Francesco Clark is founder and CEO of Clark’s Botanicals, based in Bronxville, New York. At age 24, he became paralyzed from the neck down after a swimming pool accident. Some physicians thought he would never move or breathe without assistance again. But with great effort over several years, Mr. Clark made strong progress and, given his physical-therapy experiences, developed an award-winning line of skin-care products that became Clark’s Botanicals, now sold in Europe, Asia, and the United States. We met with Mr. Clark in New York to discuss coming back from tragedy, what it takes to fight against overwhelming odds, and entrepreneurship as an option for people with disabilities and special challenges.

Kaizen: Where did you grow up?

Clark: I grew up in Italy — in Bologna — for seven years and then we moved to New York. Since sixth grade, I grew up just outside of New York City in Westchester.

Kaizen: When you were a teenager, what were you thinking your likely career would be?

Clark: My original career path was to be become a diplomat. So I went to Baltimore and studied at Johns Hopkins. I double majored in International Relations and Romance Languages. I liked that because it gave me kind of a wide funnel, a wide array of options to go into. I took the Foreign Service Exam and I passed, and it gave me the option in going into that aspect, or business, or law. But in reality, I didn’t really know what I wanted; I was just curious. I love learning and I’m still just as curious as I was before about that. And then I just kind of started working after I graduated.

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Dr. Stephen Hicks, CEE’s executive director, talks with guest speaker Douglas Den Uyl about the essence of capitalism.

In our latest issue of Kaizen we feature an interview with Francesco Clark, founder and CEO of Clark’s Botanicals. At age 24, he became paralyzed from the neck down after a swimming pool accident. Some physicians thought he would never move or breathe without assistance again. But with great effort over several years, Mr. Clark made strong progress and, given his physical-therapy experiences, developed an award-winning line of skin-care products that became Clark’s Botanicals, now sold in Europe, Asia, and the United States.

Also featured in Kaizen are: student essay contest winners Nicole Schnack, Jake Maliszewski, and William Newkirk; High School Entrepreneur Day, Professor Jules Gleicher’s new course, and guest speaker Dr. Al Gini.

A PDF version of Kaizen is available here. We will soon post separately the full interview with Mr.Francesco Clark.

If you would like to receive a complimentary issue of the print version of Kaizen, please email your name and postal address to CEE [at] Rockford.edu.

Forbes columnist John Tamny on “What Keith Richards’ ‘Life’ As a Rolling Stone Tells Us About Economics.” Tamny discusses Richards’s rise to success and fortune and what we can learn from his example.

Steve Mariotti, Founder of the Network for Teaching Entrepreneurship and Kaizen interviewee, gives his suggestions for budding entrepreneurs in “24 Concepts Every Young Person Should Know About Business” (Huffington Post).

John Chisholm, CEO of John Chisholm Ventures and Kaizen interviewee, gives a video lecture for the Legatum Center for Development and Entrepreneurship.

Is Microsoft doomed to fail? Does the LinkedInIPO signal a new bubble? Is Google  the model of success? Silicon Valley entrepreneur, writer, and professor, Steve Blanks, makes a number of bold assertions about the state of tech-based businesses in this Business Insider article.

For more information about Steve Blanks, visit his website.

Entrepreneurs want to start and grow businesses, to hire employees, and to provide valuable services to their customers. This article, About Taxes and Entrepreneurship, from the Policy Forum Blog discusses how the federal budget and taxation can impact entrepreneurs as they try to create successful businesses.

In Hurricane Irene and Walmart’s Staff Meteorologist, from the Mercatus Center at George Mason University, Eileen Norcross discusses economist Steven Horwitz’s assertion that the private sector was able to handle Hurricane Katrina more adeptly and more quickly than FEMA.

The article link’s to the Center for Ethics and Entrepreneurship’s interview of Horwitz on this very issue.

In “Teaching Capitalism in the Last Days of the USSR,” Steve Mariotti discusses his experience teaching capitalism and business to students in the final days of the USSR as it was changing to Russia.

Mariotti is a Kaizen interviewee and the founder of the Network for Teaching Entrepreneurship (NFTE). Before NFTE, Mariotti was a successful entrepreneur and a teacher in some of New York’s most challenging schools. Because of his innovative methods for teaching business concepts, Mariotti was named Teacher of the Year for New York State in 1988.