Stephen Douglass is the Chief Impact Officer and Founder of Young Impact. He is renowned for developing and producing innovative entrepreneurship programming that enables young people to identify and employ their unique personal strengths to achieve extraordinary results.

In his many roles at Young Impact, Stephen brings unbridled intensity, dedication, and fun to ensure the company remains focused on it’s core competencies: Empowering young people with the skills and knowledge to turn problems into opportunities, to overcome social barriers and obstacles, and to launch sustainable ventures that address meaningful social issues.

Born and raised in Scranton, Pennsylvania, Stephen learned first-hand about the challenges of tackling community issues through enterprise. In high school, the tragic death of a friend, a casualty of underage drinking, inspired him to rally his community and help launch a teen center that endured as a staple of the community for 10 years. He has since inspired thousands to take ownership of their dreams and their communities by utilizing entrepreneurial approaches to solving problems. He is passionate about pushing college and high school students to turn their interests and potential into viable primary and secondary career paths. Stephen’s background as a former All-American athlete (jock), nerd, professional breakdancer (B-boy), and spoken word poet helps him to transcend socio-economic and cultural barriers.

Stephen brings a broad range of real-world expertise and perspective to Young Impact. Prior to launching the company, he worked with leading middle-market ($50-$500 million in revenue) telecommunication and technology companies, advising them on merger and acquisition and capital raising strategies. He also has experience helping to turn around distressed businesses and arranging debt and equity financing for start-up companies seeking to launch and expand into emerging markets.

Young Impact, fueled by the vision and energy of Mr. Douglass, is blazing a trail for young problem-solvers who are willing, able, and ready to take action. Find out more at www.youngimpact.com

Kristopher B. Jones is an accomplished internet entrepreneur, public speaker, and best-selling author. Kristopher is the founder and former President and CEO of Pepperjam, a full-service (NEPA based) internet marketing and technology company acquired by GSI Commerce (NASDAQ – GSIC) in September 2009. Under Kris’ leadership Pepperjam was a three-time Inc. Magazine fastest growing company in the United States and was recognized as the small business of the year by the Wilkes barre Chamber of Commerce – in 2008 Inc. Magazine ranked Pepperjam as the 70th fastest growing company in the United States and the second fastest growing company in the State of Pennsylvania, the highest rankings ever for a company from NEPA.

Kristopher has been awarded Entrepreneur of the Year by Bank of America and was recognized as a finalist for the prestigious Ernst & Young Entrepreneur of the Year Award for the State of Pennsylvania. Kris was recognized twice as one of the “Top 20? Business Leaders in Northeastern, Pennsylvania under the age of 40. Kristopher has a B.A. from Penn State University, an M.S. from Villanova University, and a J.D. from Albany Law School. Kris is married to Robyn (Martin) Jones and has two kids (Kris Jr. & Lauren), a bulldog Roxy, a Himalayan cat Percy, and a pond filled with Koi fish.

Kristopher’s second book, “Search Engine Optimization – Your Visual Blueprint to Effective Internet Marketing” will be available in bookstores around the country in July 2010. Kristopher previously worked as a senior staff member to Congressman Paul E. Kanjorski (PA-11) and is a frequent keynote, speaker, and moderator at national and international internet marketing conferences including Search Engine Strategies (SES), eTail, ERA, and Affiliate Summit, among others.

Peter Kamali will sit on Sunday evening’s Final Demo/Pitch Panel, providing feedback and insight on each startup venture presented! Peter advises and consults with various startups, on everything from product and brand strategy to software design and writing code.

Peter has worked on web based businesses since 1995, starting at Time Warner but quickly moving into the freelancing and startup worlds. Peter co-founded Meetup (http://meetup.com) in 2002, pivoting through numerous business models and product changes to reach millions of users and attain healthy profitability.

Peter started Wee Web (http://wee-web.com) in 2008 with a colleague from Meetup, and he is now also involved with a number of other early-stage startups based in NYC.

Peter has a BA in Mathematics and an MS in Computer Science, both from Columbia.

For the past 13+ years, Andrew Cornell has led Cornell Iron Works, Inc., a one hundred eighty-two-year-old manufacturing business with locations in Mountaintop, Pennsylvania; Gastonia, North Carolina and Phoenix, Arizona, as CEO. The company employs six hundred people and is a leader in manufacturing security doors. In 1997, CIW was named Family Business of the Year in Pennsylvania, and in 2000 the company was listed as one of the Top 100 Best Places to Work, also in Pennsylvania.
Andrew’s entrepreneurial spirit and push for innovation both within his company and across NEPA serves as a model for corporate and citizen leadership. He will join StartUp Scramble NEPA Challenge participants on-site as a mentor and distinguished Panelist.
Several of Andrew’s notable awards and accomplishments include:

2003: “Top Twenty under Forty” by the Northeastern Pennsylvania Business Journal. The award is given in recognition of young business leaders

2003: “Young Entrepreneur of the Year” by Junior Achievement of Northeastern Pennsylvania

2006: “Distinguished Leadership Award” by the seven thousand member International Door Association

Featured on WVIA’s Northeastern Pennsylvania’s Business Journal

Christopher Hackett joins the StartUp Scramble NEPA Challenge as a panelist and sponsor. His long list of talents, interests, service, careers, and pursuits highlights his entrepreneurial ambition and wherewithal–truly making him an ideal Scramble guest.

