Nashville EO experienced an extremely successful recruitment year in 2010. Check out the recent Nashville Post blog entry about our newest recruitment class.
Or read the full release below:
Nashville’s Entrepreneurs’ Organization Recruitment Class Is Largest in Chapter’s History
Thanks to a record-breaking fall recruitment, the Entrepreneurs’ Organization of Nashville has become one of the fastest growing EO chapters in the nation.
Fourteen new members joined last fall. When combined with the five new members who joined in the spring, for a total of 19 new members last year, 2010 has been the most successful in the chapter’s history.
“Our recruitment success is due to several factors: excellent recruitment chairs in Joe Freedman and Dan Hogan, great publicity, and the economy to name a few,” said Clint Smith, president of EO Nashville and co-founder and CEO of Emma. “The economy is making entrepreneurs really take a step back and understand the necessity of working on their business, instead of just in their business.”
Entrepreneurs’ Organization has a global membership that provides information and support to entrepreneurs. Including the new members, the Nashville chapter has 71 members. To join, an entrepreneur must be younger than 50 years old and be a founder, co-founder or controlling shareholder of a company with gross annual sales exceeding $1 million.
The fourteen new members of EO Nashville are:
John Arndt
John Arndt Jr. is president and chief executive officer of DWC Construction Company, Inc. He began his engineering career 33 years ago as a field engineer for Turner Construction Company. He holds a bachelor’s degree in civil engineering from Penn State University.
Jerry Baker
Jerry Baker started Conexess Group, LLC, a Fortune 500 software organization, in 2009 with his partner, Austin Meibers – who also recently joined EO (See Austin’s information below.) Baker has been in the IT consulting business for over 15 years.
Michael Burcham
Michael Burcham is president and chief executive officer of the Nashville Entrepreneur Center, which provides resources to help Middle Tennessee’s entrepreneur community. A serial entrepreneur, Burcham is on the board of four start-up firms.
Justin Crosslin
Justin Crosslin is the chief operating officer of Crosslin & Associates, PC, an accounting and consulting firm. Justin received his bachelor’s degree from the Goizueta Business School at Emory University and a master’s from the Owen School of Vanderbilt University. He is a member of the American Institute of Certified Public Accountants and Tennessee Society of Certified Public Accountants.
Jolene Dressel
Jolene Dressel launched Trojan Labor of Nashville, LLC in 2004. She is president and founder of Women in Networking & Construction, and an active member in the Association of General Contractors of Middle Tennessee. Dressel is on the board of trustees for the Nashville State Community College Foundation as well as a recent graduate of Turner School of Construction Management.
Vicki Hill
Vicki Hill co-founded J&H Consulting, a provider of systems implementation resources, in 2007. She earned her associate’s degree at Champlain College in Vermont and bachelor’s degree in accounting at Lipscomb University.
Brian Jones
Brian Jones co-founded J&H Consulting, a provider of systems implementation resources, in 2007. He earned a bachelor’s degree in computer information systems from Lipscomb University, before spending 11 years with Accenture.
Bob Levy
Bob Levy founded Paradigm Group, an employee benefits, retirement services and HR consulting firm, in 1996 after a successful career with Prudential Healthcare. He graduated from the University of Virginia and holds a master’s degree in health administration from Duke University. He is a certified employee benefits specialist and past president of the Middle Tennessee Employee Benefits Council.
Austin Meibers
Austin Meibers of software company Conexess Group, LLC. Meibers graduated from Michigan State University where he studied engineering. The Detroit native moved to Nashville to open an IT staffing company. His partner, Conexess co-founder Jerry Baker, formerly competed against Meibers in the Nashville IT staffing industry.
Bryan Merville
Bryan Merville is president and director of sales of Beacon Technologies, a premier low voltage and technology integration company. He has more than 10 years of experience in sales and management. He attended the University of Tennessee where he received a master’s degree in family counseling, and a bachelor’s in psychology.
Jason Moore
Jason Moore founded HealthDataSource, a software-as-a-service company that gathers and delivers healthcare data. He is a founding director of Nashville Startup Weekend; founding member and advisory board member of the Catholic Business League; and co-founder of Friends4Cures, a non-profit raising funds for testicular cancer research.
Tim Page
Tim Page is a founding and managing member of OptiMech, LLC, which provides design-build construction services to industrial and institutional customers. He earned his bachelor’s degree in mechanical engineering from the University of Tennessee’s School of Engineering in Knoxville.
Sam Sanchez
Sam Sanchez opened Sam’s Sports Bar in 2000, Sperry’s Restaurant of Cool Springs in 2006 and a second Sam’s location in Hendersonville in 2009. Sanchez received his undergraduate degree in criminal justice from Sam Houston State University.
Lee Williams
Dawson “Lee” Williams is chairman and chief executive officer of Digital Connections, Inc. He holds an associate’s degree from Dalton State College, a bachelor’s from Jacksonville State University and a master’s from Emory University. He also attended California State University at Long Beach, studying filmmaking, screenwriting, and the electronic visual arts.
