The inland area’s best entrepreneurs, both professional and students, were honored at the 14th annual Spirit of the Entrepreneurs Awards gala held by the Inland Empire Center for Entrepreneurship at Cal State San Bernardino.
Fifteen entrepreneurs and three CSUSB students received the top honors at the black-tie gala, which recognized the leadership, innovation and business acumen of Inland Empire entrepreneurs. About 860 business and community leaders attended the event, which was held at the Riverside Convention Center in Riverside.
One of the 15 winners, Maria Thompson of Agile Sourcing Partners, Inc., in Corona, also received the Best of the Best Award, which is given to the entrepreneur who best exemplifies what it means to be an entrepreneur in terms of taking risks and building a successful enterprise that creates jobs and value where none existed before.
The gala also offered the final presentations of the Garner Holt Student Fast Pitch Competition, an innovative IECE annual competition where five CSUSB future entrepreneurs each delivered a 90-second pitch about their up-and-coming venture idea to the audience and were critiqued on their overall preparation, poise and professional presentation by a panel of investors and other members of Southern California’s entrepreneurial community.
After the Fast Pitch presentations, the top three finishers were:
- Joelle Passerello – Shake & Go Remote,
- Jonah Michaels – EZChange, and
- Mario Perez – Echo Radio.
As the top finisher Passerello received the top prize of $4,000. The competition is sponsored by local entrepreneur Garner Holt of San Bernardino. Holt’s company, Garner Holt Productions, is the world’s leading manufacturer of Animatronics & Animatronic Figures.
“This year’s Spirit of the Entrepreneur gala was a truly a memorable event and a tribute to the support we receive from the business community in the Inland region,” said Michael Stull, founder of the event and director of the Inland Empire Center for Entrepreneurship and a professor of entrepreneurship at CSUSB. “This year’s winners showed through their dedication and determination why they were chosen as outstanding entrepreneurs.”
The 15 entrepreneur award recipients were:
- Corporate Entrepreneur – Dr. James M Lally D.O., MMM, Chino Valley Medical Center, Chino;
- Distribution, Logistics and Transportation Entrepreneur – Maria Thompson, Agile Sourcing Partners, Inc., Corona;
- Family Business – Mark Widder, Dino Cancellieri Sr., Dino Cancellieri Jr., Randy Cancellieri, Adam Cancellieri; Veg-Fresh Farms, Corona;
- General Entrepreneur – Leonora Foddrill, Foddrill Construction Corp., Chino;
- Innovator/Technology Entrepreneur – Saksit Suetrong, iA-ROBOTICS, Murrieta;
- Manufacturing Entrepreneur – Troy Lindstrom, Lynam Industries, Inc., Fontana;
- Service-Based Entrepreneur – Arthur R. Rose & Timothy J. Russell, Chiro, Inc., Bloomington;
- Small/Emerging Enterprise – Josephine 'Fina' Meraz, Tile Designs by Fina, Inc., Palm Desert; and
- Social Entrepreneur – Patricia Nickols-Butler, Community Action Partnership of San Bernardino County - San Bernardino; and John Neiuber, Trinity Youth Services, Claremont.
The Spirit of the Entrepreneur event was sponsored by a wide range of local organizations, including Best Best & Krieger LLP; Southern California News Group; Renaissance Executive Forums; Bank of America; Pro AV; City of Riverside; Business Alliance; Wilson Ivanova CPAs; Wells Fargo; San Bernardino County Economic Development Agency; UPS; CDC Small Business Finance; Varner & Brandt LLP; Riverside County Economic Development Agency; Leadership Dimensions; US Bank; and Altek Media Group.
About the Inland Empire Center for Entrepreneurship
Located on the campus of Cal State San Bernardino, the Inland Empire Center for Entrepreneurship (IECE) was recognized by the United States Association for Small Business and Entrepreneurship (USASBE) as having the top specialty entrepreneurship program in the US for 2010. IECE offers a wide range of programs and services, including academic programs that lead to business degrees in entrepreneurship for undergraduate and graduate students as well as delivering experiential learning and student support programs, such as the Fast Pitch Competition. In the local community, IECE offers existing and aspiring entrepreneurs a wide array of business advisory and mentoring services, student internship and consulting resources, and entrepreneurial training programs that help them achieve greater levels of success in their business ventures. For more information about IECE, visit www.entre.csusb.edu.
About California State University, San Bernardino
California State University, San Bernardino is a preeminent center of intellectual and cultural activity in Inland Southern California. Opened in 1965 and set at the foothills of the beautiful San Bernardino Mountains, the university serves more than 20,000 students each year and graduates about 4,000 students annually.
CSUSB reflects the dynamic diversity of the region and has the most diverse student population of any university in the Inland Empire, and it has the second highest African American and Hispanic enrollments of all public universities in California. More than 80 percent of those who graduate are the first in their families to do so.
For more information, contact the CSUSB Office of Strategic Communication at (909) 537-5007 and visit news.csusb.edu.