by Cody Marx Bailey on January 21, 2010
Man, what ever happened to RefreshBCS? Didn’t they use to hold semi-regular events and bring in speakers from all parts of the web spectrum?
Well, to answer all those questions, yeah, I got real busy with all kinds of projects — Rock The Republic, Hashtags, BIL, etc.
All that said, I’d like to invite everyone, yes EVERYONE up to the Creative Space for a community networking event. Who does that entail? Developers, designers, writers, marketing folk… even MySpace Template developers. We’re hoping to pack the place in and get everyone back together and start being more active. I’ve missed seeing everyone week to week. So here’s the low down:
When: Wednesday, January 27th, 2010 @ 7PM
Where: The Creative Space – Above Square One Bistro
Who: You and everyone cool, no pets 
Why: Because we’ve got all day Thursday to watch Hulu. Seriously?
What: Intellectual stimulating conversations, booze, wine, music…
Oh yeah, I forgot to mention that this event is a BYOB. I know it would be a lot cooler if we had a bunch of free alcohol, but that’s life. Grab a sixer or a bottle of wine, or a handle of Seagrams Seven and head on up. Ya know what… even if you have a 1/2 bottle of McCormick’s vodka, go ahead and bring that too, cheapskate.
I guess RSVP on the Facebook event: http://www.facebook.com/event.php?eid=433057800573
by billerickson on August 16, 2009
I’m really excited about our September RefreshBCS Speaker!
We’re hosting Gary Hoover, a lifelong learner and entrepreneur, best known for Hoovers.com. This should be a great talk, and I highly suggest sticking around afterward to have a conversation with Gary.
Date: Wednesday, September 9th, 7pm
Location: Village Cafe in Downtown Bryan
Register on Facebook
Here’s a little more about Gary:
Gary Hoover began his entrepreneurial journey at an early age. His question about enterprises was, “What separates the losers from the winners?” He began subscribing to Fortune Magazine at the age of 12, and has acquired most of the issues back to 1930.
As part of his education, he studied economics at the University of Chicago under Milton Friedman and two other Nobel Prize winners, served as a securities analyst for Citibank on Wall Street, worked as a buyer for Federated Department Stores, and headed up acquisitions and strategic planning for the giant May Department Stores Company.
At the age of 30, after he finally took the plunge and created pioneering book superstore BOOKSTOP, which helped change the nature of book shopping in America. This company was sold to Barnes & Noble for $41.5 million cash when it was 7 years old, and became a cornerstone for their industry-dominating superstore chain.
After he and his partners sold BOOKSTOP, Gary returned to his first love of understanding businesses, and began the company that became Hoover’s, the world’s largest Internet-based provider of information about enterprises. Hoovers.com covers over 40,000 companies around the world. In July of 1999, Hoover’s went public and in March of 2003, the company was purchased by Dun & Bradstreet for $117 million. Like BOOKSTOP, Hoover’s has changed the way we do things and today employs over 300 people.
He continues to keep over 100 ideas for new businesses on his list.
Gary lives in Austin, Texas, with his 50,000-book library. He has consulted, spoken to conferences, and worked to encourage entrepreneurial thinking on every continent and in every industry, for profit and not for profit. He has also supported the University of Chicago. In 2009 he launched www.hooversworld.com, a blog which will include reviews of books, ideas, and places from Gary’s iconoclastic angle.
