Jeff Hilimire / Dragon Army
CEO
Currently Jeff is the CEO of Dragon Army, a mobile agency and game studio. I’m fascinated with entrepreneurship, startups, technology, and specifically mobile apps and gaming.
A spotlight episode of Atlanta Business Radio and powered by Business RadioX. Co-Hosted by Ryan “Redhawk” McPherson and Brandon Skolnick with Gathering Of Angels. Featuring veteran entrepreneurs, support organizations, outreach groups and more in the Atlanta area continuing to serve our families, our communities and our country.
Everett was named one of the Atlanta Business Chronicle’s “40 Under 40” in 2015, graduated from LEAD Atlanta in 2014, and is an active participant and board member of several non-profits. Everett is a Veteran of the United States Army, where he earned awards for his participation in combat operations during Operation Iraqi Freedom, and Operation New Dawn. Everett is a proud native Atlantan, a graduate of the University of Georgia, and a diehard Atlanta sports fan. When he isn’t at the office, Everett enjoys spending time exploring the city, dining out, and writing music.
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The Shrimp Tank brings you interviews with some of the most successful business owners in the United States to learn the do’s and don’ts of starting and running a successful business. Then, the fun really starts when we bring in high school and college students to pitch their business ideas to the Shrimp Tank. We don’t fund any business, but we do teach kids how to turn their business ideas into a successful business.
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Tammy Stokes / Cafe West Express
Ted Jenkin/Oxygen Financial
(Co – Host)
Ted Jenkin has spent the past 22 years giving personal financial advice to thousands of people across the United States. After graduating from Boston College in 1991, Ted spent more than 16 years working for American Express Financial Advisors/Ameriprise Financial. He was one of the youngest people in the history of the company to reach both Field Vice President and Group Vice President level. He managed more than 800 financial advisors throughout 8 states in his last position with the company. He won the premier performer award, leader of the year award, and had the number one office in the country for more than two years in a row. In 2008, Ted founded oXYGen Financial to help revolutionize the financial services industry by creating a new company that focused on serving the X and Y Generation. oXYGen Financial now has more than 1,700 clients throughout 25 states across the country. Ted has been featured in over 25 magazines and newspapers including the Wall Street Journal, Business Week, and The Huffington Post. He has six advanced designations from the College for Financial Planning (CFP®, CRPC®, CRPS®, AWMA®, AAMS®, CMFC®) and is an on air radio personality featured on the popular drive time Atlanta radio show The Rock 100.5 Morning Show on Rock 100.5 FM. Ted lives in Milton, GA with his wife Genna and three kids Olivia, Lyla, and Louden.
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Chris Hanks/ KSU EC
(Co – Host)
Christopher C. Hanks is the founder and executive director of the KSUEntrepreneurship Center. Prior to this, Hanks was the founder and director of the entrepreneurship program at the University of Georgia. He has owned multiple businesses, including music, e-commerce, publishing, and export ventures. He is also the co-author of a best-selling book on low risk entrepreneurship.
Hanks leads the International Entrepreneurship Institute and is certified in business valuation, providing expert witness testimony. Before teaching at UGA, Hanks taught entrepreneurship at Georgia State University and assisted in leading the Russell Center for Entrepreneurship. He earned a BBA from University of Georgia and an MBA from San Jose State University. Before launching his first business, Hanks held corporate risk management positions in the pharmaceutical and beverage industries.
Mary Ellen McClanahan / Georgia Department of Economic Development
Director, Entrepreneur & Small Business
As Director of Entrepreneur & Small Business Development for the Georgia Department of Economic Development, Mary Ellen McClanahan helps find solutions and effective ways to build an entrepreneurial environment to support small business through mentoring, professional development, strategic planning and resource awareness. She also connects with Georgias business and community associations so that thousands of businesses, local leaders and practitioners are aware of resources and opportunities. She also directs any size businesses to the specific resources they need. Mary Ellen is also an Existing Industry Project Manager within the Metro Atlanta region. She calls on growing companies making them aware of state resources and incentives and provides assistance with their growth plans and decision-making process. She also works closely with the local economic developers with their existing industry support efforts.
