle and more comfortable to wear than those of leading competitors. In 2004, Ocular Sciences expected revenues of $345 million, making it the fifth largest contact lens company in the world.  In November 2004, CooperVision bought Ocular Sciences, Inc. for a reported $1.2 billion in a combination of cash and common stock.  The road from start-up to sale was full of challenges, including customers grouping together and demanding to buy the company, a partner “running off with the store” to England, partnering with a Japanese-based firm, and going public in 1997. The merger of Ocular Sciences with Cooper Companies' CooperVision unit brings together the world's fourth and fifth largest manufacturers to become the world's third largest contact lens company.

Dan Whalen - speaker March, 2005
Dan Whalen is a private investor and an active community volunteer in Oakland, California (where he lives), Minnesota (where he once lived), and Bosnia Herzegovina. He is currently President of the Whalen Family Foundation.

In 1987, Dan founded Whalen & Company, Inc., a firm specializing in providing project management services to cellular telephone companies. In 1997, he sold the firm to Tetra Tech, Inc. on whose Board he currently serves. Prior to founding Whalen & Company, Inc., Dan founded or co-founded the Cellular Development Company, First Cellular Group, The Microwave Group, and Network Building and Consulting.

Mr. Whalen’s other work experience includes stints as Vice-President of Operations for American Tele-Services, District Manager for Business Marketing for AT&T, Director of Operations for NYNEX Mobile, Director of Health Planning for the state of New York, Health Policy Advisor to Governor John D. Rockefeller, IV of West Virginia, management consultant with Lewin and Associates, Program Analyst with The Institute of Medicine of the National Academy of Sciences, and Campaign Director for McGovern for President for Minnesota’s Sixth Congressional District. Dan Whalen was born in North Dakota and received his elementary, secondary and college education in Minnesota. He received a B.S. degree in Government from St. John’s University, a MBA from Stanford University’s Graduate School of Business and a M.A. from Stanford University’s Food Research Institute.

Scott Schneider - speaker, November 10, 2004
Scott Schneider started his first company in 1987 while a student at Saint John’s University. In 1989, he started TEC Interface Systems. In 2002, the company was named one of the Fast 50 of Fast Company magazine, and Scott was named an Ernst and Young Entrepreneur of the Year. Scott was named the Small Business Person of the Year in 1995 by the Small Business Administration Office of the State of Minnesota and Second Runner-up in the United States.

TEC Interface Systems was a prosthetics device business and the dream-on-the-shelf of Scott’s father-in-law. (The dream was put on the shelf when 3-M said “no” to the project.) Scott and his father-in-law took the dream and made the business a success. From its St. Cloud, MN headquarters, they did business in 39 countries. In 2003, Scott sold the company to Otto Bock Health Care, where he now is on the Senior Management team for Otto Bock Health Care International based in Germany.

 

 

 

 




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