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I met Tom Szaky, barely 25 years old at the time, and a pure, scrappy, entrepreneur’s entrepreneur, at the 2007 Inc. 500 conference in Chicago.  He spoke before keynote President Clinton and was clearly the more engaging speaker of the two (a pretty tough feat considering how dynamic Clinton used to be). Tom, born in Hungary, grew up in Canada, and dropped out of Princeton to start “The Coolest Startup in America” called Terracycle where every product and its packaging is made out of garbage.  His story is fascinating and the lessons business leaders and public policy-makers can learn from his success are significant. The irony for Portland, one of the greenest cities on Earth, is that most business leaders and policy folks had never heard of him and were quite doubtful that some young kid would be any good as a keynote speaker at the wildly successful Greenlight Greater Portland annual event – thankfully, Tom proved them wrong with an excellent presentation of how to win by innovating and by being greener, better, AND cheaper. I don’t have his presentation electronically, so until I get it, you’ll have to settle for the YouTube video on his Good Morning America and Oprah appearances six weeks prior.

The fun part of the day came later when Portland entrepreneurs John Friess (Wired.MD, Journey Gym, Seven Planet), Josh Friedman (Eleven Wireless, NedSpace), Martin (Climate Prosperity Portland, Formos) and I had drinks with Tom Szaky – it wasn’t your normal night of casual conversation over a beer. We took a detour to NedSpace and watched Friess give a straight-faced demo of his prototype product Journey Gym while the four of us were heckling him (at 10pm with a few drinks in us). The evening continued at next-door bar Lotus where we all brainstormed various products to make out of used toothbrushes, sun glasses, and dozens of other waste streams that could now have innovative uses once they’ve been separated from the rest of garbage before they get to landfills. Most off-the-wall idea: make kid-wagons out of compressed, used toothbrushes. Friess – you’re going to need to explain that concept a little better to me now, because it sounded so good Thurs night.