Peter Burns- Club E Network Update...

For someone who actually started what has become the "Club E Phenomenon," I certainly haven't been doing my part like my partners in spreading the proverbial word. Well..here goes...

We launched the first Club Entrepreneur last February 2007, only 13 scant months ago. Starting with the original 19 entrepreneurship students from that first class as an Adjunct at ASU's Barrett Honors College, we now have a solid 2000 members, from student-entrepreneurs to seasoned, serial entrepreneurs in 3 and soon more chapters in the Phoenix area (Tempe, Phoenix, N. Scottsdale). Club E's foray into Denver just before Christmas 2007 has resulted in a strong Denver base with new sub-chapters opened in Boulder and Colorado Springs.

There are a handful of new ground chapters opening in April-Tucson, Newport Beach and San Francisco with around 30 additional chapters in various stages of development in rapid succession for the next few months. I just returned from Orange County where I was so very impressed with the Grand Opening plans for our April 24th launch. We have a prestigious local college President as our keynote and a number of well-known California entrepreneurs as speakers. There should be a couple of hundred individuals who will be our guests for that launch date.

I'm fielding inquiries for establishing new ground chapters from such diverse places in the world as Singapore, Malaysia, Kenya, Australia, France and England. There's a gentleman from Brazil that has reached out and believe it or not, I even heard from fearless entepreneurs from both Afghanistan and Iraq. Talk about "entrepreneurial spirit!"

Our web site at http://www.clubenetwork.com/ has been getting better and better every day with new content being uploaded, courtesy of our maven, Lyn Graft and the uber strong development team of student-entrepreneur Merlin Ward and Frank, who comes to us from the venerable gaming giant, Electronic Arts. These next 2-3 months should demonstrate how sweeping our web site, a combination of resource and social network fo entrepreneurs can really shape out to be. I noticed this morning that our community online is almost 1600 strong and represents over 20 countries around the world. It's pretty impessive when you think that it has been all viral to this point!

Our ground chapters are the "hidden jewel" of the Club E Network. There are 100 plus entrepreneurs from high school DECA students to well established business titans frequenting each monthly event. The networking between such a diverse demographic is fantastic but lest not we forget how wonderfully entertaining and educating our line up of speakers has and will be at these events. Listed below is my "quick and dirty" narrative of the upcoming speakers for our three local Phoenix area chapters. Talk about a diverse line up!

April 9th-Angela Shinn
West Point Grad, International MBA from Thunderbird, Angela is spearheading the Veteran Business Advocacy Group which is taking the 180,000 Veteran-owned businesses in Arizona and uniting them with Club E to create a cohesive network together. In June, there will be a conference with workshops and high level veteran business owner speakers to start the process here in Arizona, which hopefully will spread to the rest of the 3.6 million veteran-owned businesses across the U.S.

April 16th-Marsha Ralls
Two time runner up to Miss America (Miss Texas and Miss Virginia) Marsha Ralls funded her undergraduate and graduate education from the prize wining and launched one of the country's most successful art galleries in Georgetown, under to tutelage of the art icon, Robert Raushenberg. On the International Council of EO, active in NFTE and Commissioner of Art in Washington D.C., Marsha will discuss how she started and expanded her art empire and has dedicated her life know to "giving back."

April 23rd-Lyn St. James
Lyn was only the second woman to qualify and race in the Indianapolis 500 and actually taught current racing star Danicka Patric how to race cars. She worked with some of this country's major companies as sponsors to her racing team and developed and runs a foundation that empowers young women to compete and win in all areas of life.

May 21st-Cindy Bennett
Active in the Hispanic business community, Cindy recently started her legal recruiting firm after years as a paralegal and employee at a leading area law firm. Cindy will share her story of employee to business owner and the struggles and challenges of a young, Hispanic woman entrepreneur.

May 28th-Steve Thomas
Land baron with nearly half a billion dollars of raw land sales behind him, Steve knows the Arizona landscape intimately. He will be challenging the group to think out of the box and use techniques that he has harnessed over the years to make millions of dollars.

June 11th-Charlie Popeck
As the president and co-founder of the third largest "Green" building advisory company in the United states, Charlie is well versed on the current and future subject of "green" building. He will share how he got started and where he things the "green" industry is heading and where it needs to be.

June 18th-Susan Jones
Susan is the assistant State Director for the business lobbying group, the NFIB. Boasting over 10,000 Arizona members, there are 600,000 independent business owners that belong to this organization across the U.S. Susan will discuss how her group helps small businesses with benefits and legislation and the plans to work with Club E creating a strategic alliance between us.

June 25th-Roy Vallee
Roy will share his story from starting in the mailroom and becoming the CEO of Arizona's largest and one of the country's most successful ($30B annual sales) businesses, Avnet. He will share how his corporate tour of duty was able to support his wife, son and daughter as they strived for success in entrepreneurial ventures of their own.

I just heard from my old friend (HBS days) Jonas Olmsted who heads the Colorado chapters, that he had a banner Club E event last week with Sam Addoms, the retired Frontier Airlines founder to a standing room only crowd of 180 people.

I just want to say that all of these developments for Club E brings a smile to my face as I watch my "baby" growing up in front of my eyes with the amazing guidance and efforts put forth by the "original five" Danny, Corey, Merlin, Toby and Kevin plus the dedication of the tech team and of course, Ingrid, our CEO.

Onward and upward!

Best to all,

Peter J. Burns, III

http://www.essentialet.com/SBDC/Peter/index.htm