This podcast is about Penn State alumni who are innovators, entrepreneurs, and leaders, and the stories behind their success.
Empowering Underserved Communities with Former NFL Player Garry Gilliam
Dare to Disrupt
Empowering Underserved Communities with Former NFL Player Garry Gilliam
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Garry Gilliam is the Founder and CEO of The Bridge Eco-Village,a sustainable, mixed-use community ecosystem in Harrisburg, PA. The Bridge Eco-Village will feature solutions to many of the problems facing underserved communities: housing, retail, co-working spaces, education opportunities, entrepreneurship incubators, urban agriculture, sports, and entertainment. Prior to launching the Bridge, Garry played in the NFL for five seasons for the Seattle Seahawks and the San Francisco 49ers.He graduated from Penn State in 2013 with degrees in business development, psychology, and advertising.
Exploring Name, Image and Likeness (NIL) with Former NFL Player Omar X. Easy
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Exploring Name, Image and Likeness (NIL) with Former NFL Player Omar X. Easy
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Omar X. Easy, Ph.D., is the recently appointed director of the all-new Penn State Brand Academy. The Brand Academy, a project recently launched by Invent Penn State in partnership with Penn State Intercollegiate Athletics and funded through the Wally Triplett Brand Academy Endowment, is designed to support student-athletes to manage and leverage their personal brand, name, image and likeness (NIL), and support their entrepreneurial interests more successfully.
In this episode, Omar shares his experience growing up in Jamaica and moving to the United States as a teenager. He shares lessons learned from his time as a student-athlete at Penn State as well as his time in the NFL, where he played as a running back for the Kansas City Chiefs and the Oakland Raiders. He then discusses his vision for The Brand Academy and how it will serve student-athletes in building and leveraging their personal brand.
At the end of the episode, current Penn State student Miranda Heffelfinger joins the conversation. She is the captain and president of the Penn State women’s rugby team. She talks to Omar about how The Brand Academy will eventually serve all student-athletes, as well as how The Brand Academy will set student-athletes up for success to continue to benefit from NIL post-graduation.
LIVE from State College: honeygrow Founder Justin Rosenberg
Dare to Disrupt
LIVE from State College: honeygrow Founder Justin Rosenberg
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Justin Rosenberg is Founder and CEO of honeygrow, a fast-casual stir-fry and salad concept founded in Philadelphia in 2012. With a mission to create a unique, spirited brand focused on simple, wholesome foods, Rosenberg has led the company’s creation and growth, which currently has 41 locations.
In this special LIVE episode recording, which took place during Penn State Startup Week powered by PNC on Wednesday, March 20, Justin shares his story of perseverance and success with honeygrow.
Justin first pitched honeygrow 93 times to investors before finally landing a deal and opening the first location in the Rittenhouse neighborhood of Philadelphia. Since then, the company has raised over $80 million in equity financing and has grown into the Boston, Pittsburgh, Baltimore, Washington DC and the New York City metro areas.
Towards the middle of the episode, in-person audience members got the opportunity to ask Justin a few questions of their own.
Matt DeSoto is the President and CEO of Harrisburg-based MITER Brands, a family of leading window and door brands designed for residential projects in the new construction and remodeling markets. Under Matt’s leadership, MITER Brands has become one of North America’s largest fabricators of vinyl, aluminum, and fiberglass windows and patio doors.
In this episode, Matt talks about his experience working for Student Painters as a student at Penn State, enduring the Great Recession of 2008, how he and his team maintain top-quality products and service, as well as how he prioritizes giving back to the communities they work in through the MITER Foundation.
At the end of the episode, current Penn State student Ryn Rizer joins the conversation. Ryn is a junior studying mechanical engineering. He works as a technician at OriginLabs, Invent Penn State’s newest prototyping and fabrication space in downtown State College. Ryn talks to Matt about how MITER has implemented robotics and AI to make jobs safer and production and sales more efficient.
