Sam Seltzer has been committed to personal enterprise throughout his life. In 1960, he founded Allison Corporation, a company that manufactures and sells a wide variety of automobile accessories with facilities in East Asia, Europe, and the United States. Allison was one of the first American companies to do business in Mainland China.
By the early 1980s, Sam came to recognize the need for undergraduate education in business skills, specifically for those young people wishing to join family enterprises or for those willing to make the commitment and to take the risks to start their own businesses. Thus, he became the founding chairman of Cornell PEP (Personal Enterprise Program); a program which began with one course in Business Planning, quickly grew to over 35 courses, mostly at the undergraduate level, and eventually merged into Entrepreneurship@Cornell (Entrepreneurship@Cornell).
In 1954, Seltzer started one of the first manufacturing operations to be set up under the Puerto Rican government's Operation Boot Strap. He was founder and an officer of the Commonwealth Manufacturers Association of Puerto Rico and the Plastic Manufacturers Association of Puerto Rico. The U.S. and Puerto Rican governments appointed him to serve on their respective committees to determine minimum wages for the island. From 1975-92, Sam Seltzer was also an officer and trustee of the Pension Fund of the United Furniture and Bedding Workers Union.
Sam Seltzer is a graduate of Cornell University.
Jerry Goldman is a senior tax partner at Ernst & Young. Goldman began his career in audit at Arthur Young before swtiching to the tax field. Arthur Young merged with Ernst and Whinney in 1989 to become Ernst & Young.
Jerry Goldman received his underegraduate degree from Cornell University and his MBA from the Wharton School at the University of Pennsylvania.
<p>Emmy Award-winning musician Peter Buffett has an acclaimed career that spans more than 28 years as a professional musician, composer, philanthropist and author. He began his career as the musical mind behind many of the early MTV bumpers of the '80s, and the climactic crescendo in the memorable "Fire Dance" scene in 1990's Oscar winning film Dances with Wolves. </p> <p>From 1987 to present, Buffett has released 15 records, and has been signed to such labels as Narada, Epic and Hollywood Records. He now owns two independent labels, BisonHead and BeSide Records.</p> <p>Buffett's latest venture is his inspiring new book, Life Is What You Make It. Personal and revealing, instructive and intuitive, Life Is What You Make It is about following passions over conventions, transcending your circumstances or status, taking up the reins of your destiny, and living life to its fullest. </p>
Jay Walker is one of America's best-known inventors and entrepreneurs and is one of a dozen or so living inventors worldwide to hold 200 patents in multiple fields.
Walker, and a team at Walker Digital, LLC, his invention laboratory, created the central ideas behind priceline.com, the groundbreaking "name-your-own-price" company for airline tickets and hotel rooms.
Walker has also created a number of other successful businesses, including New Sub Services (now named Synapse) a company he co-founded and that revolutionized the magazine subscription industry and was recently sold to AOL Time Warner for $600 million. Walker also co-founded Target Communications, a conference and publishing company which was sold to Primedia in 2000.
Mr. Walker is currently chairman of Walker Digital, LLC, a Stamford, Conn.-based laboratory that invents entirely new ways for businesses to operate and serve consumers. Walker Digital is not a consultancy, but a privately funded active research laboratory that use long-term interdisciplinary invention teams to create solutions in the same manner and style as the original Edison laboratory. Successful inventions are licensed to industry or used as the core intellectual property of innovative startups for which the laboratory provides both personnel and funding. To date, Walker Digital has invented over 600 proprietary business methods addressing dozens of significant business problems in a wide range of industries such as travel, data security, retail, automotive, restaurants, groceries, financial services, gaming and entertainment.
Walker's inventions and innovations have been widely recognized. He has twice been recognized by the editors of TIME magazine as one of the 50 most influential business leaders in the digital age. Business Week selected Jay as one of its 25 Internet pioneers most responsible for "changing the competitive landscape of almost every industry in the world." Newsweek named him as one of three executives at the forefront of the Internet commerce revolution.
Walker and his wife have two children and live in Connecticut. He holds a B.S. degree in Industrial Relations from Cornell University.
Robert Waldman is Managing Director & Head of Corporate Bond Research at Citigroup. He has worked at Citigroup for the past 20 years. Prior to that role, he worked at Standard & Poor's. He also worked in criminal law while serving in the Marine Corps.
Robert Waldman is a graduate of CUNY City College of New York. He also holds a law degree.
Rajiv Gupta is Chairman, President and CEO of Rohm and Haas, which specializes in making cutting-edge specialty chemicals that are used in products as diverse as paint and computers. During this lecture, he shares thoughts on the importance of engineering to industry and the world.
Rajiv Gupta received his undergraduate degree in mechanical engineering from the Indian Institute of Technology and received his Masters in Operations Research & Industrial Engineering from Cornell University.
A. Dana Callow, Jr. is the Managing General Partner of Millennia. Prior to founding Millennia, Dana co-founded Boston Capital Ventures in 1982. Before that, he worked as a Senior Consultant at Braxton Associates (Deloitte Touche), an international strategic planning firm that was formed by professionals from Boston Consulting Group and Bain & Company, where he worked with Fortune 100 companies in strategic planning and implementing merger and acquisition strategies. Prior to working in the management consulting business, Dana worked in sales and marketing and also was an Application Engineer for Tymshare (acquired by McDonnell-Douglas). Dana is a Director of Jobs for Massachusetts, a Massachusetts based non-profit organization comprised of business and political leaders including the Governor and Congressional leaders. He is a member of the Board of Trustees at Tufts University, on the Board of Overseers at Tufts University Medical School, and is on the Board of Advisors at the Foster Center for Private Equity, part of the Amos Tuck School of Business at Dartmouth College.
Dana Callow is a magna cum laude graduate of Tufts University and holds an MBA from the Amos Tuck School.
Harris Rosen has been President of Rosen Hotels & Resorts, formerly known as Tamar Inns, since 1974.
Rosen served three years in the United States Army as an officer in Germany and South Korea. He began his professional career at the Waldorf Astoria in New York City as a convention salesman. He occupied various management positions in some of the larger Hilton hotels and eventually joined the Disney Company in California as Director of Hotel Planning. He left Disney to purchase the 256 room Quality Inn on International Drive in 1974.
Harris Rosen received his Bachelor of Science degree from the School of Hotel Administration at Cornell University.
Kevin McGovern is the Chairman and CEO of McGovern Capital LLC, which provides Intellectual Property Rights Strategy, and originates, structures and implements capital formation, joint ventures and business alliances. In addition, he is also the principal of McGovern & Associates, which specializes in corporate law and intellectual property strategy with an emphasis on emerging businesses, mergers and acquisitions, securities, patent enforcement, corporate and partnership joint ventures, capital formation and R&D financing. Kevin McGovern received his undergraduate degree from Cornell University and his law degree from St. John's University School of Law. He has also studied at the London School of Economics and Political Science.