Community Activities
Current
• Wyoming Seminary Trustee and Member of Finance Committee
• Geisinger Wyoming Valley Advisory Board
• Cornell Iron Works – Board Member, Audit Committee and Compensation Committee

Past
• Misericordia University Trustee and Member of Finance and Tenure Committees
• Leadership WB Executive Director Search Committee
• Wyoming Seminary President Search Committee
• WB Chamber of Business and Industry President Search Committee
• WB Chamber of Business and Industry COO Search Committee
• WB Chamber of Business and Industry Vice Chair, and Chair of Personnel Committee
• United Way Alexis Tocqueville Society Co-Chair (Ramah)
• Wyoming Valley Montessori School Annual Campaign Co-Chair (Ramah)
• Shavertown United Methodist Church – Treasurer
• Young President’s Organization – Treasurer
• Candidate for US Congress

Business
• Operate 5 small businesses
o OneSource Staffing Solutions – Temporary Staffing
o OneSource Benefit Solutions – Insurance Brokerage
o OneSource HR Solutions – Human Resource & Administrative Management Services
o SHS TechStaffing – Professional and Executive Recruiting
o i2M – Polymer Manufacturing

After graduation from college in 1985 and until I went into business for myself in 1990, I worked for a large public accounting firm in Washington, DC; initially doing audit and tax work, then moving into the management and systems consulting area.

Education
• Bachelors – Wittenberg University 1985
• Graduated with 12 varsity letters – Cross Country, Wrestling and Track & Field
• Member of Beta Theta Pi
• Certified Public Accountant (CPA) 1986
• Certified Management Accountant (CMA) 1987

Hobbies
• Competitive Triathlete
• Business
• Playing Cards with our children

Non-Career Work History:
Ages
7 to 13 – Philadelphia Bulletin newspaper – afternoon daily and Sunday delivery
14 to 15 – Covered Wagon Restaurant – Dish and Pot Washer
15 to 16 – Covered Wagon Restaurant – Short Order Cook
16 to 18 – Kmart – Automotive and Sporting Goods Departments
18 to 21 – Various Jobs at Wittenberg University: Resident Advisor, Field House ID Checker, Book Store Staff, Prospect Tour Guide
18 to 21 – Summer work – Radnor Township – Sanitation Engineer (i.e. Trash collection)

Hi, I’m Blake. I’m a missioneur and community leader in Philadelphia. I like to build mission-driven startups and startup communities. I believe that more than anything else, startup entrepreneurs need each other.

I’m the founder of DunkTank, Philly Startup Leaders and the Missioneurs Movement.

I’m also the entrepreneur-in-residence at Good Company Ventures and a founding board member of Startup Corps, which brings mission entrepreneurship into Philadelphia’s high schools. Previously, I started and ran the TicketLeap marketing department. Before that, I started and eventually shut down my first startup, Anthillz.

I’ve had almost as many careers as Michael Jordan and enough air balls to make him proud — air balls like Anthillz, my senior thesis, the last six months of my poker career, day trading, my attempt to design a 3D video game and my peewee football career. I’ve been a professional poker player, web hacker, math geek, college journalist, political organizer, anti-poverty advocate, marketer and movement-builder. And 30 still isn’t around the corner.

Karla Porter is the Direc­tor of Work­force Devel­op­ment and Human Resources for a mid-size metro area cham­ber of busi­ness and indus­try and eco­nomic devel­op­ment agency in PA. Prior to her cur­rent position, she worked as an Oper­a­tions Man­ager turned HR Gen­er­al­ist for 8 years with the 15th largest cus­tomer care out­sourcer in the US.

In her past, Karla has been a colum­nist for the Philadelphia-based Span­ish lan­guage pub­li­ca­tion El Espetac­u­lar, a pub­lic ser­vice offi­cer for WTGI-TV 61 Tele­mu­ndo affil­i­ate, and worked for over a decade in Mex­ico as a busi­ness owner and founder of the country’s first orga­ni­za­tion for ani­mal wel­fare to receive gov­ern­ment sup­port, the Humane Soci­ety of Cozumel Island. From time to time she takes on adjunct fac­ulty posi­tions to instruct Span­ish lan­guage GED classes, Mar­ket­ing and Cus­tomer Ser­vice courses and Com­mand Span­ish.

