Thursday, October 16, 2008 9:40 PM CDT
Documentary film producer addresses local dreamers at SCORE Breakfast
By ROB STROUD, Staff Writer
rstroud@jg-tc.com
CHARLESTON — A child might dream about a buckeye’s potential to grow into a tree that will be a place to climb, swing, and rake leaf piles for jumping.
But an adult might be pessimistic about the buckeye sprouting and deterred by how long it would take the buckeye to grow into a usable tree.
Citing this analogy, teacher and documentary film producer Craig Lindvahl said during the Business Solutions Center/SCORE Breakfast on Thursday that too many people grow up and buy into the notion that dreams are for someone else.
“Fortunately, this part of Illinois is full of forward thinking entrepreneurs, people who see potential, not limitations. People who see possibility, not pessimism. We’re chock full of dreamers here,” Lindvahl said.
Dreamers might be found amongst the 227 entrepreneurs who have sought advice from SCORE’s volunteer business counselors since the local chapter’s 2005 inception or those who have sought help from the new Business Solutions Center on Eastern Illinois University’s campus.
Dreamers also might be found within the new Creating Entrepreneurial Opportunities class that Lindvahl is teaching for Effingham County high school students.
“It’s the right time and the right place to help students discover incredible things about themselves and their capabilities,” Lindvahl said. He later said the world is fundamentally shifting due to limitless information being readily available via the Internet.
Lindvahl said his CEO class students are learning from local business and by creating model businesses as class projects.
Their newest venture is the premiere of producers Lindvahl and Joseph Fatheree’s new documentary, “Cobb Field, a day at the ballpark.” The students have been in charge of event planning, concessions, marketing, ticket sales and more for the premier at 7 p.m. Monday at the Rosebud Theatre in Effingham.
Proceeds from the premier will form a “bank” that will fund future student businesses for the CEO class.
The new documentary takes a look at baseball via Cobb Field in Billings, Mont., home of the minor league Billings Mustangs from 1948 to 2007. Lindvahl showed a clip that covered a day in the life of Cobb Field, from the players practicing in the morning to signing autographs after the game.
“Only one or two of them are likely to make it all the way to the majors. The odds don’t faze them a bit. They have a vision. Every player has to believe that he’s going to make it, don’t you see? It’s the only way they can function,” Lindvahl said.
The breakfast also included testimonials from Charleston Graphics and Trace Photonics, which have received business counseling services from SCORE.
Charleston Graphics, owned by Jeff and Bill Browning, handles graphic design work for hospitals throughout the country. Trace Photonics, headed by company President Ken Bower, performs research and development in energy conversion materials science, specializing in integrating batteries, solar arrays, capacitors, and chargers.
“If there is a typical small town business, it is not us,” joked Heather Socarras, business manager for Trace Photonics.
Socarras said her employer gained better competitive footing with companies in the Washington Beltway after SCORE volunteer counselor Robert Webb arranged for U.S. Sen. Dick Durbin to tour Trace Photonics earlier this year.
Trace Photonics also has taken SCORE’s suggestion to create a professional logo and Web site, Socarras said. The Web site helped attract the Naval Surface Warfare Center in Crane, Ind., as a client, she said.
Contact Rob Stroud at rstroud@jg-tc.com or 348-5734.
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