Scaling a Stress-free Home Remodeling Business with West Shore Home Founder B.J. Werzyn
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Scaling a Stress-free Home Remodeling Business with West Shore Home Founder B.J. Werzyn
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B.J. Werzyn is the founder and CEO of West Shore Home, one of the largest direct to consumer home remodelers in the nation. Through a combination of acquisitions and new office openings, West Shore Home has over 38 locations in 18 states with over $750 million in revenue.
In this episode, B.J. talks about how he is revolutionizing a traditionally fragmented and tech averse industry. He talks through how West Shore Home mapped out the 67 processes of home remodeling, removed inefficiencies, and implemented streamlined processes empowered by technology to ultimately make the easiest, quickest, most stress-free customer experience.
At the end of the episode, current Penn State student Jennifer Natale joins the conversation. Jennifer is a senior at Penn State majoring in finance with a minor in Corporate Innovation and Entrepreneurship. She is the president of the Corporate Innovation and Entrepreneurship Society at Penn State. She talks to B.J. about overcoming initial entrepreneurial obstacles. B.J. graduated from Penn State in 1999.
Winter Break Message II and January Episode Preview – West Shore Home
Dare to Disrupt
Winter Break Message II and January Episode Preview - West Shore Home
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We are taking a break this December, but we’ll be back in late January with an episode featuring B.J. Werzyn, the founder and CEO of West Shore Home, one of the largest direct-to-consumer home remodelers in the nation. Listen to this episode for a quick preview of the interview. Happy holidays!
Putting the ‘Care’ in Home Care with Norm Potter
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Putting the 'Care' in Home Care with Norm Potter
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Norm Potter is the co-founder and co-owner of Allegiance Transportation, as well as the owner and Executive Director of the Winston Salem branch of Griswold Home Care. Allegiance Transportation is a non-emergency medical transportation provider, specializing in wheelchair and ambulatory transport services. Griswold Home Care provides non-medical home care to elderly adults by referring professional caregivers for personal care, homemaking, and companionship services.
In this episode, Norm talks about why he decided to make a career switch from banking to higher education to now running two businesses in the non-medical home care and transportation industries. He also shares his journey battling cancer and how it has changed his outlook on life.
At the end of the episode, biomedical engineering doctoral candidate Josh Reynolds joins the conversation. His startup, Atlas Biotech, is striving to overcome drug resistance and accelerate drug discovery efforts in the fight against cancer. He recently participated in the Penn State NSF I-Corps short course program and the Happy Valley LaunchBox powered by PNC Bank FastTrack Accelerator.
Norm graduated from Penn State with a degreein finance and economics.
Special Commemorative Episode – Daring to Disrupt with Ryan Newman and James Delattre
Dare to Disrupt
Special Commemorative Episode - Daring to Disrupt with Ryan Newman and James Delattre
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This is a special crossover episode of Dare to Disrupt and Following the Gong, a show that features conversations with Penn State Schreyer Scholar Alumni sharing advice on how to make new connections with a strong network of Scholar Alumni that blazed the trail before you. Following The Gong host Sean Goheen interviews Goldman Sachs Managing Director and Dare to Disrupt host Ryan Newman, ’01 and Associate Vice President for Research and Director of the Office of Entrepreneurship & Commercialization James Delattre, ’97, both Scholar Alumni, about the entrepreneurial scene at Penn State. This episode commemorates Dare to Disrupt passing 50,000 total downloads.
Ryan and James briefly share their background and time at Penn State. The conversation then covers the origin of Invent Penn State and the incredible resources available for not only students but alumni and community members looking to start, build, or scale a business. Ryan and Katie DeFiore, producer of Dare to Disrupt, share how the Dare to Disrupt podcast came to be, favorite stories, and lessons learned from both the guests and the production process. Ryan and James’ bios and a full breakdown of topics discussed are available below.
