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Speakers

Rodney Hunt

Photo of Rodney Hunt

Rodney P. Hunt is owner and founder of RS Information Systems, Inc. (RSIS), a mission-oriented business focused on information technology, systems engineering, information assurance, telecommunications, and scientific services and solutions.

Since founding RSIS in 1992, Mr. Hunt has led the company through a period of uninterrupted growth, with a professional staff that now numbers over 1,500 and annual revenues in excess of nearly $300 million. The company, based in McLean, Va., is the 35 th largest federal contractor of technology services in the country, according to Washington Technology. It is the 12 th largest African American-owned company in the country and largest in the Virginia-Washington-D.C. area, according to Black Enterprise.

As Chairman of the Board, President and Chief Executive Officer, Mr. Hunt is responsible for the overall executive leadership of RSIS, to include business affairs, strategic planning and mission success. Mr. Hunt provides the strategic leadership that ensures RSIS will continue to be a successful organization, and a strong business partner.

Mr. Hunt was named the 2005 Small Business Champion of the Year by U.S. Small Business Administration’s (SBA) Washington Metropolitan Area District. The SBA cited his “hard work, expertise and commitment” to small businesses. And in July of 2006, he was honored by the U.S. Department of Energy for his work in helping small businesses develop as viable federal contractors.

Under his leadership, RSIS mentors a growing number of small businesses and gives many small firms subcontracting opportunities on RSIS government contracts. In addition, Mr. Hunt is a popular draw as a speaker at small business conferences where he offers encouragement and guidance to minority- and women-owned firms seeking to carve out a position for themselves in the federal IT marketplace.

A small business joint venture he formed was awarded a $1 billion technology services contract by the U.S. Department of Energy in November of 2005.

In 2006, Mr. Hunt received the Northern Virginia Urban League Diversity Award for his commitment to diversity in the workplace and business partnerships, and Virginia Business magazine named him one of the 20 Virginians who transformed their industry in the past two decades. He has been named Executive of the Year by the Professional Services Council and Washington Technology in 2004; Federal Computer Week’s Federal 100, a list of 100 leaders who had a substantial impact of the government IT community, in 2003; the first recipient of the Parren J. Mitchell Lifetime Achievement Award; Black Engineer of the Year; Small Business Person of the Year for SBA’s District of Columbia and Mid-Atlantic Region (Region 3 of the SBA) ; Ernst & Young Entrepreneur of the Year in 1998; New Vision magazine’s first annual Technology Award; and Technology Entrepreneur of the Year from Minorities and Women in Business. Mr. Hunt was a finalist for the KPMG High-Technology Award.

Under his guidance, RSIS has also developed a culture of contributing time and money nationwide to communities in which RSIS employees live and work. In addition to providing oversight to RSIS’s community and charitable activities, Mr. Hunt is also president of Virginia Pride, Inc., and President and Chairman of the Rodney P. Hunt Family Foundation, both of which support youth development and sports.

Mr. Hunt holds a dual degree in operations research and industrial engineering (ORIE) from Cornell and The George Washington Universities. He has more than 20 years of experience in systems engineering, information management and business development. He also was a senior associate for Booz Allen Hamilton, where he led the Technical and Engineering Systems Group in support of government and commercial clients.

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Featured Speaker

Photo of Richard Florida.

Richard Florida

Professor Richard Florida is the author of the 2002 best-seller, The Rise of the Creative Class and the 2005 must-read follow-up, The Flight of the Creative Class.

Photo of Thomas Friedman.

Thomas Friedman

Three-time Pulitzer Prize-winning columnist for the New York Times , Thomas Friedman is the author of the runaway best-seller The World is Flat: A Brief History of the 21st Century.

Photo of Alvin Toffler.

Alvin Toffler

Author of the book Revolutionary Wealth and former associate editor of Fortune magazine, Alvin Toffler literally invented the roll of the futurist with the publication of his seminal work Future Shock.

Photo of David DeLong.

David DeLong

MIT AgeLab research fellow and and adjunct professor at Babson College, David DeLong is the author of Lost Knowledge: Confronting the Threat of an Aging Workforce. His firm, David DeLong & Associates, helps companies solve performance and staffing problems caused by an aging workforce and skills shortages.

Photo of Joe Watson.

Joe Watson

Joe Watson is CEO of Without Excuses and StrategicHire, located in Reston, VA. Without Excuses delivers professional development programs across a wide swath of executive skills. StrategicHire specializes in the placement of diverse middle- and senior-level management personnel across a broad range of industries. Watson is the author of Without Excuses: Unleash the Power of Diversity to Build Your Business, published in 2006 by St. Martin's Press.

Photo of Joe Watson.

Anne Fisher

Anne Fisher is a Senior Writer for FORTUNE magazine, where she covers workplace and management topics. Fisher also writes the popular weekly career-advice column "Ask Annie" at CNNMoney.com and is the author of two books, If My Career's on the Fast Track, Where Do I Get a Road Map? and Wall Street Women.

Photo of Frank Sesno

Frank Sesno

Frank Sesno has been chronicling world events as a journalist for more than 25 years. He serves as a Professor of Media and Public Affairs at The George Washington University (GW) in Washington, DC, and he is a Special Correspondent for CNN where he makes documentaries and works on special projects for the network.

Creativity Quotes

“Never tell people how to do things. Tell them what to do and they will surprise you with their ingenuity.”

— George S. Patton

“The only things in my life that compatibly exist with this grand universe are the creative works
of the human spirit.”

— Ansel Adams

“The creative process is not controlled by a switch you can simply turn on or off; it's with you all the time.”

— Alvin Ailey

“If everyone is thinking alike, then somebody isn't thinking.”

— George S. Patton

“It is the supreme art
of the teacher
to awaken joy
in creative expression and knowledge.”

— Albert Einstein

“The question
is not whether we will be extremists, but what kind of extremists we will be... The nation and the world are in dire need of creative extremists.”

— Martin Luther
King, Jr.

“All creative people want
to do the unexpected.”

— Hedy Lamarr

“Happiness lies in the joy of achievement and the thrill of creative effort.”

— Franklin D. Roosevelt

“Think left and think right and think low and think high. Oh, the thinks you can think up if only you try!”

— Dr. Seuss
(Theodore Geisel)

“There is one thing stronger than all the armies in the world, and that is an idea whose time has come.”

— Victor Hugo

“We are not creatures of circumstance; we are
creators of circumstance.”

— Benjamin Disraeli

“It may be that those who do most, dream most.”

— Stephen Leacock

“Discovery consists of looking at the same thing as everyone else and thinking something different.”

— Albert Szent-Gyorgyi

“Making the simple complicated is commonplace; making the complicated simple, awesomely simple, that's creativity.”

— Charles Mingus

“Whatever creativity is, it is in part a solution to a problem.”

— Brian Aldiss

“Creativity makes a leap, then looks to see where it is.”

— Mason Cooley