The Larsen Group

Dr. Patti Greene is the President’s Distinguished Professor at Babson College, an institution known around the world for business education and entrepreneurship.  Former provost and dean of undergraduate programs, Patti is the national academic director of the Goldman Sachs 10,000 Small Business initiative, a endeavor partnering with community colleges to connect advisors and capital to help owners grow their businesses.  She believes entrepreneurship plays a critical role in any organization and industry’s pursuits to save people, profit and the planet.

Susanne Goldstein studied mechanical engineering and theatre/film studies in college before resourcefully creating the first 20 years of her career including being a screenwriter and producer in Hollywood, consultant to Silicon Valley internet business leaders, and strategist in social media for the US Marine Corps to help returning veterans.  Her new book, Carry a Paintbrush: How to be the Artistic Director of Your Own Career, pragmatically guides readers to paint new doorways through which to confidently walk on or into “what’s next”.

www.carryapaintbrush.com                        September 24, 2011          20 minutes

www.datacard.com                                       September 17, 2011         20 minutes

Michelle Conklin is executive director of the Tucson Botanical Gardens, “The Best Secret Garden in America” located on over five acres in the middle of a very busy urban center.  People of passion are powerful, as evidenced by benefactors raising $85,000 in 24 hours last month to buy an adjacent home to add to the historic property originally donated by the Porter family.   Michelle shifted to non-profit leadership over 15 years ago after careers in law firm administrator, finance for a civil engineering and architectural firm, and sales and marketing for a television broadcasting affiliate.   

www.tucsonbotanicalgardens.org                 September 17, 2011         20 minutes

Anni MacKay is the founder of The BigTown Gallery in Rochester, Vermont, population 1,100.  She believes the arts can help us learn how to see. The many skills Anni has acquired in conceiving and producing community arts events for 15 years, and likewise keeping a gallery in a small town alive during a severely challenging recession, equipped her last week to lead a door-to-door grass roots effort to get critical medicines to those cut off when major roads and bridges collapsed in Central Vermont due to Hurricane Irene.  She harnessed the true power of community to serve others.

www.bigtowngallery.com                             September 10, 2011         20 minutes

Dr. Paul Christo is one of America's leading experts on relieving acute and chronic pain, a multi-dimensional experience that requires modern healthcare to respond to a patient’s physical, emotional and often spiritual vital signs.  Paul is an anesthesiologist based at John Hopkins Medical Center, and hosts the live radio talk show Aches & Gains. His goal is to generate increased awareness and hope to help people seek alternative treatment to forestall potential fear and depression, and return to an active life.

www.paulchristomd.com                               September 10, 2011         20 minutes

Anne Loehr is a generational differences guru and co-author of the new book Managing the Unmanageable: How to Motivate Even the Most Unruly Employee.  Captured within is a 5C Framework to guide leaders, peers and subordinates to help people in troubled organizational situations – Commit or Quit, Communicate, Clarify, Coach and Create Accountability.  Anne believe “UEs” are more often made than born, and it is up to leaders to name the real problem and address issues that span detachment to excuse making to rudeness in a constructive manner.

www.theunmanageableemployee.com          September 3, 2011            20 minutes

Paul Dehart continues to expand his 30-year global career as Chief Operating Officer of Fallbrook Technologies, a late stage startup company introducing innovative continuously variable transmission products.  Fallbrook’s inventions, based on principles developed by one of the greatest inventors and artist in history, Leonardo DiVinci, have been introduced into commuter bicycle/eBike products in Europe.  Paul has enjoyed opportunities in general management, sales, engineering, product design and operations, the common leadership thread being to support the growth and development of people.

www.fallbrooktech.com                                 September 3, 2011            20 minutes

Amy Reuter is founder and Chief Nutrition Officer of Seattle Foodnut, a consultancy that allows her to blend a passion for food and fitness with her nutrition and culinary training and career experiences.  Amy’s goal is to empower clients to use nutrition to gain a competitive edge from the athletic field to the boardroom.  In a world of lethargic and stressful lifestyle temptations and nutritional shortcuts (many being dead ends), Amy believes that if you don’t have time to be sick, you must make time to be well.  “Eat well, be well, perform well” is her mantra.

www.seatllefoodnut.com                                  September 3, 2011            20 minutes

Dr. Dan Hirleman is Dean of Engineering at California’s newest state university, UC Merced.  His career spans triple technical degrees from Purdue University, teaching and research accomplishments at Arizona State, and then circling back to Purdue for over ten years as head of mechanical engineering.  Dan took the leap last year to join this academic entrepreneurial start-up, enabling change in engineering education tied to influencing and participating in new economic development engines for the region.

