Thompson's interview is one of a four-part interview series of interview with "dot com" entrepreneurs (Micah Rosenbloom, Harold Fox, Zach Thompson, and Tai Nguyen). It documents an Internet start-up, Handshake.com, which was founded in 1999 and provided an Internet service to connect consumers to local merchants.
Ben and Judy Benjamin are the owners of Ben and Judy's Sugarhouse which they founded in 1982. This maple sugar business began as a hobby and has grown over the years to involve more of the extended family.
Ben and Judy Benjamin have oil-fired evaporators, reverse osmosis machines and other equipment meant to speed up the task of reducing 40 gallons of sap to one gallon of syrup. After sap turns to syrup, Judy Benjamin takes over, making value-added products such as maple cream and granulated maple sugar.
Robert McMath originally started The New Product Showcase and Learning Center in 1968 as a new products reporting service by in 1968. It started with only a small percentage of the products on display in Canandaigua, New York. Over the years the NPSLC grew to nearly 70,000 products, put most of the products on display, took up over 6,500 sq. feet of space, and moved to various facilities in and around New York.
The new company, NewProductWorks, was formed by merger of the New Products Showcase and Learning Center of Ithaca, New York, and the new products practice of the Arbor Strategy Group. The two firms combined in Ann Arbor, Michigan, in the spring of 2001.
As part of NewProductWorks, the Collection is housed in a very modern and contemporary 7,400 sq. foot state-of-the-art facility. Approximately 70% of the Collection is on display at all times, with the remainder in accessible storage.
Robert McMath received his undergraduate degree from Johns Hopkins University.
Rhonda Gilmore began her career at the furniture design company Herman Miller. In the mid-1980s Gilmore founded her own sole proprietorship, Rhonda Gilmore Design Consultant, in Kalamazoo, Michigan. Gilmore closed her business after six years to return to school and pursue a teaching career. Currently, Gilmore is a lecturer in the Department of Design and Environmental Analysis at Cornell. Rhonda Gilmore received her B.S. from the University of Cincinnati in 1982 and her M.A. in Interior Design from Cornell University in 1994.
Peter del Rio, a former head trader for Merrill Lynch, is the Chief Executive Officer and co-founder of The Interactive Custom Clothes Company (IC3D). Founded in 1996, IC3D is an Internet-based company selling customized jeans to a new Internet friendly population. The idea was to offer customized clothing online to solve fit problems that most people commonly find when shopping in stores. IC3D's goal was to create a 100% customer satisfaction rate by allowing customers to choose the styles of garments they wanted and fit them with a revolutionary computer generated sizing system.
IC3D is a technology company as much as it is a clothing company. The technological foundation of IC3D is its Artificial Intelligence (AI). Using a Genetically Engineered Neural Network (GENN) as a virtual tailor and patternmaker, IC3D creates custom patterns within minutes. This allows the company to quickly send patterns to a factory where each pair of custom jeans is created and delivered directly to the customer within seven to ten days.
Peter del Rio has a degree in business from Tufts University.
Demarest Studios was founded in 1998 by Noah Demarest. Demarest Studios primarily focused on architectural drafting, web site development and graphic design. In 2000, Noah partnered with his brother Nathan Demarest with the intention of expanding the range of design solutions offered to include web and multimedia production, digital illustration, and apparel design. In 2001, Noah and Nathan transformed Demarest Studios into Deviron LLC.
Deviron LLC now offers enhanced support and visualization services for architects, engineers and designers.
Noah and Nathan Demarest are both graduates of Cornell University.
Harry and Kevin Booth are the creators of Booth's Blend compost. Various amendments (hay, straw, sawdust, or wood chips) are added to cow manure to create an ecologically beneficial substance that helps build a foundation for plantings.
Six generations of Booths have run a dairy farm along the Hudson River in New York State. The growth of the dairy business raised concerns for the surroundings, especially the beautiful Hudson River. This led the Booth family to begin experimenting with composting to better manage the animal waste.
C. Marshall Paul has more than 40 years experience in the pharmaceutical and market research industry and is president of ACNielsen HCI.
Marshall Paul started his career in 1962 as a marketing analyst for Merck & Co., Inc. In 1982, Paul built a new company, HCI, Inc. In November 1997, HCI was acquired by VNU and merged with its subsidiary PERQ Research. In January 2002, Marshall Paul was appointed president of ACNielsen HCI, a new company formed to help design and market the initiatives of other VNU subsidiaries, including HCI.
C. Marshall Paul graduated from Dickinson College and has a bachelor of science degree in Economics.
Randy Allen is Founder and CEO of Girls Explore. Girls Explore broadens the horizon of possibilities for girls through creating dolls that can be role models in major fields of science, sports, the arts, the humanities, and business and professions. Each role is a reflection of the woman who is a leader in her field. Prior to founding Girls Explore, Allen served as an executive vice president of Kmart and had become partner at Deloitte & Touche at a time when few women made it past the glass ceiling at major corporate consulting firms. Randy Allen is a graduate of Cornell University.