The Center for Ethics and Entrepreneurship welcomes Phyllis Johnson to Rockford College this Thursday, October 6, from 11 am to 12:15 pm, in Scarborough 208. Ms. Johnson will give a talk entitled “Making a Living While Making a Difference.”
Phyllis Johnson is co-founder and president of the Rockford-based BD Imports, a supplier of exceptional quality specialty grade coffees and owner of Evolution Coffee. The company imports un-roasted coffee from sustainable sources in coffee producing countries and markets to roaster retailers and wholesalers located in the United States, Canada, Japan, and Taiwan. BD Imports has helped to propel Phyllis as a champion of women and women in coffee.
All members of the campus community are welcome to attend.
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.
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.
THE APPLE PUSHERS, narrated by actor Edward Norton and underwritten by the Laurie M. Tisch Illumination Fund, is the latest film from writer/director and Kaizen interviewee Mary Mazzio. The film follows immigrant street cart vendors who are rolling fresh fruits and vegetables into the inner cities of New York (where finding a fresh ripe red apple can be a serious challenge.) These pushcart vendors (who all have immigrated here from all parts of the world for different reasons and who have sacrificed so much to come to this country (near death crossing the Mexican border, as an example) — are now part of a new experiment in New York to help solve the obesity crisis in the inner city. COMING SOON
This year’s Global Entrepreneurship Week will take place from November 14 – 20. Last year, over 400,000 Americans participated in all 50 states. GEW promotes innovation, creativity, job creation, and economic growth through a variety of activities, which include: a competition to find the 50 most promising startups worldwide; a clean technology competition; a competition to win a free yearlong trip around the world; and Startup Weekend, a networking event focused on creating new startups.
Chief Executive surveyed 550 CEOs, asking them to rank each state in the U.S. based on taxation and regulations, workforce quality, and living environment.
A Kauffman Foundation report, “The Grass is Indeed Greener in India and China for Returnee Entrepreneurs,” concludes that Indian and Chinese students in America are more likely to return home to pursue their career goals as those economies improve. “Most returnees now say the entrepreneurial advantages are better in their home countries, where they can benefit from lower operating costs, heightened professional recognition, greater access to local markets and a better quality of life than they could attain in the United States,” the report states. While this “reverse brain drain” will impact entrepreneurship in America, as many entrepreneurs are Chinese and Indian immigrants, most returnees still maintain their American contacts, which could create more international business opportunities.
McGill Original Films, a local video production company, created a short video about the recent Extreme Entrepreneurship event at Rock Valley College. CEE’s Executive Director, Dr. Stephen Hicks, was on a discussion panel at the event, and makes an appearance in the video below.
In a humorous and inspiring piece in The Wall Street Journal, Scott Adams (creator of the popular Dilbert comic strip) writes that most college students should learn the skills needed to run a business, which will prepare them for post-graduate life. Mr. Adams touches on several of his clever entrepreneurial ideas as a student that allowed him to master “the strange art of transforming nothing into something,” and he gives some excellent advice to burgeoning entrepreneurs.
The Center for Ethics and Entrepreneurship welcomes Phyllis Johnson to Rockford College this Thursday, October 6, from 11 am to 12:15 pm, in Scarborough 208. Ms. Johnson will give a talk entitled “Making a Living While Making a Difference.”