During her 18 years with the department, she helped develop and grow its regional economic development program, the Entrepreneur Friendly Initiative and acted as legislative liaison. Prior to that, Mary Ellen was the economic developer and president of two rural South Georgia chambers of commerce in Dodge and Sumter Counties.
Originally from Erie, PA and in Georgia since 1973, Mary Ellen serves on the boards of GEDA (Georgia Economic Developers Association), GACCE (GA Association of Chambers of Commerce Executives), Georgia Mentor Protégé Connection, Adv
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Zaheer Faruqi / Aventure Aviation
Founder and President
Zaheer Faruqi has been president of Aventure Aviation since he co-founded the company in 2001. He has more than 35 years of aviation experience, having worked in the engineering and maintenance departments of several major international airlines for more than 20 years before co-founding Aventure. Zaheer is responsible for the success and strategic direction of the company. He oversees the company’s operations, taking great interest in ensuring that the right staff are hired, and that they are provided with the proper training and facilities needed to make their jobs challenging and fun. His favorite part about working at Aventure is forming relationships with customers, to ensure that he understands their specific parts requirements. He also takes great satisfaction in training the Aventure staff to better serve their customers. Zaheer was first attracted to the aviation field by his childhood love of airplanes.
When not working, he enjoys reading business books, volunteering in the community, and helping those in need improve their daily lives. Zaheer holds a Masters in Administrative Management, and a Bachelor of Science in Aircraft Maintenance Engineering Technology. He has FAA airframe and power plant licenses, and has completed multiple courses from Airbus and Boeing.
Spencer Nix / Reformation Brewery
Founder
Reformation Brewery out of Woodstock, Ga. employs 10 people and is redefining what local beer should be. “We built our entire business model on this concept of enjoying well made beer as a gift and sharing that gift with others,” said Spencer Nix, CEO of Reformation Brewery. And Nix wanted to enjoy the process. Many breweries obtain a lot of capital and skip to the largest equipment they can afford, but Reformation did the opposite and started with a few investors and opened a production brewery on a 1-Barrel Brewhouse. They’ve since scaled that equipment to a 3-Barrel Brewhouse, a 7-Barrel Brewhouse, and recently installed the first High Efficiency Brewing System (HEBS) in the State of Georgia.
Since starting in 2014, the company has gone from zero paid employees to ten and saw $700,000 in sales in 2015. But its impact on people and the community is what fuels their business and has launched them into the new phenomenon of “beer tourism.” The brewery has drawn visitors from as far away as Michigan, and theKeeping Room welcomed 12,000 visitors to its downtown Woodstock location in its first year.
So why start a brewery in Georgia? “Because it’s home,” Nix says. “Home to a growing population relocating from other parts of the country. Home to great small communities where small business thrives. Home to world-class resources the city of Atlanta attracts. And home to where I’m from, and all meaningful adventures start at home.”
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Today’s Special Episode “A Hemp and Medical Cannabis Conversation”
Correction regarding the content on this episode: “The venue for HEMP NY CITY is Cooper Union, not Copper Union. The most famous speech there was Lincoln’s speech against slavery to the Western Territories. Charlotte’s oil is called Charlotte’s Web, named after Charlotte Figi who suffered as many as 400 seizures a week.
Terry L. Hester / HempXpress
Founder & CEO
Grew up in Brooklyn, N.Y., raised on a farm in North Carolina during her summers. Spent over 30 years in Houston, TX, and recently relocated to the East coast. Business Entrepreneur and owner of several successful businesses during the last 38 years, with focus on Business Development and Marketing.
