Next Carolinas PDMA Chapter Event with Bob Luddy

Morning Fellow Product Designers,

I thought this event might interest many of you.

Montie

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Event: New Product Development in the Entrepreneurial Enterprise

Date: 14 Jun 07

Time: 6-8:30pm

  • Networking & Registration 6 – 6:45 pm
  • Presentation and Q&A 6:45 8:00 pm
  • Pizza and drinks will be served

Location: MCNC auditorium in RTP, NC

Speaker: Bob Luddy, President, CaptiveAire and founder, Franklin Park Industrial Center

Co-Hosted by: CED

New Product Development in the Entrepreneurial Enterprise

Unless your business changes, your business will die. Changing means developing new products. But what new products? Why one product over another? Where do you begin?

Learn what inspired Robert Luddy, lifelong entrepreneur and president of Raleigh-based CaptiveAire Systems – the nations well-respected manufacturer of commercial kitchen ventilation equipment. Luddy founded CaptiveAire in 1976 on $1,300 capital. Today, CaptiveAire employs 650 people in four plants and 57 offices in the U.S. and Canada. It is continually voted ?Best In Class? by industry dealers and consultants, according to Foodservice Equipment & Supplies magazine. INC. magazine has repeatedly named CaptiveAire one of the 500 fastest growing private companies in the nation. In North Carolina, CaptiveAire is among the 100 largest private companies (Business North Carolina magazine), and it is the 10th fastest growing private company in the Raleigh Triangle (Triangle Business Journal).

Learn and discuss with Bob:

  • How you can revolutionize your industry.
  • Keys to competitive success.
  • How to navigate the challenge of offering increasingly higher-quality products at the lowest cost.
  • Bob will cover these and many other topics, including responding quickly to market demand. Please join us to exchange points of view, build relationships with your peers and as gain insights from our speaker:

    Robert Luddy is a lifelong entrepreneur. At the age of 20, while attending LaSalle University in Philadelphia, Bob opened a fiberglass manufacturing business and worked at night. In 1967, Bob sold his company and was drafted into the military. In 1976, Bob settled in Raleigh, and with $1,300 capital, he opened Atlantic Fire Systems in a one-room facility. Recognizing the demand for high-quality kitchen ventilation equipment, Bob purchased a sheet metal shop in 1981 and transformed it into CaptiveAire Systems, Inc. CaptiveAire is now the nations largest manufacturer of commercial kitchen ventilation systems, with sales reaching $180 million in 2006. In addition to CaptiveAire, Bob Luddy drives other economic development in the area. Bob founded and developed the Franklin Park Industrial Center, which has drawn over 15 entrepreneurial businesses and hundreds of jobs to Franklin and Wake counties.

    Questions? Send an e-mail to montie@montie.com