Michael Tucker is the founder of Social Mobile Buzz, a marketing/communications consultancy.  He is also involved in social entrepreneurship networks – helping others do well, by doing good. A former US Air Force officer with career stints in city government and financial services, Michael is a young professional who has jumped on the social media wave to help organizations position their employees to capitalize on the sea change in communication technology.

www.socialmobilebuzz.com                      August 27, 2011               20 minutes

Mike Varney and Bill Holmes are respectively the new CEO and COO of the Tucson Metropolitan Chamber of Commerce. While Mike is the “Outsider coming inside” from Las Vegas to bringing seasoned chamber know-how and external perspectives, long time Arizonan Bill Holmes brings a rich history of serving in Tucson business and community service roles.  He’s go the “know who.” The dynamic duo is angling for quite the change agenda to catalyze economic growth of business and non-profits in Tucson and Southern Arizona.

Dr. Tom Brunner leads Performance Edge Solutions, a corporate and family business consulting practice in Tucson.  He is also the founder and director of the Center for Character Strength Investment, a non-profit research center promoting positive character development.  An experienced clinical psychologist, Tom has expanded his counseling practice to include coaching and consulting, with focus of helping organizations establish the best GPS to find better leaders through Great People Science.

www.doctorbrunner.com                            August 13, 2011                  20 minutes

Carol Stack and Ruth Vedvik of Hardwick-Day are former college directors of admissions and authors of a one-stop shopping book for aspiring college students and their parents – The Financial Handbook: Getting the Education You Want, at the Price You Can Afford.  A confluence of factors have caused the quest for the right college at the right price to be a more complicated process than ever before, a process they are committed to helping students navigate successfully to not let opportunities be taken away.  The book pragmatically outlines the seven biggest myths about paying for college.

Gayle and Michael Bockwinkel have enjoyed diverse career journeys in the hospitality, travel and gourmet food industries.  They are the owners and innkeepers of The Acacia Bed & Breakfast boutique hotel, an intimate retreat and private oasis in one of Tucson’s historic districts.  The first year of operation has been brisk and profitable, pulling the Bockwinkel’s into new circles and networks for collaboration with other local business owners.  Always on the lookout for new opportunities, they finished the adjoining lot as a lovely garden for hosting events.

Diane Redhouse is a talented photographer with a lifelong passion for and fascinating connectedness with wild animals and birds, in particular wolves and hawks.  Her first children’s book is The Singer that Lost His Song, a story for all ages about a wolf.  It evokes a profound message about teaching, understanding, love, and freedom of the soul.  Being home.  First written when Diane was a young teenager, the audio narration and music is in collaboration with her husband, Native American flute player and Grammy-nominee, Vince Redhouse.

www.vinceredhouse.com                           August 6, 2011                    20 minutes

Arvid Pedersen is a global supply chain consultant whose career has been centered within manufacturing companies in the US and abroad.  He is on the board of the Sky Institute, an international incubator of ideas and ideals for building communities in the 21^st century.  Arvid designed and built his energy efficient home on Amelia Island, Florida, in a small urbanism community of 300 households.  Whereas technology has advanced new products and building materials for sustainable building, the challenge lies in integrating the components to become something greater than just the sum of the parts.

Deidra Van Nest leads a property management and real estate investment business, in addition to public speaking and coaching others.  Her new book is Fire Your Fear: How to Grow Your Business by Changing the Way You Think, focuses on three principles for change:  a) press into any fear, viewing it as signal for opportunity to grow, b) stop thinking you need to be confident to be successful, but rather demonstrate courage, particularly in new situations, and c) consistent action is the fuel to become confident.

Kelly Nieto is the leader of Greymatter Development, an executive business coaching and organization development firm.  “Passionate about achieving their extraordinary best” is the common thread across her clients, a diverse list of Fortune 500-to-small businesses, government, and non-profit organizations. Kelly enables her clients to get beyond the win-win, anchored in a deep understanding of client service VALUE, helping them make connections to additional partnerships to foster client business expansion.

