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BY KEVIN CARR

In print | Published March 31, 2005

This year’s Jonathan R. Lax ’71 Conference on Entrepreneurship has generated record interest for the six-year-old event.

“I’m fairly sure that the 150 RSVPs we currently have is the largest of any Lax Conference in the past,” Director of Alumni Relations Lisa Lee ’81 said in an e-mail. The event will be held this Saturday and “includes alumni and students from every decade from the 1940s through the class of 2008.”

The conference will feature speakers who will discuss possible career paths for Swarthmore students in the business world.

The event is named in honor of Jonathan Lax ’71, who was involved in the management of SL Industries Inc., a diversified manufacturing and industrial services company. Lax was also president of the board of Philadelphia FIGHT, an organization providing immunotherapy, community-based research and a care site for people living with HIV/AIDS, according to a press release for the conference.

Lax first demonstrated his entrepreneurial spirit when he created a mutual fund from his dorm room in Hallowell, according to the release.

Lee said the Lax family is continuously involved with the conference, which was endowed by Lax when he died. “Jonathan’s mother Frances attends the conference every year, and at least one of Jonathan’s brothers attends every year as well,” she said in an e-mail.

The organization committee for the conference is made up of staff and students. “There are people from Alumni Relations and Career Services as well as other members from the Development Office helping out as well as several students,” Lee said.

The conference itself is meant to help students get a feel for the business environment and what possibilities await them after Swarthmore. “[The idea] is to enlighten those who want companies of their own … and help them network together,” Lee said. She hopes students and others who attend will “learn about different possibilities, some in business and some in non-profits.”

In order to achieve this goal, a panel of speakers and moderators has been brought in with decades of experience between them. The list ranges from vice presidents of energy firms and founders of management groups to presidents of glass distributors and a parent of a current student, according to Lee. The daylong discussion will focus around such topics as, “Alchemy: Turning Science into Business,” “Marketing: The Language of Successful Communication” and “Added Values: What the Swarthmore Experience Brings to the World of Business,” according to Lee.

The keynote speaker for the event will be Mike Sweeney ’79, former president of Starbucks Coffee in the United Kingdom. Sweeney “will bring a world of experience to the conference,” Lee said. “He has exposure to different fields, domestically and abroad and he has the knowledge of different businesses and cultures.”

Sweeney, who graduated from Swarthmore with a degree in economics, now works out of Minneapolis for a private equity firm.

He expressed a desire to address the “underlying idea at Swarthmore that academia is the most noble career.”

“I have all the respect for that but I also believe that one can lead a good ethical life in the business world as well,” he said. “Great entrepreneurs come from the pursuit of something they think is truly important in the world.”

Another purpose of the conference is to let students see the success and strategies of past Swarthmore students while also letting alumni see what Swarthmore students are like today. “Swarthmore alumni haven’t had much exposure on campus to students,” Sweeny said.

Lee agreed with Sweeny’s assessment. “It’s an opportunity to make contacts and see what other grads have done,” Lee said.

Jesse Goodall ‘07, who plans on attending the conference, said he views the conference as a type of information session. "I’ve been looking for summer internships and I’m looking for possible areas of work after college … I want to see what kind of possibilities are out there," he said. Goodall cited the Student Business Association, of which he is a member, as an example of the thriving interest in business on campus.

Students and alumni alike will have the opportunity not only to hear panelists speak but also to interact with each other. According to Lee, there will be “round table discussions … that will allow student and alumni attendees an opportunity to actively participate in a conversation about a topic in which they are interested.”

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