CANCELED - Birds of a feather invent together: Learn how two local men in chicken suits got their invention to the marketplace when Invention-Con comes to Akron

Dr. Paul Campbell is a Co-founder and Managing Partner at Brown Venture Group, LLC. Launched in 2018, Brown Venture Group, LLC is a venture capital firm exclusively for Black, Latinx, and Indigenous technology startups and founders. Prior to launching Brown Venture Group, Dr. Campbell was a telecommunication sales executive as well as a serial entrepreneur, launching startups in the Internet of Things and media production fields. He has also formed inclusive collaborative partnerships with federal agencies such as NASA, USPTO, and the Federal Laboratory Consortium for technology transfer offices to help de-risk under-resourced innovators as they look to raise capital for their startups. Dr. Campbell has been featured in publications such as Tribal Business News, Forbes, Bloomberg, Black Enterprise Magazine, and Authority Magazine. He holds a doctorate in social entrepreneurship and an MBA in global business management.

Will Covey is the Deputy General Counsel and Director for the Office of Enrollment and Discipline (OED) at the United States Patent and Trademark Office (USPTO). As Deputy General Counsel, Mr. Covey is responsible for ensuring that the nation’s patent attorneys and agents are of good moral character and sufficiently knowledgeable to practice before the USPTO. Mr. Covey’s team of attorneys and other professionals develops and administers a registration examination designed to measure an applicant's knowledge of patent law and practice. Successful applicants are registered to practice by OED. In addition, OED investigates complaints of unethical conduct made against individuals practicing patent or trademark law before the USPTO.

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Portia L. Deans has been employed at the USPTO since January 2017. She currently serves as an Innovation Outreach Program Specialist in the Office of Innovation Outreach. Prior to joining the USPTO, she supported multiple federal agencies, including the Defense Threat Reduction Agency; Headquarters, Department of the Army; the Office of Small Business Programs - Pentagon, and the National Guard Bureau. Deans has over 20 years of acquisition and program management experience within the Department of Defense and civilian agencies. Her acquired knowledge, skills, and abilities include the career fields of contracting, program management, contracting officer’s representative, small business specialist, and industry liaison.

Anand Desai received a doctorate in pharmacology and experimental therapeutics from the University of Maryland and Graduate Partnership Program at the National Institutes of Health. His research focused on the expression of glutamate gated channels during brain development. He has been working at the USPTO since June 2003 as a patent examiner in the biotechnology center. Anand is currently on detail with the Patent Pro Bono Program.

Carlos Gutierrez started his career with service in the United States Marine Corps, working in the field of logistics. He completed two tours overseas, one of which was in support of Operation Iraqi Freedom in the Persian Gulf. Subsequently, Gutierrez held roles in the private sector, including several years as an Executive Team Leader with Target retail stores and as an Adjunct Professor of Entrepreneurship at The University of Texas – Rio Grande Valley. Additionally, Gutierrez holds a U.S. patent, was the founder of several companies, and has served as an advisor for several nascent-stage tech startups. He has written and managed grants that have been awarded a total of $1.73 million. Gutierrez has served with several agencies within the federal government, including the Department of Energy, the Minority Business Development Agency, and the Small Business Administration. Gutierrez also previously served as the Director of the Texas Veterans Business Outreach Center. Gutierrez has a background in business development and program management in the private sector, state government, federal government, academia, and non-profit spaces. He holds a Bachelor of Business Administration in management from The University of Texas – Rio Grande Valley, a Master of Business Administration from the University of Phoenix, and a Master of Science in technology commercialization from The University of Texas at Austin.

Brian Halasinski was born and raised in Canton, Ohio. He has spent the last 20 years in the pharmaceutical industry but has always had that entrepreneurial spirit. Brian is married to his wife of almost 15 years, Brie Halasinski. They have two sons, Nathan and Hudson. Brian and business partner Kirk Hyust met seven years ago when Kirk was renovating Brian and Brie’s new home. Since then, the two have become friends and inventing partners.

Eric Hamilton is a certified business advisor for the Small Business Development Center at Summit Medina Business Alliance, Inc. (SMSA) in Akron, Ohio. Eric's experience as a small business owner enables him to be a knowledgeable resource for potential SBDC clients; his background in overseeing the day-to-day operations of a business, developing and implementing marketing campaigns, and developing financial strategies for his business will be invaluable information for those SBDC clients. Prior to joining the Summit Medina Business Alliance, Eric was the owner of Hamilton Sign Company (formerly Signs By Tomorrow) for 15 years. In addition to his entrepreneurial endeavor, Eric worked in business development for Fortune 500 companies IBM and Merrill Lynch. Eric has a Bachelor of Science in finance from Penn State University; he also holds a Master of Business Administration (MBA) with a concentration in marketing from The Weatherhead School of Management, Case Western Reserve University.

