BURLINGTON, Vt., -- Champlain College's Bring Your Own Business (BYOBIZ) will kick off its fall 2010-11 Speaking from Experience lecture series with something new this year, a panel discussion featuring five social entrepreneurs from varied backgrounds and involved in a broad range of activity. The panel discussion entitled "The Business of Betterment" begins Thursday, Sept. 23 at 7 p.m. in Alumni Auditorium at Champlain College. It is free and open to the public.

The speakers include:

• Josh Tetrick - founder of 33needs.com http://blog.33needs.com/. An Alabama high school football star, Tetrick earned "rookie of the year" honors playing for West Virginia University before he discovered that there was more to life than football. That insight led him to Cornell, the University of Michigan Law School, a Fulbright Scholarship and West Africa, where he did everything from teaching street children in Nigeria, to advising Liberia's President on reforming that country's investment laws. His latest venture stems from that experience. "33needs.com" is a platform for bringing together investors and the many creative entrepreneurs in the third world who are starved for capital.
• Hal Colston - founder of Neighborkeepers and Good News Garage http://www.neighborkeepers.org/. A true visionary and serial social entrepreneur, Colston left a job as catering director at the Essex Inn to help underprivileged families obtain transportation. Those first steps evolved into Good News Garage, which now operates throughout New England providing low-cost cars to more than 3,000 families. His latest project is Neighborkeepers, which provides life mentoring for the poor. Colston is an adjunct professor and Elevator Pitch Competition judge at Champlain College.
• Jillann Richardson-Rohrscheib - Executive Director, Community Capital of Vermont. Name a third world country and chances are Richardson-Rohrscheib has worked there on micro credit and rural development: Benin, Mozambique, Tajikistan, Uzbekistan, Ghana, Peru, Afghanistan. On top of all that, she is a classically trained pastry chef (Ecole LeNotre in Paris). Her latest career move brought her to Vermont, where she leads Community Capital, an organization with a mission to provide seed capital to rural start ups.
• Garang Peter Deng - Champlain College (Bus '11) and founder of New Sudan Jonglei Orphans Fund http://nsjof.org/. Dengwas orphaned at age five in his homeland Sudan. At age 12, Garang determined he would make a better life for himself and through pure force of his wits and will, managed to get himself into a school. His life changed. Eventually making his way to the United States and Champlain College, Deng has a simple but powerful vision: use his talent and energy to raise money to finance the education of orphan children in his homeland.
• Verneda White - Founder of Human Intonation http://www.humanintonation.com/. White is a Cornell graduate whose company, Human Intonation, has found success as a premium unisex brand dedicated to raising social awareness for today's pertinent social and human rights issues. The company was inspired by White's personal experience with the devastation of Hurricane Katrina, and today helps support a number of causes including the continued rebuilding of New Orleans, Darfur relief and youth HIV/Aids prevention through partnerships, an innovative business model and committed team.

Coming this fall in the series:

• Tuesday, Oct. 12, 7 p.m. Melinda Moulton speaking from Experience on "Sustainable Redevelopment" Moulton, a self described "former hippie," is founding partner of Main Street Landing http://www.mainstreetlanding.com/home, a real estate development company with a mission to redevelop the Burlington waterfront in a socially conscious way. "Sustainable" may be becoming an overused cliché, but for Moulton and her team, it means a unique approach to development, formed over the last 20 years that includes the long term interests of all stakeholders, and incorporates a multifaceted vision of the community benefits of development.
• Wednesday, Nov. 17, 7 p.m. Jeff Crowe - former CEO and Chairman of Landstar Systems, Inc. For decades, the trucking industry was populated by a few large trucking firms and thousands of independent truckers, struggling around the edges. Beginning in the early 1990s, Crowe employed his leadership skills along with a series of innovative approaches, including harnessing the latent power of the web and other technologies to organize and empower the independent truckers and build Landstar Systems. A once non-descript regional trucker was transformed into a $3 billion logistics services powerhouse. Landstar has been recognized by Forbes Magazine on several occasions as one of the 400 Best Big Companies. His is a great story told by a humble yet inspiring executive, who grew up in rural Pennsylvania, attending a one room school house until age 16.
For more information about the BYOBiz program at Champlain College, visit, www.Champlain.edu.

Champlain College, located in the historic Hill Section of Burlington, Vt., was founded in 1878 and currently has nearly 2,000 undergraduate students. It offers multiple majors in Business, Communications and Creative Media, Education and Human Studies, and Information Technology and Sciences. U.S. News & World Report's "America's Best Colleges 2010" ranks Champlain College a #1 "Top Up-and-Coming" college. Champlain ranks in the top tier of the Best Regional Colleges (North). To learn more about undergraduate, graduate and online education programs offered at Champlain College, visit www.champlain.edu or call 800-570-5858.

Champlain College Calendar of Events

Champlain College campus events are free and open to the public (unless otherwise noted). Call 860-2700 with questions or visit www.champlain.edu.
Sept. 6 - Oct. 15: Harry Potter's World, Miller Information Common and Library. Exhibit explores the historical roots of the popular series about wizards. Series of special events for students and public planned. For details, visit www.champlain.edu.
Sept. 23: BYOBiz Social Entrepreneurship Forum, 7 p.m., Alumni Auditorium. A panel discussion featuring five social entrepreneurs including: Hal Colston - founder of Neighborkeepers and Good News Garage, Jillann Richardson-Rohrscheib - Executive Director, Community Capital of Vermont; Garang Peter Deng - (Bus '11) founder of New Sudan Jonglei Orphans Fund; and Verneda White - Founder of Human Intonation.
Sept. 24: Grand Opening. 4 to 6:30 p.m. Welcome & Admission Center at Roger H. Perry Hall. Tours of the facility with remarks by Pres. David F. Finney and others. RSVP to (802) 651-5999 or e-mail Diana.Agusta@champlain.edu.
Sept. 25: Alumni Awards Celebration and Lake Sunset Cruise. 5 to 8 p.m. An evening of dinner and honoring this year's Alumni Award winners. $30. Register at (866) 421-7170.
Oct. 12: BYOBiz Speaking from Experience with Melinda Moulton - Sustainable Redevelopment, 7 p.m., Alumni Auditorium. Moulton is founding partner of Main Street Landing, a real estate development company with a mission to redevelop the Burlington waterfront in a socially conscious way.
Oct. 22 - 24: Family Weekend, Parents and families return to campus to meet faculty, see their children, and enjoy Vermont. For more information, www.champlain.edu/familyweekend.
Oct. 26: Community Book Program Speaker Julia Alvarez. Author of "In the Time of the Butterflies" and "How the Garcia Girls Lost Their Accents" will discuss her writing. Time and place on campus to be announced.
Oct. 28 - 30 and Nov. 3 - 7: "The Shape of Things" by Neil LaBute, presented by Champlain Theatre, Flynn Space, 8 p.m. Tickets at www.flynntix.org
Nov. 17: BYOBiz Speaking from Experience with Jeff Crowe - former CEO and Chairman of Landstar Systems, Inc. 7 p.m., Alumni Auditorium. Using leadership skills and innovative approaches to organize and empower the independent truckers, Crowe built Landstar Systems.