Final Day of the 4 Day E&Y Forum
14 Nov 2009This is the final day of the 4 day E&Y forum.
The morning started with Deborah Norville, who was there in person with her chirpy attitude and winning personality, interviewing 4 unique entrepreneurs.
First was Mary Ellen Sheets who started the franchise operation called ‘Two Men and a Truck’. Her story was for her two sons to earn money during the summer to help neighbors and others move.
The second panelist was Matthew Szulik, the founder of Red Hat. He spoke on various issues on how his open source code was considered avant garde and still is considered cutting edge. He was concerned with public education in the U.S. and our inability to train our young people to be competitive in science and technology. He feels that with the internet a person can work anyplace it makes no sense for our government to have so many restrictions on skilled immigrants.
The other panelist David Liu echoed his views and expressed concern that our U.S. immigration policy that makes it difficult for us to bring highly skilled people to the U.S. David Liu’s business is The Knot, Inc. where 8 of 10 people wishing to get married go to their website. He had completed an MFA from the New York Film Institute but after graduating he did not want to make movies.
The fourth and final panelist was Charlie Vogt of Genband who said that he was not a real innovator but an operational innovator by turning around failing companies.
Overall many good ideas to help in business and to take care of our clients to stay in business.
The next panel was with Dara Torres the first U.S. Swimmer to swim in 5 Olympics. She was 41 years when she won 4 medals in Beijing in 2008. Her talk was personal and refreshing about her life and competitive spirit and desire to succeed.
Finally, in the last session of the morning was Ben Stein, the actor, economist, humorist, and author. He was entertaining and informative sharing tidbits of his life.
In the evening I look forward to the grand gala where the finalists from around the country will be selected for the national awards.