About CFI

Dr. Joseph E. McCann III
Dean, John H. Sykes College of Business
Dean of Graduate Studies
Co-Chief Academic Officer
The University of Tampa

Contact:
The University of Tampa
Box O
401 W. Kennedy Blvd.
Tampa, FL 33606-1490

Phone: 813-258-7388
Email: [email protected]

Bio:
Joe is an internationally recognized consultant, researcher, and author of two books and many articles on organization design and strategic change, mergers & acquisitions, rapidly growing technology companies, and new business venturing. His book on merger/acquisition management, Joining Forces: Creating & Managing Successful Mergers & Acquisitions was one of the earliest books to focus on merger/acquisition process design and integration issues. It was followed by Sweet Success, an award winning and translated book about internal corporate innovation in the food and drug industry. His ideas and work have been cited on several occasions in Fortune, The Wall Street Journal, Barron's, USA Today, several major newspapers, and in European and Asian business media.

He has studied the growth and competitive strategy issues of several hundred companies in several sectors over a fifteen-year period. His hands-on work with these companies includes facilitating visioning and strategic planning sessions with senior management, and assisting in competitive strategy and new market entry studies in the healthcare, teleproduction, software, computer equipment, digital imaging, and biotechnology sectors. Recent projects included assisting a global telecommunications and information technology firm develop a distance-learning network in Latin America, and supporting the global strategy rollout of a major fiber optics producer.

His professional service had included filling the role of Chief Learning Officer for the Human Resource Planning Society, a professional association of more than 3,400 senior HR executives and professionals. He was a governor-appointed member of the Washington Quality Award Council, and founding trustee of the Washington Biotechnology Foundation. Preceding graduate studies, he worked in the petroleum and ocean transportation industries, and served as an intern on the U.S. Senate Budget Committee. He then earned his MA and Ph.D. in Management at The Wharton School, and taught at Wharton, University of Florida, and Emory University. At Emory, he was a Senior Research Fellow in the Center for Leadership & Career Studies, and served on the Latin America & Caribbean Advisory Board affiliated with The Carter Presidential Center.

Following Emory, he served as a consultant for two years with an international professional services firm engaged in executive selection, merger/acquisition screening, and senior management assessments. He then became dean of the School of Business at Pacific Lutheran University from 1992-1998. In 1998 he accepted the newly created position of Director of Executive Education at the University of Florida and helped design and start up a $12 million executive conference center in Coral Gables.

Current board memberships include the Frank Russell Trust Company, part of the world's largest pension fund consulting firm and creator of the "Russell 2000" stock index. In addition he serves on the editorial board of a technology management journal, as an associate editor of a human resource management journal, and board of the Human Resource Institute (HRI), one of the top HR research centers in the U.S. Other board roles include: Tampa Bay Technology Forum, Academic Advisory Council of the Florida Venture Forum, Tampa Bay Chapter of Financial Executives International, and Technology Committee of the C100 Council of the Greater Tampa Chamber of Commerce.

On June 1, 2000 he assumed the role of Dean of the John H. Sykes College of Business, Dean of Graduate Studies, and Co-Chief Academic Officer of the University of Tampa.

Dr. Robert G. Schwartz
The EWU Foundation Distinguished Professor of Entrepreneurship Chairholder
Professor of Management, College of Business and Public Administration
Eastern Washington University

Contact:
Eastern Washington University
4129 S. Tricia Court
Spokane, WA 99223

Phone: 509-280-3862
Email: [email protected]

Bio:
Dr. Schwartz is the EWU Foundation Distinguished Professor of Entrepreneurship. He mentors faculty on entrepreneurship research and many new entrepreneurship articles with EWU faculty have been accepted for presentation and publication; several grants have been received, including a 2003-2004 Ewing Marion Kauffman Foundation grant for faculty and curriculum development; a 2005-2005 Coleman grant for entrepreneurship education. His university experience includes research and teaching of entrepreneurship; strategic marketing and planning; and grants/contracts management. Major publications in the entrepreneurship area cover opportunity recognition; firm strategy and performance relationships; and numerous technology-based firm studies. He also works in the simulation and game area. He serves as editor of the Journal of Research in Marketing and Entrepreneurship. His Fortune 500 business experience covers new venture creation; new venture developments, including manufacturing, marketing and sales; and R&D Marketing. He has served as President of a specialty electronics firm and is President of his 26-year-old consulting firm, Strategic Business Development.

Dr. Frank Hoy
Director, Centers for Entrepreurial Development, Advancement, Research and Support
College of Business Administration
University of Texas at El Paso

Contact:
College of Business Administration
University of Texas at El Paso
El Paso, TX 79968-0545

Phone: 915-747-7727
Email: [email protected]

Bio:
· University of Texas at El Paso, 1991 - Present
   Dean, College of Business Administration (1991 - 2001)
   Chair for the Study of Trade in the Americas
   Director, Centers for Entrepreneurial Development,
   Advancement, Research and Support
· Georgia State University, 1988 - 1991
   Carl R. Zwerner Professor of Family Owned Businesses
· University of Georgia, 1978 - 1988
   Associate Professor of Management and State
   Director, Georgia Small Business Development Center

Dr. William E. Wetzel, Jr.
Professor of Management Emeritus
Whittemore School of Business and Economics
Director Emeritus of the Center for Venture Research
University of New Hampshire

Contact:
Email: [email protected]

Bio:
William E. Wetzel, Jr. is Professor of Management Emeritus at the Whittemore School of Business and Economics, University of New Hampshire and Director Emeritus of the Center for Venture Research. Prior to his retirement in 1993, he held the Forbes Professor of Management Chair at the Whittemore School. During the 1987-88 academic year he served as the Paul T. Babson Visiting Professor of Entrepreneurial Studies at Babson College.

