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Nov.
11, 2002 |
2002 Entrepreneur of the Year Honored
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Thomas Griffin
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Rensselaer students, faculty, and staff gathered
to recognize John J. McDonnell Jr. '61 as the 2002 William F.
Glaser '53 Rensselaer Entrepreneur of the Year Nov. 8 at a breakfast
meeting at the Heffner Alumni House. The Entrepreneur of the Year
award was established in 1990 by Rensselaer's Severino Center
for Technological Entrepreneurship to spotlight successful entrepreneurs
and role models.
"No matter how well you write your
business plan, you have to anticipate that you'll run into
some problems. It's how you react to the unplanned, unforeseen
obstacles that determine how successful your business is."
— John J. McDonnell Jr. '61—
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McDonnell serves as founder, chairman, and CEO
of Transaction Network Services (TNS). The company is one of the
world's leading providers of fast, reliable data communications
services for transaction-oriented applications.
In the keynote address he delivered at the event,
McDonnell described the blueprint he used while launching TNS.
He began by discussing his idea for his company, and then outlined
the steps he took to establishing it. Throughout the talk, he
provided advice to aspiring entrepreneurs, and even discussed
a previous, failed project that he called a "technological
achievement but a marketing disaster."
McDonnell cautioned attendees that building a
successful enterprise like TNS isn't always easy. "No matter
how well you write your business plan, you have to anticipate
that you'll run into some problems," he cautioned. "It's
how you react to the unplanned, unforeseen obstacles that determine
how successful your business is."
McDonnell launched TNS in 1990, and built and
perfected the company's main service of providing high-speed,
secure electronic fund transfer for credit-card transactions.
He sold TNS to Internet service provider PSINet in 1999, and purchased
it back again in 2001. Today, the company commands 80 percent
of the US market in credit card transactions, and continues to
grow its presence globally.
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