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Congressman Bill Posey (R-Rockledge) hosted another successful Entrepreneur Summit in Brevard County to continue efforts to bring together various entrepreneurs from across the 15th Congressional District to showcase their innovative technologies to the public and potential investors. This morning’s summit, which was held at FIT’s Denius Student Center, was Posey’s third forum for local area entrepreneurs in Brevard County and his fourth entrepreneur summit overall. A fifth summit is being planned for Indian River County entrepreneurs in September.

“The presentations this morning were excellent and you could feel the energy in the room,” said Congressman Posey. “These forums have provided a great opportunity for local entrepreneurs and innovators to showcase their new products and technologies to the public, business leaders and potential investors.”

“To be competitive in today’s global economy a region must be innovative and entrepreneurial,” said Chester Straub, Executive Director of the Technological Research and Development Authority. “Today’s summit showed that the Space Coast has both in abundance and has a bright economic future.”

“The event was an excellent opportunity to allow entrepreneurs the opportunity to showcase their innovations to potential investors and to the public,” said Lynda Weatherman, president & CEO of the Economic Development Commission of Florida’s Space Coast. “The EDC looks forward to the further initiatives and innovations these companies will spawn.”

“The summit was wonderful. It is always so inspiring to hear from the incredible entrepreneurial talent that is right here in our community and to see their cutting edge innovation,” said Donn E. Miller-Kermani, Director of the Women's Business Center at FIT.

“The Palm Bay Chamber was thrilled to be mentoring and participating in Congressman Posey’s Entrepreneurial Summit. This gave our inventors the opportunity to get in front of potential investors that may offer them funding to take their product or service mainstream,” said Victoria Northrup, president and chief executive officer of the Greater Palm Bay Chamber of Commerce.

This morning’s agenda included a keynote address by Congressman Posey and featured guest speaker Carol Craig, President and CEO of Craig Technologies. Other speakers included the Melbourne Regional Chamber of East Central Florida, the Greater Palm Bay Chamber of Commerce and the Cocoa Beach Area Chamber of Commerce.

The five innovative companies which gave presentations include: ABS Innovation, Inc., which enables cell phone users to keep their phone numbers anonymous yet receive calls and text messages from any caller and immediately identify the caller along with the reason they are calling; Advanced Aero LLC, which designs fuel efficient, light sport aircraft; AET Inc., an engineering design and software development company developing technology that enables sensitive computers and other electronics to survive potentially dangerous nuclear environments; InfraTech.us LLC, a veteran-owned company focused on the development of an environmentally friendly, lightweight high-density Magnesium-Air Fuel Cell that can be used to charge batteries, cell phones and PDAs; and Lumin Creative, an application service provider specializing in Software as a Service (SaaS) platforms that will reach new target markets and greatly expand online customer bases.

The Small Business Administration’s Area Manager, Tom Gallman Sr., joined Congressman Posey in presenting The SBA South Florida, State and Regional Veteran Small Business of the Year Award to Mark Llano, a veteran of the U.S. Marine Corps and President and CEO of Source One Distributors, a company he founded to provide a wide range of support services to the defense industry, national security, law enforcement and rescue operations.

Congressman Posey is pleased to coordinate with the following organizations in presenting today’s entrepreneur summit: the Women’s Business Center at Florida Tech, Technological Research and Development Authority (TRDA), Brevard Workforce, Economic Development Commission of Florida’s Space Coast, Small Business Development Center at Brevard Community College, Brevard Community College and Space Florida.