James serves as the Senior Director of Entrepreneurial Services at Bounce Innovation Hub, where he oversees the entrepreneurial programming and manages the technology programs related to helping founders and accomplishing Bounce’s mission. James started his entrepreneurial journey after graduating from Walsh University with a degree in pre-medical biology; a quick departure into software found him, with his identical twin Jack Hilton and co-founder Austin Kettner, down a 12-year, and counting, entrepreneurial journey. His startups include a wildly popular open-source camera API; hundreds of thousands of developers rely on CameraKit to explore camera functionality in their mobile apps. Clusio, an enterprise healthcare software company, worked to help advanced practice providers track and coordinate their clinical procedures. James co-founded and served as a mentor at The Bit Factory, a software startup accelerator which invested in and accelerated software startups, which became the Bounce Software Accelerator, where he provided startup advising to founders.

Kirk Hyust is a distinguished co-inventor hailing from Canton, Ohio, renowned for his groundbreaking co-creation, the Turbo Trusser. With a prolific career in innovation, Kirk holds numerous patents, trademarks, and copyrights, solidifying his position as a trailblazer in his field. Beyond his inventing prowess, he finds great joy in supporting and guiding fellow inventors on their own creative journeys. In his leisure time, Kirk indulges in the culinary arts, finding relaxation in cooking, while also seeking adventure through fishing and exploring new destinations during his travels.

Bob Leach is a business advisor for the Braintree Business Development Center in Mansfield. Braintree is a multi-faceted business incubation and technology entrepreneurship center that is part of the state-funded Ohio Third Frontier program. Since 2007, he has worked with scores of Ohio business clients in a variety of industry sectors, including IT, energy, agribusiness, and food processing, and as an instructor and mentor in both national and regional National Science Foundation I-Corps programs. He currently serves in an industry advisory capacity for the Pioneer Career and Technical Center. He is a graduate of the Naval Nuclear Propulsion Program.

Jason Lott is the Attorney Advisor for Trademarks Customer Outreach at the USPTO, where he specializes in helping small business owners understand trademarks and the federal trademark registration process through live presentations, creative videos, and other multimedia platforms. He has been with the USPTO since 2000, previously serving as an examining attorney, and is a recipient of multiple career service awards.

Jim Patterson is the Principal and Founder of Patterson Thuente IP, a leading intellectual property law firm located in Minneapolis, Minnesota. The Patent Pro Bono Program got its start over a decade ago through Jim’s leadership in launching the pilot in his home state of Minnesota; since then, Jim has been instrumental in achieving the program’s 50-state coverage. Internationally, Jim continues his leading role in the creation and ongoing expansion of the international patent pro bono program managed by the World Intellectual Property Organization’s Inventor Assistance Program, an initiative undertaken in conjunction with the World Economic Forum. As an attorney, Jim has 30-plus years of experience in all elements of intellectual property prosecution, whether it be patents, trademarks, or copyright, and even in litigation. He has spent his legal career helping companies and individual inventors protect and profit from their intellectual property.

Sean Wilkerson works in the Office of Innovation Outreach at the USPTO creating intellectual property (IP) awareness programs and managing outreach services to independent inventors, small businesses, entrepreneurs, makers, and universities. Wilkerson previously worked as an outreach coordinator for the programs leading up to the opening of the USPTO’s Silicon Valley and Texas Regional Offices. He also spent a year as part of the New York engagement team that developed the 2015 Future of Urban Innovation Startups Summit in coordination with Columbia University and the USPTO. From 2011–2013, he served as the program manager of the inaugural Select USA Summit, developing the program, structure, and outreach efforts of a U.S. government-wide program housed in the International Trade Administration of the U.S. Department of Commerce. As an education program analyst in the Global Intellectual Property Academy from 2008–2011, he managed international programs focused on providing IP training related to enforcement of patents, trademarks, and copyrights and the U.S. patent and trademark system. Prior to working for the federal government, he served as the Director of Events for the National Association of Homebuilders in Washington, D.C. and as the Ideas Exchange Manager for Accenture in Reston, Virginia.

James O. Wilson, Assistant Regional Director of the Elijah J. McCoy Midwest Regional Office, has been an employee of the USPTO since January of 1989. He received his Bachelor of Science degree in zoology from Howard University in 1984 and Master of Science degree in cellular and molecular biology from the University of Michigan in 1987. Wilson has served on the Executive Board of the Patent and Trademark Office Society and continues to be an active member of the organization. As a primary examiner, Wilson served as a Chemical Representative in the Patent Office Professional Association. Wilson became a supervisory patent examiner (SPE) in Technical Center 1600 in 2002. In 2007, Wilson served as a managerial detailee in the Office of the Commissioner for Patents. Over the years, Wilson has been an instructor for several classes in the Patent Examiner Initial Training Program and has served as a SPE Instructor in the Office of Patent Training. Wilson has also had the distinction of serving as an Acting Director in Technology Center 1600 from November 2013 through March 2014, as well as the Acting Director of the Elijah J. McCoy Midwest Regional Office from October 2018 through September 2019.