EAC announced the 2013 Entrepreneurship Celebration Award winners on February 28 at a luncheon featuring keynote speaker Michael Cloran, Partner in DeveloperTown.

Outstanding Educator: Peter Griffin, Fishers High School

For Peter Griffin, entrepreneurship is not just a class, it is what he does as the owner of Sola Salons. Any of Peter’s students should be able to tell you that the class objective is to be able to analyze a business idea with high certainty to know if they can make a profit and not lose their parent’s retirement and/or house in the process. Peter wants students to understand that if you don’t know what you are doing, if you don’t look at costs, profit margins, or rates of returns starting a business is a very risky effort. His classes emphasizes that smart folks know how to minimize their risk and create opportunities.

The unspoken objective in Peter’s entrepreneurship class is that students will see brand new opportunities. Instead of wanting to be an engineer, maybe they can own the engineering firm; instead of being an auto mechanic, they can own their own auto shop.

In class, students don’t just read about starting a business. They do it. In the fall 2012 semester there were at least five students who have started a business from their class created business plans. Hopefully, we have many students seeing owning their own business as a real possibility.

Emerging Business Award Winner: James Burnes, PatentStatus

James Burnes has been involved in the technology sector since 1998 as both a digital strategist and product development leader. His career has included creating digital products for a national continuing medical education firm, leading the technology side of a national forensic law consulting practice in New York City and spending 7 years in publicly traded newspaper and television media companies developing and leading new product development with roles in sales, marketing and branding. James founded innovation and digital consulting practice, Project Brilliant in 2010 and sold that business to pursue PatentStatus in May 2012. James founded PatentStatus following the signing of the America Invents Act. This allowed Burnes to start a software-as-a-service venture that could serve the intellectual property sector. Connecting and collaborating with patent attorneys in Central Indiana, Burnes vetted a prototype product and launched the software in less than 5 months from the legislation taking effect. As the business shifts to actively marketing itself, the pipeline includes global brands such as Briggs & Stratton, Kimberly Clark, Caterpillar and more.

Established Business Award Winner: Nick Carter, AddressTwo

Nick Carter, founder, president, and CEO of AddressTwo, started his company out of what began as a freelance marketing consulting practice, Carter and Company LLC, in 2006. In 2008, he founded the tech start-up AddressTwo with a CRM (customer relationship management) product that he had created by teaching himself how to program the software.  While trained programmers called it rudimentary, the beauty in what he had created was that it filled an unmet need in a niche marketplace.  Customers agreed and sales grew. Within a year, several hundred companies had purchased the software.  Today, Address Two has over 8000 users representing over 1200 companies.  The company was a finalist for TechPoint’s MIRA award in 2011 in the category of IT Gazelle – recognizing the fastest growing IT companies in Indiana. In March, 2010, Carter published his book “Unfunded: From Bootstrap to Blue Chip without Round-A Capital” which details his reasons and methodology for growing a business without raising early stage investment.

Mature Business Award Winner: Michael Friery, Veteran Construction

In April 2009, Michael Friery and his partner founded Veteran Construction, a disaster restoration company with a vision to revolutionize the industry with the highest business standards and innovative technology, both of which had been lacking in the restoration business. Since that time, Friery has been the fuel that expands and grows the company. He is driven to succeed as well as provide the best environment for his 55 current employees. Over the past three years, he has personally laid out a vision that has led to phenomenal growth resulting in the expansion into Kentucky, Missouri, and Florida along with starting a retail gutter and material supply division. While the disaster restoration and construction industry has been around a long time, Friery has integrated his core veteran values into his company and is a breath of fresh air in the construction industry. These core principles are reflected today and every employee can recite them by heart:  Integrity First, Service before Self, and Excellence in all we do. As one of the company’s tag lines says, “We work to protect the most precious things in your life,” Veteran Construction has strong sense that their mission is more than repairing their home after fire or water disaster, but it is their duty to do so. Their belief system is echoed in their motto: At Veteran, we just don’t fix your home, “We Build Your Life Better.”

2012 Community Business Plan Competition Winner: Heidi Wolfe, Lollies Candy Shop 

Walking into Lollies Candy Shop is like walking into a farmer’s market. Customers will find bushels full of wrapped candy, unique gift baskets, seasonal candies, jars filled with colorful gummy candy and a cold case filled with tempting chocolates. Some of the featured candies will be manufactured in Indiana. Lollies will be located in the downtown the Fishers area.

Heidi is a degreed professional in merchandising and has retail management and buying experience. Her retail experience coupled with her sales experience makes her a natural at providing excellent service. She is a business leader

Celebration Awards Photos

2012 Entrepreneurship Celebration Conference
Learn, Grow, Succeed

Thursday, October 18
Monon Center East
Carmel, Indiana 46032

Deadline for Speaker Submissions is March 15, 2012.

The Entrepreneurship Celebration Conference is a premier networking and hands-on events for entrepreneurs. Entrepreneurs, business leaders, investors and others make connections as they learn how to succeed in today’s business environment.

Do you have the expertise that entrepreneurs, small business owners, and others can benefit from? Are you seeking more exposure? Complete the Call for Speakers form here and submit it by the March 15th deadline.

We are looking for:

• Dynamic speakers who can share their expertise with a diverse audience
• Topic themes related to entrepreneurship such as building a sustainable business model, women-owned businesses, funding, using social media, etc.

Potential speakers will be contact by March 30.