Amerine Stresses Thinking Big at Annual Fast 15 Event

Jeff Amerine urged members of the Northwest Arkansas Business Journal’s 2013 Fast 15 class to be the CEOs of their own destiny during his remarks to the group of up-and-coming business professionals.

“Never let anyone build a fence around your dreams,” Amerine said, citing a favorite quote of the late J.B. Hunt. “Think big, be agile and never give up.”

Amerine, the director of technology ventures at the University of Arkansas Technology Licensing Office, was the featured speaker during the event held May 14 at the Pratt Place Inn in Fayetteville, before a crowd of just more than 100.

Amerine, who also teaches entrepreneurship classes as an adjunct faculty member at the UA, is well known throughout Northwest Arkansas and the rest of the state for working with and mentoring the next generation of leaders and entrepreneurs.

He also advised this year’s honorees to have an entrepreneur’s mindset — eternally curious and never fully satisfied — be voracious consumers of information, and if work feels like work, “find something else to do.”

The Fast 15 program is designed to recognize a small, exclusive group of 20-something professionals on the fast track to success.

Members of this year’s class, the fifth to be recognized by the Business Journal, are Amy Benincosa, David Bradley, Kenny Cason, Chance Chapman, Nicole Chapman, Michael Dodd, Bethany Freeman, Matt Fryar, Joseph Hayes, Lindy Janes, Max Mahler, Omar Mejia, Brooke Moreton, Philip Schmidt and Jameson Sheppard.

The Chapmans are the first husband and wife to be members of the same Fast 15 class.

Great Southern Bank sponsored the event.