Professor Wetzel's professional and research interests include the role of the entrepreneur in economic development, the financial management of high-growth private companies and the informal venture capital markets. He has testified on these subjects before Congressional committees and served as keynote speaker at domestic and international conferences, including conferences held in Australia, the Netherlands, France, Great Britain, Venezuela, Sweden and Canada. He served on two doctoral dissertation defense committees at Oxford University, Oxford, England.

Professor Wetzel authored articles published in Business Horizons, Sloan Management Review, New England Journal of Business And Economics, Black Enterprise, Journal of Business Venturing, Technovation, Pratt's Guide to Venture Capital Sources, Entrepreneurship and Regional Development, The Financier, Journal of Applied Corporate Finance, McGraw-Hill Encyclopedia of Economics, Encyclopedia of Entrepreneurship, the Portable MBA in Entrepreneurship and the Art and Science of Entrepreneurship. Prior to retirement, he served on the Editorial Boards of the Journal of Business Venturing, In Business, Frontiers of Entrepreneurship Research and the Journal of Small Business and Entrepreneurial Finance.

Professor Wetzel was a founding member of the New Hampshire High Technology Council and is a past President of the Council. In 1993 he received the Council's Lifetime Creative Vision Award. He founded the Center for Venture Research in 1983 and the Venture Capital Network, Inc. (VCN) in 1984. VCN is now the Technology Capital Network at MIT. Professor Wetzel was a member of the Smaller Business Association of New England (SBANE) where he served as Chairman of the Academic Liaison Committee and as a member of the Board of Directors from 1983 through 1986. In 1998 Professor Wetzel was named Ernst & Young New England Entrepreneur of the Year for his work as a Supporter of Entrepreneurship.

Professor Wetzel serves on the Research Advisory Board of the Capital Formation Institute, Inc. and on the Boards of Directors of Yankee Equipment Systems, Inc., CIM Industries, Inc., Kimball Physics, Inc., Greenerd Press & Machine Co., Inc., MerchantBanc LLC, Centre for Community Change International, Dover Adult Learning Center, and Shared Abundance. Community service includes: rocky shore naturalist - Seacoast Science Center; water quality monitor - NH DES/Great Bay Coast Watch Shellfish Program; ESOL tutor - Dover Adult Learning Center; and e-Cares Partnership Committee - NH High Tech Council.

H. Randall Goldsmith, Ph.D.
President and CEO
Mississippi Technology Alliance
Ridgeland, MS

Bio:
Dr. H. Randall Goldsmith is the President and CEO of the Mississippi Technology Alliance.  MTA is a non-profit organization whose mission is to champion innovation and technology-based economic development for the State
of Mississippi.

Dr. Goldsmith manages MTA’s vision of developing public-private partnerships to promote growth in the technology sector a well as assisting entrepreneurs and manufactures and accelerating the commercialization process for university research.  In addition, he oversees MTA’s programs to assist communities in assessing their technology needs and finding renewable energy opportunities.

Prior to joining MTA, Dr. Goldsmith served as Assistant Vice President for Technology Transfer and Economic Development at the University of Texas Health Science Center in San Antonio.  He was responsible for facilitating the growth and management of the University of Texas Health Science Center’s intellectual property assets to maximize the potential for financial and humanitarian benefit of the institution and the community.  In addition, he had responsibility for identifying and developing new initiatives and opportunities to optimize the Health Science Center’s potential as an economic generator for the community and the state.

Dr. Goldsmith has written, trained, and practiced extensively nationally and internationally in technology-based economic development, commercialization and capital formation.  His business principles are grounded in more than twenty years of corporate and small business experience as a founding entrepreneur and CEO in multiple settings.  The lessons learned and the experience gained in turning business ideas and opportunities into rewarding financial outcomes underlie the tools and methods Goldsmith uses to turn innovations into new business enterprises.

Goldsmith’s model for technology commercialization, originally developed for the NASA Regional Technology Transfer Centers, has been adopted by economic development organizations, professional consultants and companies in the United Kingdom, Sweden, South Africa, Puerto Rico, Texas, Oklahoma, Kentucky, Arkansas, California and other states.  Startup companies throughout the world who have benefited from Goldsmith’s model for technology commercialization now number in the thousands.  He reports that one of his greatest personal and professional rewards is a request for one-on-one assistance from a company or an organization seeking to apply his approach to commercialization.

In addition to working with business startups, Dr. Goldsmith was instrumental in the design and management of several local, state, and regional not for profit technology-based economic development organizations including the Texas Municipal Assistance Program, NASA Mid-Continent Regional Technology Transfer Center, Oklahoma Alliance for Manufacturing Excellence, Oklahoma Technology Development Corporation, and the San Antonio Technology Accelerator Initiative.

Goldsmith was honored by the Federal Laboratories’ Distinguished Service Award for his contributions to advancing the skills of practitioners involved in technology transfer and commercialization.  In his role as a technology-based economic development specialist, the National Institute of Standards and Technology, the Economic Development Administration, NASA, states of Texas and Oklahoma, and national and international organizations have selected him to serve on multiple state and national boards and committees.

Much of Dr. Goldsmith’s work has been devoted to building community infrastructure to support innovation-led economic development.  Taking a comprehensive approach to this objective, he views building support for research, entrepreneurship, investment capital, work force development, positive business environment, and community quality of life as the critical ingredients for a competitive local economy.

A native of Abilene, Texas, Dr. Goldsmith holds doctorate and master degrees in Urban and Regional Planning from Texas A&M University and a Bachelor of Arts degree from Hardin Simmons University.