As a National & Global Community Coordinator, in 2010 she is listed on record at NASA headquarters in Washington, D.C. for developing and proposing plans for the City of Atlanta/College Park, GA, to obtain NASA space shuttle ATLANTIS for the building of an international Peace Museum. In September 2004, she coordinated community events on bio-terrorism which led to Houstons former Mayor, Bill White, recognizing and proclaiming Houston as the first city in the United States to proclaim September 11th as 9-1-1 Unity In The Community Day.
Collaborated with Houston’s former Mayor, Annise Parker to raise awareness and promote usage of electric vehicles, campaigned to have electric car charging stations installed in front of Houston’s City Hall, which contributed to Houston being named the Renewable Energy Capital in the Country.
An Holistic Healer- with focus on Mind, Body & Spirit who received her degrees as a Practitioner and Ordained Minister of Metaphysics from the University of Metaphysics, located in Sedona, Arizona.
James Bell / Georgia C.A.R.E. Project
Director
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Joshua Littrell/ Veterans For Cannabis
Founder and CEO
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The work of Women in Technology has an incredible impact.
Since 1992, Women in Technology has had a mission dedicated to promoting the advancement of women in Georgia’s technology community. Through the WIT COMMUNITY, WIT Also educates and encourages girls and young women to pursue careers in STEM.
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Julie Haley / CEO Edge Solutions
Julie Haley is the CEO and majority owner of Edge Solutions. She is ultimately responsible for all operations and financial aspects of the business, including managing the company’s P & L and overseeing the budget. With a law degree from the University of South Carolina and years of prior experience as a business and commercial litigator, Haley also acts as the company’s legal counsel and she negotiates, drafts and reviews contracts and legal agreements with vendors and customers.
While starting this business, Haley has continually stretched and expanded her capabilities as a leader of a technology solution company, and has adopted many roles. From the start, Haley has refused venture capital funding in order to build and retain the company’s unique culture of inclusion, support and diversity. Accordingly, managing growth has been a significant challenge. Edge Solutions started with one manufacturing (HP) partner and has since become certified to sell all the major technology company’s products, including Hitachi Data Systems, Dell, Citrix, NetApp, Cisco, VMWare, as well as newer, cutting-edge technologies like Veeam, Swiftstack, and cloud offerings. With each new offering, Haley has to weigh the cost of adding qualified engineers and technical training to meet necessary qualifications. Also, Edge’s growth from zero to $24 million in sales has necessitated Haley’s constant search for capitol and credit lines from many different sources. Accordingly, with each new initiative, and Haley successfully evaluated the benefit of each new technology offering versus issues of cash flow and the availability of human resources to support going to market with the new solution.
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Sandy Welfare / WIT
Sandy Welfare is the Executive Director of Women In Technology (WIT). Prior to that, she was the Executive Director of Cool Girls Inc, an award-winning early intervention after-school program dedicated to the empowerment of girls (2009-2015).
Sandy’s career began in 1989 in Greenwich, Connecticut where she joined Rand Insurance as the Controller. Six years later, she accepted a position with Lucent Technologies, an international telecommunications leader, holding a number of positions including serving as Accounting and Treasury Manager in Singapore (1999-2000) and then as Senior Manager in Australia and New Zealand (2000-2002). Sandy returned to Atlanta in 2002 as Senior Manager of Global Financial Services.
In 2003, Sandy accepted a position as Director of Operations for Xchanging, a business processing outsourcing company. In 2006, her career took her to London, England as Managing Director for professional services, where she managed global business processing services for bank financial transactions, insurance and retail.
Sandy received her undergraduate degree from St. John’s University in New York, and a Master of Business Administration from Sacred Heart University in Connecticut. She serves on the board of several non-profits, including Kiwanis Club of Atlanta. Sandy resides in Marietta, Georgia with her husband, Cliff and son, Soloman.
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Chau Nguyen / Hirewire
Founder & CEO
Chau Nguyen has been an entrepreneur for over 10 years. In 2005, Chau co-founded Campus Special, which was recognized by Inc. Magazine as one of the fastest growing private companies in the US for four consecutive years. Campus Special reached millions of college students at over 500 universities through mobile apps, ecommerce, and print media. Nearly 4,000 college students launched their career in sales and marketing through his award winning internship program. In 2014, Campus Special was acquired by Chegg, Inc. and rebranded as Chegg Deals.
