Hear from today’s leading entrepreneurs about how they started their business and the strategies they are using to operate and grow their business.

Time: 11 a.m. until 1 p.m.

Where: Morgan State University, The Earl G. Graves School of Business, Room 303

Who: Morgan State University Students who have interest in starting a business and surrounding community resident

Space is limited and registration is required.

Speaker Bio

Kathryn B. Freeland, M.B.A
Author of Navigating Your Way to Business Success: An Entrepreneur’s Journey
 
Kathryn B. Freeland has a work ethic made for an entrepreneur. Even mandatory bed rest while she was pregnant with twins did not stop her from successfully managing her team back at the office. Always the optimist, Freeland learned the ropes of government contracting through personal experience, as both an employee and employer. 
 
In her new book, Navigating Your Way to Business Success: An Entrepreneur’s Journey (Freebridge Publishing, June 2009, ISBN 978-0-9823578-0-4), Freeland shares her own inspiring story and offers valuable personal anecdotes on how she achieved entrepreneurial success. She walks readers through practical, clear methods for starting and growing business through careful recruiting, marketing and business development. 
 
After seven years of working with federal government agencies, being passed over for a much-deserved promotion was a blessing in disguise, propelling Freeland to finally allow her career to take a new direction. She began to focus on growing her new company, and in 1993, Freeland started RGII Technologies, Inc., an information technology, systems integration and engineering solutions company, named in honor of her son, Richard Gregory II, who passed away when he was 2 months old.
 
“Having determined where I needed to head career wise, my next step was to begin planning how to get there,” Freeland says. “I wasn’t yet ready to make a break from my employer – we had bills to pay – so during evenings and weekends my focus was devoted almost exclusively to my new business, which had
become my driving force.”
 
Freeland was born and raised in Birmingham, Ala. After high school she remained in her hometown while earning her Bachelor of Science in finance from the University of Alabama at Birmingham. She continued her
education and received a master’s degree in business administration from the University of Maryland, College Park. 

As a successful entrepreneur, Freeland has been recognized and honored by numerous national and state organizations. In 1995, she was named the Minority Small Business Person of the Year by the Small Business Administration, and in 1999, Black Enterprise Magazine named RGII as their Emerging Company of the Year. In both 2003 and 2006, she was included on the Maryland Top 100 Women list and, in 2002, received the Baltimore Business Journal “Forty under Forty” award, given to 40 successful entrepreneurs under the age of 40.

Freeland successfully built and sold RGII to Computer Horizons Corp in 2003. After fulfilling a three year transition period with Computer Horizons, she retired in 2006 from the brain child she started in a basement
office and set out in search of her next entrepreneurial venture, Freeland & Associates, LLC. She has been featured in numerous national publications including Forbes Magazine and the Washington Post, and she currently serves on the board of directors for Baltimore Washington Medical Center, the board of visitors for the University of Maryland, Baltimore County, and the board for Black Women in Sisterhood for Action.

Freeland enjoys spending time with her husband of 24 years, Greg, and supporting her two 16-year-old twin
daughters, Brya and Brynn, in their extra-curricular activities. The Freelands reside in the BaltimorWashington metropolitan area. For more information please visit www.anentrepreneursjourney.com.