Dr. Thomas N. Duening is the El Pomar Chair of Business & Entrepreneurship and Director of the Center for Entrepreneurship in the College of Business at the University of Colorado, Colorado Springs. He is a 1991 graduate of the University of Minnesota with a PhD in higher education and an MA in philosophy. He began his academic career as the assistant dean for the University of Houston's College of Business Administration. There, he was also a faculty member in the Center for Entrepreneurship & Innovation.
He launched his first venture when he was a graduate student. His international consulting firm served the electric utility industry with information products centered on the issue of health effects associated with electric and magnetic fields (EMF) from high-voltage power lines. He and his partner launched the venture in 1984. He left the venture in 1991 upon completion of his doctorate to assume the assistant dean position in Houston.
After his 9-year stint as assistant dean, he founded several more companies. With a partner, he founded U.S. Learning Systems in 1998. The firm provided e-learning content to providers around the country. U.S. Learning Systems was acquired in December 1999 by Aegis Learning. Aegis provided e-learning services to corporations around the world. He left Aegis in 2002 to launch the Applied Management Sciences Institute (AMSI). The organization was created to develop educational products for business students.
He next founded INSYTE Business Services Group and launched a project to study best practices in business process outsourcing. The result of this effort was two trade books: Business Process Outsourcing: The Competitive Advantage and The Essentials of Business Process Outsourcing. Both books were published by John Wiley & Sons in 2004 and 2005, respectively. As he was conducting the research for these books, he cofounded INSYTE InfoLabs India, Pvt. Ltd., a business process outsourcing firm based in Bangalore, India. The firm provides outsourcing services to a wide range of companies, enabling them to reduce their cost structure. Infolabs was acquired by ANSRSource in 2008.
In 2004, he accepted a position with Arizona State University's Ira A. Fulton School of Engineering as the Director of its Entrepreneurial Programs Office. In this role, he taught courses in Technology Entrepreneurship to engineers at the graduate and undergraduate levels. While at ASU he founded the Arizona Technology Investor Forum (now Arizona Tech Investors) which quickly became one of the most active angel investor groups in Arizona. He is currently involved in two ventures, Luxstone of Colorado, a home improvement company focused on selling Kohler products, and the Colorado Springs Torch Grants, a sports and lifestyle based venture attractor.
Dr. Robert D. Hisrich is the Bridgestone Chair of International Business and Director of the Global Management Center at the College of Business Administration at Kent State University, United States. Previously he was an Associate Dean of Graduate and International Programs and was the former Director of the Walker Center for Global Entrepreneurship at Thunderbird School of Global Management. He holds a BA from DePauw University and an MBA and PhD degrees from the University of Cincinnati. His research primarily focuses on entrepreneurship and venture creation: entrepreneurial ethics, corporate entrepreneurship, women and minority entrepreneurs, venture financing, and global venture creation. He teaches courses and seminars in these areas, as well as in marketing management and product planning and development. His interest in global management and entrepreneurship resulted in two Fulbright Fellowships in Budapest, Hungary, honorary degrees from Chuvash State University (Russia) and University of Miskolc (Hungary), and being a visiting faculty member in universities in Austria, Australia, China, Ireland, and Slovenia.
He serves on the editorial boards of several prominent journals in entrepreneurship, is on several boards of directors and a board of trustees, and is an author or a coauthor of over 350 research articles appearing in journals such as Journal of Marketing, Journal of Marketing Research, Journal of Business Venturing, Academy of Management Review, Strategic Management Journal, California Management Review, and American Psychologist, and Entrepreneurship Theory and Practice. Professor Hisrich has authored, coauthored, or edited 46 books or their editions, including: Marketing (2000, 2nd edition); How to Fix and Prevent the 13 Biggest Problems That Derail Business (2004); Technology Entrepreneurship (2015, 2nd edition); Entrepreneurial Finance (2015); International Entrepreneurship (2016, 3rd edition); Advanced Introduction to Corporate Venturing (2016); Effective Entrepreneurial Management (2017); Entrepreneurial Marketing (2018); Entrepreneurship (2019, 11th edition); and Academic Entrepreneurship (2020).
He has been involved in the creation of numerous ventures including: H&B Associates (consulting), Illuminations (rainbow stickers and ornaments), Jameson Inns (hotels), La Bella Terre (organic sugars), Noteworthy Medical Systems (medical software), Polymer Technology (Boston Lens), Xeta Technologies (telecommunications), and Specter Sports (sporting equipment).
Michael A. Lechter, attorney, certified licensing professional emeritus & entrepreneur, was an Adjunct Professor in the Entrepreneurial Program in the Ira A Fulton School of Engineering at Arizona State University for over a decade and a half. He is the bestselling author of OPM, Other People's Money, How To Attract Other People's Money For Your Investments -- The Ultimate Leverage, (2005, 2nd Edition 2010) and Protecting Your #1 Asset, Creating Fortunes from Your Ideas (2001). An internationally known expert in the field of intellectual property, his clients have included everything from major software, semiconductor, medical device and alternative energy companies to breweries, fast food companies, casinos, cities and professional sports teams, and from startups to venture capitalists to Fortune 100 companies. When asked what he does for a living, he typically replies, "I built forts and fight pirates." Michael has been the architect of strategies for building businesses -- using both conventional and unconventional forms and sources of "Other People's Money and Resources". His experience in representing both venture capitalists and start up and emerging businesses, and experience as an angel investor himself, provides a unique perspective to the subject of building a business. Michael is also the author of The Intellectual Property Handbook, TechPress (1994), coordinating editor of Successful Patents and Patenting for Engineers and Scientists, IEEE Press (1995), and contributing author to the Encyclopedia Of Electrical And Electronics Engineering, Wiley (1999) and Licensing Best Practices: The LESI Guide To Strategic Issues and Contemporary Realities, Wiley (2002). Over the years he has also written monthly columns for INC.com, IEEE-USA Today's Engineer, and Washington Technology. Michael has been an active member of the Licensing Executives Society (LES) USA/Canada, serving as a trustee, and as Computer and Electronics Industry Sector Chair. He has been a LES USA/Canada delegate to LES International, has served as chair or vice chair of a number of LESI committees and as counsel to the LESI board. He has lectured extensively throughout the world on intellectual property law and entrepreneurship. Upon request of the House Judiciary Committee he has submitted testimony to the Congress of the United States and has participated in various United Nations and foreign government proceedings on intellectual property law and technology transfer. Michael is also managing member of MS Capital LLC, which helps successful businesses become sustainable, scalable, and salable, and the owner of Cherry Creek Lodge LLC, a resort/dude ranch in the Tonto National Forest of Northern Arizona, a study in rustic elegance where modern comfort meets the old West. The Cherry Creek Lodge specializes in corporate and family retreats.