While searching for his next venture, Chau identified an opportunity to leverage his background in hiring to empower an underserved workforce and disrupt the traditional hiring process. In 2015, Hirewire, the first on-demand hiring marketplace connecting hourly job seekers and employers was launched (available for iOS and Android @ hirewire.com/app)
Chau has been named one of the Highest Rated CEOs of 2014 among small to mid sized companies by Glassdoor and voted to the annual list of Most Loved CEOs in America 2014 by Inc. Magazine. Chau has a passion for coaching, mentoring, and developing people.
Andy Powell / Alchemy Polymers
Technical Consultant
Andy Powell is a Technical Consultant at Alchemy Polymers, a manufacturer of polyurethane leak seal, soil stabilization and slab lifting resins. He is an expert on both the products and their applications, with many years of infrastructure repair work and on-site consulting under his belt. He attended Auburn University.
Kevin Kusinski / Ksquaredmeals
Years ago, I was struggling with my weight. I learned, the hard way, that exercise alone was not going to help me lose the weight. I started to cook healthy meals, and tried to incorporate
principle of cooking that I had witnessed with my multiple years in the restaurant industry. I got really good at it! I decided to become a personal trainer because i wanted to help others change their life.
Samuel Mugavero, Ph.D / Smugs Fitness
Sam Mugavero is the owner of Smugs Fitness; a company providing individual and small group fitness training to people of all ages and abilities including businesspersons, full time Moms and Dads, and high school athletes seeking to participate in collegiate athletics. In addition to our individual and small group training, we also provide onsite fitness and health programs to assist businesses (small and large) in creating a healthy, strong, and productive workplace.
Michael Flock / FLOCK Specialty Finance
Founder, Chairman & CEO
Michael Flock has been involved in the credit, collections, debt buying, and outsourcing businesses for more than 20 years, beginning with Dun & Bradstreet and more recently as a financial advisor and investment banker.
In 2007, he founded Flock Advisors to provide M&A advisory and capital funding services to these same industries. In 2013, Flock Advisors became FLOCK Specialty Finance. This change enabled the company to provide more funding solutions to current clients. The change also gave FLOCK the ability to expand its offerings into more market segments that have been under served by traditional banking.
Prior to founding FLOCK, Michael provided M&A advisory support to private equity firms, helped companies reengineer their operations, and led a successful recapitalization of a consumer collections agency where he was interim CEO. He was also an advisor to Croft & Bender, a middle market investment bank.
He earned his BA from the University of Virginia as an Echols Scholar and graduated Phi Beta Kappa. During his college years, he served as a White House Intern. Later he worked as a Fulbright Teaching Assistant in France and also did graduate work at the Institut d’Etudes de Sciences-Politiques in Paris. He received an MBA in finance from Fordham University.
Kit Hughes / Look Listen
CEO
Kit Hughes is a typical technology entrepreneur. He dropped out of college to start a company in 1999, spent a period of time homeless, and (slowly) became an overnight success.
Eventually, Kit returned to school as a two-time research fellow at the University of Georgia leading experimental technology research projects exploring mobile computing and connected devices. He credits his business smarts to his studies in strategy and innovation at MIT.
In his agency career, Kit has worked with a variety of B2B and B2C brands across multiple touchpoints: AnheuserBusch, BP, Char-Broil, Coca-Cola, GE, NCR, Philips, Steve Harvey, and Synchrony Financial.
He co-founded Look Listen with his collaborator in punk bands, Paul Sternberg. In 2015, Look Listen was recognized as one of the fastest growing privately held companies in the US by hitting the Inc 500 and the 64th fastest growing company in Atlanta, according to the Atlanta Business Chronicle Pacesetter Awards.