Conrad Smith is co-founder of The Impact Group, a consultancy that helps clients across North America be maximally effective in the achievement of their strategies.  He is a popular, dynamic speaker at forums as diverse as manufacturing employees to foreign diplomats. Based on a 35-year career in the US Navy, roles in large, diverse organizations and as a private business owner, Conrad views courage – reinforced by honesty, authenticity and self-awareness – as a lense for greatly improved leadership. 

Tim Harford is an internationally recognized journalist and author – the “undercover economist” and Dear Economist columnist for London’s Financial Times.  Tim presents the popular BBC radio show More or Less, and his new book Adapt: Why Success Always Starts with Failure is an engaging, provocative and important exploration of how we can change the world and our own lives, one failure at a time.  Tim’s research reinforces how the complexity of the modern world demands adaptive trial and error to create innovation and solve crises both large and small.  

www.timharford.com                           July 16, 2011                      20 minutes

Lisa Hopper is the founder and CEO of World Care, a Tucson-based civilian emergency relief center.  Since 1994, over 500 volunteers, staff and donors have helped provide $50 million in community-based aid domestically and abroad to over 75 countries.  World Care’s vision gives civilians a voice in the humanitarian aid sector, delivering for less than 3% overhead costs.  A former hospital administrator and radiology technician, Lisa acted on a dream to start World Care, a story captured in her new book, In the Wake of a Dream.

www.worldcare.org                              July 16, 2011                      20 minutes

Rita Breinz is manager of payroll for the Werner Company in Pennsylvania, the world’s largest manufacturer of ladders and other climbing products.  Four generations of Rita’s family have kept the tradition of their 4^th of July Family Reunion alive and well, an event initiated to celebrate her great great-grandparents’ first wedding anniversary. Descendents include eight children, 28 grandchildren, 76 great grandchildren, and 117 great, great grandchildren (so far).  With a personal passion for genealogy, Rita advised “Our Family Tree is 84 reunions strong, held together by shared values, memories, and a commitment to family – plus a willingness to change and adapt.”

www.flynnhanleyreunion.com

Susan Hirschman is president of SHE Ltd, a consultancy dedicated to improving financial services client relationships and the financial literacy of women.  Her new book Does This Make My Assets Look Fat? – A women’s guide to finding financial empowerment and success uses a time-tested set of common sense principles as the core to successful investment management – balance, variety and moderation.  Susan explains the often overly complex world of wealth management through the simple prism of healthy dieting, a process men and women alike, regard less of age can relate to.

Miriam Goodman is an experienced media and public relations professional based in San Francisco.  Her new book Too Much Togetherness:  Surviving Retirement as a Couple discusses retirement not as the finish line for anything, but rather another phase of life that requires changes in attitudes and action – particularly for couples to get in/stay in sync.  She believes retirement means a different type of aging, one with new adventures and new purposes.  Can couples spend all day, every day with each other as they age?

www.toomuchtogetherness.com         July 9, 2011                        20 minutes

Dan Mieduch and his wife, Rhonda, moved to Scottsdale, Arizona in 1975, leaving behind commercial art and industrial design within Detroit’s automotive advertising industry.  “Go West, Young Man, Go West!” Dan embarked upon a now 35 plus-year fine art painting career, a journey that continues from a base of historical and contemporary cowboy scenes.  His oil paintings are featured at several galleries in Arizona and Wyoming, in prominent art and Western magazines, and cause quite the stir at signature art auctions around the country.  Dan also enjoys teaching other artists to test his own understanding of the power of color, light and technique.

www.mieduchart.com                          July 2, 2011                            20 minutes

Mary Keysor is a human resource strategist with extensive experience in the field of employee benefits and risk management.  Her firm, élan Benefits helps small businesses address the criticality of communication, risk management, and the authentic face leaders put forward to constituents, in particular employees, to get engagement for business change.  Mary believes you can have your cake, and eat it, too, as evidenced by her expanding her business AND pursuing doctorate studies in industrial and organizational psychology at the same time.

www.elanbenefits.com                        July 2, 2011                           20 minutes

Cheryl Kiser is Executive Director of The Lewis Institute and Social Innovation Laboratory at Babson College in Boston.  These roles involve leading the integration of social innovation and social entrepreneurship into the undergraduate and graduate business school curriculum and co-curricular activities, endeavors to redefine the social bottom line.  Cheryl’s career has always been at the intersection of public policy, private enterprise and community.  She is on a mission is to make Babson the “go to place” for mechanisms to help business go beyond philanthropy and solve social problems through the marketplace.