Elizabeth Johansen is a Product Designer at IDEO. Her client base includes the consumer and health markets including names like BriteSmile, Reynolds, Becton Dickinson, Alcon, 3Com and several startup companies.
Johansen is also active in the design for social impact domain, nurturing relationships with academia and NGOs while participating in sustainability roundtables in Boston.
Prior to IDEO, Johansen worked with Beckman Laser Institute and then Oregon Medical Laser Center to design and build two patented laboratory tools used in testing lasers for groundbreaking biomedical applications.
William Verhelle is the Chief Executive Officer of First American Equipment Finance. First American specializes in leasing high-technology equipment to large corporate borrowers. There are about 4,600 companies offering equipment financing services in the United States. For the fifth consecutive year, First American was recognized as one of the 100 largest equipment finance companies in the U.S. Before founding First American, Bill was Vice President and Western Division Manager of the Tokai Financial Services middle-market leasing company (now, De Lage Landen Financial Services).
Verhelle served as Chairman of the Equipment Leasing and Finance Association (ELFA) in 2008. Prior to that, he was Chairman of the ELFA Government Affairs Council, a member of the ELFA Executive Committee and the ELFA Board of Directors, and chaired the ELFA Middle-Market Independent Business Council Steering Committee.
Bill Verhelle received a Bachelor of General Studies Degree from the University of Michigan at Ann Arbor, a Master in Business Administration from the Anderson School at UCLA, and a Doctor of Laws from Cornell Law School. He is a member of the New York Bar.
James Cowen joined Aeroxon US, an importer and retailer of pest control products, after receiving an MBA from NYU; eventually becoming President of the company and changing its name to Roxide International. He later co-Founded Total Fuel and Energy Services, where he serves as President, to provide local heat, electrician and AC services to lower NY and Connecticut. Through Total Fuel and Energy Services, became involved in Bio Fuel, eventually creating the New York Bio Energy Corporation, joining with Cargill and becoming the exclusive distributor of bio fuel in the tri state area. Two years ago he acquired Web-Cote Industries, a industrial coating company to shift Roxide to being more vertically integrated and to provide a revenue stream independent of the whims of big boxes such as Wal-Mart. When Web-Cote was purchased, the company was in a good deal of debt and would have been declared bankrupt in a matter of months, over the course of the past two years the company has cleared off its initial debts, eliminated toxic accounts and began to earn a steadily growing profit.
Thoughout his time in business, he has gained a good deal of experience from ventures both successful and unsuccessful, providing insight into personal extermination (through starting Sanitation and Extermination Incorporated, a home and commercial extermination service), mail order magazines (though starting Under the North Star, a nautically oriented mail order catalogue) to Real-Estate (through running Total Equities, which utilizing the internal services of Total Fuel and Energy Services is able to provide rental properties with reduced overhead and flip renovated houses with a lower cost).
James Cowen received his MBA from New York University.
Steve Leveen is the co-founder and CEO of Levenger, known for its catalog of "tools for serious readers." Levenger (an amalgam of Leveen and his wife's last name, Granger), started out as a purveyor of state-of-the-art halogen book reading lights and grew to become a highly successful Internet and retail company, touting tools for serious readers, writers and thinkers. Today, Levenger is a multimillion dollar company with 225 employees and stores in Delray Beach, Fla., Boston and Chicago. The Levenger catalog is distributed to 24 million households annually.
Prior to starting Levenger with his wife in 1987, Leveen worked in marketing for a software firm in Boston, as a survey researcher for a firm in Washington, D.C. and as a journalist for McGraw-Hill in New York City.
Steve Leveen holds a B.A. in Biology from University of California, San Diego and a Master's in PhD in Sociology from Cornell University.
Jason Springs is currently the CEO of GeneWeave Biosciences, LLC. His company develops diagnostic devices that detect the presence and drug-resistance of disease-causing bacteria without the need for a diagnostic laboratory. The company is particularly focused on detecting so-called "superbugs" -disease-causing bacteria that are resistant or immune to standard antibiotics, as well as bacteria responsible for many hospital-acquired infections (HAIs).
Jason Springs is a first year MBA student at the Johnson School at Cornell University. He received his undergraduate degree in Economics and Management from the University of South Carolina.
Roger Williams is now retired but previously served as director of technology transfer at the New York State Center for Life Science Enterprise at Cornell University's Ithaca campus.
Ken Dryden holds a degree in history from Cornell University and a law degree from McGill University. He also has received honorary doctoral degrees from the universities of Ottawa, Windsor, York, McMaster, St. Mary�[TM]s, Niagara and British Columbia.
At Cornell, Dryden led the Cornell Big Red to the 1967 National Collegiate Athletic Association hockey championship and three consecutive ECAC tournament championships. He was a member of the Sigma Phi Society and vice-president of the Quill and Dagger society.
Dryden was goaltender for the Montreal Canadiens hockey team from 1971 to 1979, during which time the team went on to win six Stanley cups. Mr. Dryden is a proud member of the Hockey Hall of Fame, the Canadian Sports Hall of Fame and the International Scholar-Athlete Hall of Fame and his jersey number 29 was retired by the Canadiens in Jan. 2007.
Dryden was first elected to the House of Commons as the Member of Parliament for York Centre in 2004 and was re-elected in 2006 and 2008. From 2004 to 2006, he served as Minister of Social Development. He is the author of four best-selling books: The Game, Home Game, The Moved and the Shaken, and In School. In 1984, he was appointed Ontario's first Youth Commissioner. Before entering politics, Dryden served as president of the Toronto Maple Leafs.
Michael Harney has served for 22 years as vice president of products for Harney & Sons Teas, the company started and still run by his father, John.
Harney spends much of his time in Asia, seeking out the exquisite blends that have made Harney teas among the most celebrated in the world. He also oversees the company's financial operations. More recently, Harney has led the firm's move into the consumer market, highlighted by an engaging and interactive web presence. He has also spearheaded the firm's export business, which now produces 10 percent of sales.
Earlier, Harney was general manager of the Richmont Hotel in Chicago.
Michael Harney received his B.S. degree from the Cornell School of Hotel Administration and his Master's in Management degree from the Kellogg School of Management at Northwestern University.
Edward Heslop is currently CEO of Environmental Credit Corporation (ECC). ECC is a leading supplier of high quality environmental credits to emerging global financial markets.
Previously, Heslop was co-founder of Ecovation, where he served as Chairman, CEO, President and Chief Operating Officer. Ecovation was an innovative technology early stage growth company in the wastewater and energy sector. Heslop also co-founded several companies, including Paracelsian, Inc., a biotechnology company. Paracelsian progressed from founding through several rounds of financing, culminating in an initial public offering in 22 months. Previous companies founded were smaller manufacturing/wholesale marketing businesses.
Edward Heslop received an A.A.S. degree from Cobleskill Agricultural and Technical College and both B.S. and M.S. degrees from Cornell University.