RTC to highlight creative models for business growth

Date: 1/25/2010

SPRINGFIELD On Feb. 2 from 5 to 7 p.m. at the TD Bank Conference Center, 1441 Main St., the Regional Technology Corporation (RTC) will host the next presentation in its Leadership Series, "Creative Ways that Businesses are Growing... Taking Proactive Steps Today."

To register, contact Suzanne Parker at sparker@rtccentral.com, at 755-1301 or go to www.rtccentral.com. Cost is $10 for RTC members and $20 for non-members.

The presentation will feature the following:

Craig Powell, President and Chief Executive Officer, ConnectEDU. Powell is the entrepreneurial force and visionary behind ConnectEDU, the nation's largest "going to college to career" Web solution. His passion for ensuring that all families have access to the expertise they need to maximize their educational potential, investments and experiences led Powell to found ConnectEDU. This sense of mission was born from the lack of guidance he received growing up in a working-class family in rural Missouri, in contrast to the attention he gained once he attended a private East Coast high school.

ConnectEDU is devoted to helping students find and enroll in the right college, get a degree and launch their careers. Created, developed and run by people who have worked in every area of college counseling, admissions, and career development, ConnectEDU uses information technology to connect real students and real data with real colleges, and real career opportunities. ConnectEDU's approach gives every student, from every neighborhood across the country, the best opportunity to achieve their dream of a college education and promising career.

Pamela Campagna, BLUE SAGE Consulting. Today's market is faster, more uncertain and more competitive than ever, and Campagna draws on a long track record of success and decades of experience as a consultant to organizations that want to optimize sales and market readiness to ensure success. Her firm, BLUE SAGE, uses a method called "LEAD" to Listen, Explore, Advance and Develop each client's sales and marketing initiatives. Her approach is a bit unique as she not only develops plans and strategies with her clients, but she also rolls up her sleeves to implement them too.

Prior to founding BLUE SAGE Consulting in 1997, Campagna held various roles in global sales operations, product management, channel development and business management at leading technology and services firms such as Lotus/IBM and FTP Software.

BLUE SAGE Consulting Inc. is a Massachusetts Women-Owned Business certified by the State Office of Minority and Women Business Assistance (SOMWBA), an agency within the Department of Business and Technology that promotes the development of certified businesses.

Campagna may be contacted at her office at (508) 497-9999, on her cell at (508) 735-6831, or by e-mail at pamelac@bluesageconsulting.com.

Barry Clapp, Clapp Ltd. Barry Clapp has a long track record of success working with young companies to drive revenue and create value. He is a dynamic strategist with phenomenal sales and marketing vision and experience, including sales and marketing leadership, management and strategy expertise. Clapp has over 30 years of experience in sales, marketing and general management, of technology based businesses.

Starting at IBM, where he sold enterprise systems in the FORTUNE100 marketplace and achieved the President's Club in each year with the company, Clapp has held a succession of jobs with increasing responsibility in software and Internet related businesses. At Management Decision Systems in the 1980s he helped build a decision support systems software product business to greater than $25 million in sales, evolving from a consulting practice. He started and built the International business for Cortex Corporation (application development tools), subsequently assuming responsibility for worldwide sales and marketing. He was Principal in Champion Marketing, a highly regarded, Boston-based consulting practice that specialized in implementing sales and marketing organizations and strategic partnerships for early stage technology companies. He was president and CEO of Source Recovery Company (enterprise software tools), which sold to Allen Systems in 2000, and, president of the Web based insurance sales portal, Value Benefits, from 2001 to 2004.

Clapp Ltd. develops and executes strategies for growing early stage companies and building their value. It increase the value of early stage companies by accelerating the infusion of cash-flows into the company via large sales and strategic revenue arrangements.

Clapp may be contacted on his cell at (508) 561-5040 or by e-mail at bclapp@townisp.com.

Steve Snyder, Partner & Entrepreneur-in-Residence, Gesmer Updegrove. Steve Snyder is a Partner and Entrepreneur-in-Residence at Gesmer Updegrove, Boston's premier law firm for technology companies and emerging businesses. His background provides a unique blend of legal and operational expertise. Snyder describes himself as a serial President/COO who has created a track record of success in building several organizations. He is also quite adept at working with entrepreneurial visionaries and turning their vision into reality. His focus at Gesmer is working with clients to find ways to increase revenue and create value, all at no charge.

Examples of his value creation include introductions to prospective strategic partners and customers, identifying effective inside team members and members of Boards of Directors and Advisory Boards, as well as introductions to financing sources.

Snyder may be contacted at (617) 531-8374 or by e-mail at steve.snyder@gesmer.com.