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Today we shined the light on Lisa Robinson with ACE Loans. Then we talked with Danny Rinaldi, CEO of Harmonix.
Lisa Robinson works with Access to Capital for Entrepreneurs (ACE) as a BusinessDevelopment Officer, responsible for marketing and underwriting their Georgia GreenLoans and Microloan programs for metro-Atlanta small businesses.
Prior to ACE, she worked as a program manager for Regions Bank and Federal Home Loan Bank of Atlanta and an educational consultant and lecturer at Addis Ababa Commercial College in Ethiopia. She moved to Atlanta from North Carolina where she worked as a commercial lender with Self- Help Credit Union and as a small business consultant for the North Carolina Institute of Minority Economic Development.
Lisa brings 18 years of experience in financial management, community economic development, and program administration in both non-profit and for-profit sectors. She received a Bachelor’s Degree in Business Administration from Clark Atlanta University and a MBA from the University of Texas at Austin. She is also a certified Economic Development Finance Professional.
A multi-million dollar sales executive and entrepreneur, Danny Rinaldi had just gotten back from a trip to China –and he couldn’t fall asleep. He knew the symptoms of jet-lag and now he’d flown half-way around the world. Add to that the stress of his job, selling toys he’d manufactured to some of the biggest retail chains in the world, and you can understand why Rinaldi couldn’t simply lie down in bed and nod off.
More than half of all Americans report that they are insomniacs or have trouble falling asleep on a regular basis. Just bring up the subject once when you’re having dinner with friends. 35 million people take prescription drugs, paying over $5 billion for relief from the tossing and turning or waking in the middle of the night that robs them of a restful, restorative sleep. The rest of the county turns to over-the-counter remedies or take nothing at all, and suffer the consequences.
In China, Rinaldi was taking a medication similar to Ambien, which was available without a prescription. He even brought some home with him to help him after the trip. He figured he’d slowly cut down as he adjusted to being home and then stop taking the drug with its serious side-effects. But it wasn’t that easy . . .
A special shout out to our new sponsor – the Business Marketing Association – Atlanta Chapter. Please go to their website to register for their monthly events www.bmaatlanta.com/events/.
Also . . . if you know of a business in Atlanta that we should know about, please email Amy Otto at Amy@ atlantabusinessradio.com and we’ll invite them to appear on the show.