Guest Bios:
Dr. James L. Delattre serves as Associate Vice President for Research and Director of the Office for Entrepreneurship and Commercialization where he leads entrepreneurship program development for the Invent Penn State initiative and leads commercialization strategy, resources and support for Penn State’s startup pipeline and LaunchBox & Innovation Network. He is an alumnus of the Professional Fellows Program of the American Councils for International Education. James is the principal investigator for Penn State’s National Science Foundation I-Corps Program, a member of the advisory board of the Center for Medical Innovation at the Penn State Hershey College of Medicine and serves as secretary of the Penn State Research Foundation. Prior to joining Penn State, Dr. Delattre worked in nanomaterials and semiconductor startups in central Pennsylvania and Silicon Valley. Dr. Delattre earned his Ph.D. in Chemistry from the University of California, Berkeley, and completed postdoctoral work at the Consiglio Nazionale delle Ricerche at the University of Bari, Italy. Dr. Delattre received his BS with honors in Chemistry from Penn State, where he studied inorganic chemistry and the Russian language.
Ryan Newman is a Managing Director at Goldman Sachs, where he co-founded and co-leads a private wealth management team, managing in excess of $13 billion on behalf of Fortune 500 executives, Forbes 400 families, entrepreneurs, family offices and foundations and endowments. Ryan is a member of the PWM Top Advisors and PWM Advisors Council, representing the top 10% of advisors globally at Goldman Sachs. He joined Goldman Sachs as a financial analyst in 2001 and was named a Managing Director in 2019. Ryan earned his Bachelor of Science in Economics with Honors 2001, and served as Student Marshal for Economics during graduation. Ryan is the host of the Invent Penn State podcast, Dare to Disrupt, which he helped launch, and has achieved over 50,000 downloads (as of September 2023). He also serves on the External Advisory Board of the Schreyer Honors College and the Principal Gifts Committee in Development at Penn State. Ryan is also a volunteer with the Smeal College of Business. He was awarded the Alumni Achievement Award in 2011 and the Alumni Fellow Award in 2023.
Episode Topics:
Getting to know Ryan and James as they share their Penn State origin stories and the value of the honors thesis in industry, graduate school, and entrepreneurship
Pursuing an industry route rather than an academic route with a STEM PhD
How Invent Penn State came to be and how it helps bring the University’s Land Grant mission to life in the 21st century for all citizens of the Commonwealth
How to get plugged in with the incredible programs and resources available from Invent Penn State
How and why to get involved as an alumni volunteer and/or donor, especially in the entrepreneurial space
The origin story of the Dare to Disrupt podcast and how it gets made
Leveraging success and momentum into more success and momentum
Lessons learned from hosting Dare to Disrupt
Handling rejections or failures
Anticipating the Waves of Change with Google’s Global Director of Solution Sales Ash Ashutosh
Dare to Disrupt
Anticipating the Waves of Change with Google’s Global Director of Solution Sales Ash Ashutosh
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Ash Ashutosh is a serial entrepreneur and the Global Director of Solution Sales at Google. His data management startup, Actifio, achieved a valuation of over $1B and was acquired by Google in 2020.
In this episode, Ash talks about anticipating and advancing alongside what he calls the waves of change, in reference to the surges in innovation and technology that occur over time. His entrepreneurial journey reflects those technology surges – he started out in the silicon industry, then moved on to data storage software development. His most recent startup, Actifio, was in the business of managing and securing data. Ash talks about how he had the opportunity to work with some of the largest organizations in the world to better protect and manage their data while at Actifio.
At the end of the episode,third-year student Bianca Wisekal joins the conversation. She is anagribusiness management student who holds a leadership role within the Nittany Entrepreneur Society, Penn State’s student entrepreneurship club. She is also an administrative operations intern within Invent Penn State, and she is a technician and lab monitor at OriginLabs, Invent Penn State’s all-new fabrication space. She talks to Ash about how he stays motivated to keep innovating, as well as his predictions for where technology is heading.
