The third annual Economic Gardening conference has added one of the field’s foremost experts, Terry O’Keefe of the National Center for Economic Gardening, to its list of speakers.
The Rogers State University Innovation Center will host the conference on Thursday, November 15, 2012 from 9:00 a.m. to 3:00 p.m. on RSU’s Claremore campus.
O’Keefe has been a member of the NCEG field team since its inception, initially as a web specialist and then as team leader. As team leader, he is responsible for educating and integrating client companies into the process and working with them to frame the issues and tasks his team will take on.
O’Keefe has participated in more than 150 economic gardening engagements and brings a unique and up-close perspective to the challenges and rewards of pursuing pilot projects with community partners and local businesses.
He also was the cofounder and executive director of a green business nonprofit and now maintains a small entrepreneurial coaching practice near Asheville, N.C. He writes a weekly column on business and economics for the Ideas section of the Asheville Citizen-Times.
“This is a great opportunity to learn Economic Gardening best practices,” said Jeri Koehler, RSU Innovation Center director. “We are excited to host this event and support more communities implementing economic gardening in their area.”
This year’s Economic Gardening conference will feature an entrepreneur panel sharing economic gardening success stories from clients of the RSU Innovation Center, NetWork Kansas and the NCEG. The RSU Innovation Center is a pilot program for economic gardening that is administered through the NCEG.
The keynote speaker for this year’s conference is broadcaster and entrepreneur Bill Kurtis. Featured guest speakers that will join Kurtis and O’Keefe include, Dr. William Pavia, partner with Sevin Rosen Funds; Jay Martin, inventor and entrepreneur; and Steve Radley, CEO of NetWork Kansas.
For more information call the RSU Innovation Center at 918-343-7533. To register for the conference, visit www.entrepreneurready.com.