Karla also sits on sev­eral edu­ca­tion, diver­sity and work­force related boards and advi­sory com­mit­tees and fre­quently speak on job seek­ing, recruit­ment and reten­tion strat­egy, rela­tion­ship build­ing and the use of new media in HR and recruiting. After hours, when she is not exer­cis­ing those super pow­ers, Karla develops the Karla Porter HCNM brand, pro­vid­ing new media solu­tions and best prac­tices for human cap­i­tal man­age­ment and careers.

Of all the titles I carry–CEO of a company I founded, Director of another company I helped reestablish, producer of professional web services, professional blogger, or even Father & Husband–none do justice in helping to describe my other-than-ordinary journey towards business success.

When I entered the field of website development and subsequently became a blogger I learned that the most important way to keep people happy and interested in what you write is to be honest and write the truth as you see it. And so goes the story of my success.

Despite having a whiskey bottle as a father as far back as I can remember I adjusted rather well. After working towards the completion of undergrad I had ambitions to be a successful and to someday be the boss of a company I could call my own. Although lucky (and I do mean lucky) enough to become the boss of a company I created the road I took to get there is one not many people travel on their way to success. Because soon after graduating college my first administrative position was that of Executive Drug Addict.

I advanced so well in my position as a user that I made it all the way to rock bottom in no time flat. Despite having taken my life to an incredible low place of which only a few have seen and survived I was lucky enough to have an ingrained sense of self-determination. This sense of self-determination allowed me the chance to pull myself out of the ditches in which I lived and begin my journey towards the ambitions I once had as an undergraduate in college.

Despite having a college degree I began my climb as a part-time pizza maker earning minimum wage. But it was humbling experiences such as minimum wage paying jobs which have allowed me to battle through the difficult times of being a start-up business owner. The lessons afforded to me by my life experiences have set the foundation of success as an entrepreneur.

Today I operate a sustainable web development firm, www.Rinish.com, and serve as the Director of another and at the end of the day I am lucky enough to be a father.

Atty. Brian Jonathan Petula has helped high growth entrepreneurs find and leverage strategic investors, product/service development resources and marketing alliance partners for over ten years. He is especially passionate about supporting academic entrepreneurs trying to solve major challenges in education, alternative energy/the environment, sustainable development and the fine arts. New academic venture projects include Alleyoop Capital (an online “friends & family” lending network), (Sustainable Energy Alternatives) an alternative energy product incubator and (BuddingArtist.org) an art/music gallery designed to promote student artists.

Atty. Petula’s business development experience includes serving as the publisher of North Carolina Entrepreneur and two other national trade publications; co-founding several software, e-commerce, education and training companies; and, helping raise over $75 million in emerging growth financing from government, institutional, venture fund and individual investors such as Draper Fisher Jurvetson, TL Ventures, Wells Fargo Bank, American Express, Office Depot, Dell, America Online and many others. He received his BA in Government from Lehigh University (1988) and his JD/MBA from Wake Forest University (1994). A 2004 Institute for Educational Leadership Fellow, he is an honorary lifetime member of the Pennsylvania PTA, a lifetime member of Net Impact, Regional Chairperson for Youth Venture NEPA and a member of the American and Pennsylvania Bar Associations where he is active in the International Business Law, Middle Market & Small Business and Private Equity and Venture Capital Committees. He is a member of the Bar in North Carolina and Pennsylvania and an Assistant Professor of Business at Marywood University. He can be reached at: brian[@]crossoverlegal.com or (570) 561-1080.

Background:
Paul Jackson has spent 14 yrs. at Benco Dental where he serves as the V.P. of Marketing and recruited and managed a talented team of marketers, creative and analysts to grow Benco’s sales from $115M in 1996 to over $450M this year.

A note from Paul:
Benco is a distributor so I get to hear pitch ideas every week. Up until last year, I was responsible for Benco’s private brands which I grew almost $50M by adding new products and marketing existing ones. Product development took me all over the world even to remote parts of China to source products and create partnerships. But most of my learning and why I am qualified to be on the Startup Scramble panel are my failures. The failures have inspired Benco, made us test our assumptions, dream more, brainstorm more, ask more questions and rely on teams more. I have owned my own successful business that I sold 22 years ago and am inventor of US Patent 5312251 June 1993 which I could not bring to market.

Benco Dental Supply is headquartered in NEPA and is the largest privately held distributor of dental equipment and sundries in the US. We directly market to dentists and institutions. There are just under 1200 people that work at Benco. We hold 9.2% of the US national market share.