Conference Presenters

Okay, here is the deal.  This conference could not happen with out the help and support of great organizations and these great individuals. 

Lauren Dixon

CEO- Dixon Schwabl and Rochester's Foremost Marketing Authority

As CEO of Dixon Schwabl, Lauren Dixon leads 83 employees overseeing nearly 150 local, regional and national accounts with capitalized billings of $138 million.  Lauren’s career began as a television news anchor and co-host of the Westinghouse nationally syndicated program PM Magazine.  Founding Dixon Schwabl in 1987, Lauren has built one of the largest advertising agencies in Upstate New York, experiencing tremendous growth and expansion throughout its more than 20-year history, giving back 22% of its profits to employees in 2008.  Dixon Schwabl’s unique culture and ethical business practices have been featured in Fast Company, Inc. Magazine, HR Magazine and the Wall Street Journal.  The agency has a strong philanthropic commitment, donating more than 7,500 hours annually to not-for-profits.  Lauren was named Rochester’s Small Business Person of the Year in 2001, the Ernst & Young Communicator of the Year in 2003, and she received a Rochester Business Ethics Award in that same year.  Dixon Schwabl has been on the Best Small & Medium Companies in America list for five consecutive years (2005-2009) and was ranked the #1 Best Small Company to Work for in America in 2008 by the Great Place to Work® Institute.

Craig Jerabeck

CEO and President
5 Linx Enterprises

Mr. Jerabeck is a founder and has been the President and CEO of 5LINX® Enterprises Inc. since 2001. 5LINX® is a direct marketer of telecommunications products that includes VoIP, Wireless, Satellite, local telephone services and more.

Mr. Jerabeck was formerly the President/CEO and founder of @Wireless Enterprises, a franchisor of wireless retail stores. @Wireless operated 78+ stores in 11 states. Prior to @Wireless, he founded Cellular Unlimited Corp., which owned and operated 23 shopping mall based retail stores in NY, MA, RI, NJ, DE and FL.

Prior to his entrepreneurial endeavors Jerabeck spent two years as the General Manager of Cellular One (later Cingular) in Rochester, NY and eight years with AT&T in sales and sales management. Jerabeck has an MBA and a B.S.-Finance from the State University of New York at Buffalo.

Mr. Jerabeck resides in Pittsford, NY with his wife, Mary, and their three children.

Clayton Osborne

Vice President
Human Resources
and CPO
Bausch & Lomb

Clay Osborne, Vice President, Human Resources and CPO for Bausch & Lomb responsible for Talent Management, Learning, B&L University, Global Staffing, Work/life, Diversity, Employee Relations, Ethics, Occupational Health and leads the HR function for the Research & Development  Department  He has been employed at Bausch & Lomb for approximately eighteen years. During his tenure at Bausch & Lomb, Clay has been responsible for key initiatives in the area of Human Resources, which has earned Bausch & Lomb significant recognition and awards. For example, his accomplishments in achieving Bausch & Lomb’s diversity and inclusion objectives  led to the company’s recognition by the Diversity Inc organization as one of the top 50 companies for Diversity for five years in a row, awarded the prestigious Exemplary Voluntary Efforts (EVE) Award from the U.S Dept. of Labor,  Diversity Innovation recognition from the Diversity Journal, as well as recognition from Working Mother’s Magazine as one of the best places to work for its family friendly policies.

Clay has a passion for coaching leaders, and facilitating the development of people and fostering organizational effectiveness. He has been a driver of employee engagement, talent development and change management within the company.

In the greater Rochester community he was instrumental in creating and leading the development of a regional Diversity council of more than twenty-four companies in the Greater Rochester area whose purpose is to share Diversity Best Practices, and to leverage diversity as a key competitive advantage for participating companies. The council under Clay’s leadership has received national recognition for its innovation, and has evolved into a national network for diversity practitioners. In addition, he has been the board chair of the Career Development Services org. for many years where he has championed career development best practice in many organizations

Before coming to Bausch & Lomb, Clay served in positions of significant responsibility and in a variety of work environments including the positions of Deputy County Executive for Monroe County, Regional Director of the New York State Division for Youth, Assistant Professor of Social Work and Counseling at the Rochester Institute of Technology, in addition to his role as Human Resource Manager for the Schaffer Brewing Company.

Clay received his Masters and Bachelors degrees from the State University of New York at Albany, and completed all of the course work towards a Doctorate in Education from the University of Massachusetts at Amherst.

Mr. Osborne‘s leadership and involvement in his local and the national community is well known and recognized. He is a member of the Board of the ESL Federal Credit Union, the Forte Capital Advisory board and the lead Director for the Eltrex Company. Currently he chairs the Board of trustees for the Center for Governmental Research, and previously served as chair of the Board of the Career Development Services, was a member of the executive committee of the Rochester United Way, the National Diversity Network and lead many initiatives to improve the Greater Rochester community and New York State.

Clay is married to Dorel is Osborne, formerly a Rochester City School District teacher and has two sons.

Valerie Wilson-Weissert

President and CEO 
VWeis Construction

Valerie W. Weissert, President and CEO of VWeis Construction, is a retiree from the Monroe County Sheriffs Department with 25 years of dedicated service. Both her father and husband have been in the construction field all of their working lives . She decided to join her husband, take up where her father left off and start her own company.

VWeis Construction is a leading player in Upstate New York’s commercial construction economy.

VWeis, a certified member of the National Minority Supplier Development Council, offers numerous services:
• Professional Planning and Pre-construction Consulting
• Construction Management
• General Construction
• Design-Build Services

VWeis has successfully partnered with several world-renowned, Fortune 500 companies within the Rochester area and has delivered project solutions which consistently exceed customer expectations.  VWeis makes it a priority to give back and “pay it forward” through continuing efforts to reach out to minority businesses and optimize their involvement wherever possible.

This is an on-going process, and the hope is to help minority businesses break thru and become preferred vendors with major companies.

Cheryl McKeiver

Business Administration and Economics Department Monroe Community College

Cheryl McKeiver is a faculty member in the Business Administration and Economics Department at Monroe Community College. As a certified financial educator and lecturer, she focuses on financial education, employee assistance solutions and organizational management. She partners with organizations to increase performance by designing solutions that empower employees with the tools, skills and attitudes to change personal financial behavior.

Formerly, she was vice-president and director of training and development at Citibank/Citicorp. In that position she led a global education department that managed Rochester, Buffalo, Syracuse, Albany and as far reaching as Portland, Maine. Additionally, Cheryl has held numerous positions within Citibank at their corporate offices in New York City and Richmond, Va.

Cheryl has been an award winning corporate training instructor for more than 25 years. She holds a BS in Human Resource Management from Roberts Wesleyan College and a MBA from Medaille College in Buffalo, NY. She is currently a doctoral candidate at Nova Southeastern University.

Cheryl strongly believes in community development. She is volunteers on the Action for a Better Community’s Policy Council, Curriculum Committee at the United Way’s African American Leadership Development Program, Muscular Dystrophy Annual “Lock-Up” program, the Rev. Dr. Martin Luther King, Jr. Scholarship Committee at St. Bridget’s Church and various others organizations and partnerships.

At present, she serves as a weekly financial consultant on the radio station 103.9 WDKX. She is also featured on the City of Rochester’s “Your New Home” Program on a local cable station. She has delivered many lectures for; New York University, St. Bonaventure University, SUNY Brockport, UAW, Wegmans Food Markets, Kodak, Lenscrafters of Atlanta and numerous other companies and organizations.  She has appeared as a subject matter expert on local news stations.

Cheryl is an active member of St. Bridget’s Church. She is happiest when surrounded by her three impressive children and loving husband.

Lomax R. Campbell, MBA
 

President and CEO
Third Eye Network, LLC

Over the years Lomax has helped corporate, not-for-profit and small business clients:

1. Better understand their marketplaces

2. Align their core competencies with their target customer interests to maximize client value

3. Develop company-wide strategies

4. Develop company brands in effort to realize organizational goals

Since founding the agency, he has assumed a variety of roles in efforts to realizing its vision: Total client satisfaction through marketing and management excellence.

He has managed engagements for large business clients such as Kaufman's (now Macy’s), University of Rochester School of Nursing, and Nixon Peabody Attorneys at Law; non-for-profit clients such as Action for a Better Community, Community Place of Greater Rochester, and Greater Rochester Health Foundation. He has also worked with small business clients such as Beauty by LaCassa and Xquisite Boutique; as well as individual clients including banker-elected official Malik Evans, and news anchor-radio personality Liz Medhin.

The Democrat and Chronicle newspaper recognized him in 2008 as one of Rochester’s Emerging African-American Leaders, and he is a past recipient of Rochester's Young Citizen of the Year (1998, 2000) and Do the Right Thing (2001) awards.

A Rochester native, Lomax recently obtained his Masters of Business Administration degree after completing the Executive MBA program at Rochester Institute of Technology’s Saunders College of Business. He also holds a Bachelors of Science degree in Business Administration with a major in Graphic Media Marketing from the Saunders College and a concentration in Chinese Culture from the university’s College of Liberal Arts.

Mark A. Dulaney

Director Marketing
& Communications Rochester Black Business Association

President
Wealthodology, Inc.

About the Conference Manager and Promoter

“The 2011 Project” will be managed by Mark A. Dulaney the Director of Marketing and Communications for the Rochester Black Business Association and the President of Wealthodology, Inc.  Mark has successfully managed over 25 events in the last five years.  Events have included “Bringing Our People Together”, “The Gentlemen’s Conference for Women”, “Ladies Night Out”, and others.  Past sponsors include Roberts Wesleyan, U of R, RIT, Paychex, Xerox, Enterprise Rent a Car, State Farm, Wegmans, HSBC, SCORE, and companies of all sizes.  Past partners have included Rochester Business Alliance (RBA), Buffalo Niagara Partnership, True Networking Thursdays (TNT), Greater NY Black MBA Association (GNYBMBA), and African American Leadership Development Program (AALDP).

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