On May 15, the Prince William Chamber of Commerce held their annual Business Excellence dinner at Hylton Performing Arts Center at George Mason University in Manassas, Virginia. We are so proud and honored to share the news that Employment Enterprises was chosen as Business of the Year in the category for companies with 35 or more employees!
Congratulations to all the nominees and winners! All of the 2013 winners gathered for this picture following the award presentations:
Here, company President Lovey Hammel accepts the award from Alex Orfinger, Publisher of the Washington Business Journal:
There is an excellent summary of highlights from the Business Awards dinner on the Prince William Chamber of Commerce web site.
Every year, the Prince William Chamber of Commerce honors Chamber companies who have excelled in their industry as well as made substantial contributions to our community in the previous year. We are very honored and pleased to share the news that Employment Enterprises has been nominated as a 2013 Business of the Year (35+ employees).
Congratulations to the finalists in all the award categories!
The award winners in each category will be announced on May 15 at the annual Business Awards Dinner, at the Kylton Performing Arts Center. For more information, please visit the PW Chamber web site.
On April 26, Dr. Angel Cabrera was inaugurated as the sixth president of George Mason University. In addition to being a GMU alum, our own Lovey Hammel was chair of the search committee to identify and hire Cabrera last year. Lovey was an invited guest at the inauguration and was pleasantly surprised to be mentioned prominently in Dr. Cabrera's remarks at the ceremony.
Above: Lovey and Dr. Cabrera at the Mason Day activities following the inauguration ceremony.
Cabrera spoke about his own background, having come to America to pursue a degree at Georgia Tech, and about several alumni whose stories were like his - students who followed nontraditional routes to college.
Lovey Hammel was among the three alumni mentioned in Cabrera's remarks. Taken from a transcript of his speech:
"The beauty of George Mason University is that stories like mine are not unusual. They are precisely what we’re about, what we do, day in and day out."
"One of the first people I met at Mason was alumna Lovey Hammel. As a member of the Board of Visitors, she volunteered to lead the search for a new Mason president. She asked me to meet her and another visitor Carol Kirby in Dallas and hear what she had to say. She spoke about how she attended Mason part-time in the 80’s because she was working with her mom to create a small business that has now become a $60 million enterprise. She spoke of the university with great pride and it was that pride and excitement for Mason that caused me to become very interested in this position. Mason changed her life, and she in turn changed the lives of many others, including mine."
Dr. Cabrera went on to talk about two other Mason alumni: Zainab Salbi from Iraq, who lived through the Iran-Iraq war, and following her graduation from Mason in 1996, created Women for Women International; and Anousheh Ansari from Iran, who earned a degree in electrical engineering from Mason in 1989 and later trained as an astronaut and became the first Iranian to go into space.
"Lovey, Zainab and Anousheh are different but their stories share a common thread. Lovey, Zainab and Anousheh were non-traditional students at Mason. A traditional model of higher education did not fit the life plan for these women; their personal circumstances made it difficult, if not impossible."
"Mason empowered each of them to pursue successful careers and have a positive impact on many others. At Mason, they each developed the ideas, the tools, and the inspiration to convert those ideas into action. And their actions have changed or inspired thousands of lives."
"That’s exactly what education should be about. We find people with talent, whatever their circumstances, and we help them grow so that they can change the world for the better."
"As I continue to learn more about Mason, I have found that the stories of Lovey, Zainab and Anousheh are not exceptions. They are the consequence of a unique approach to higher education. Mason is indeed a very special place."
Cabrera emphasized, "That's what universities do. We change the world, one life at a time."
Lovey couldn't agree more. "Mason changed my life. It gave me a solid foundation on which to build an entrepreneurial company. To be recognized as a nontradiational student in Dr. Cabrera’s inaugration speech was a thrill. Today, Employment Enterprises, Inc. works to change lives one life at a time -- through our Mason scholarship fund -- and by providing jobs for people for over 30+ years across the United States."
Photos from the event can be found here. There is a full video of the inauguration here (youtube) or here (vimeo), and an excerpt of just Dr. Cabrera's speech here.
On April 19, we attended the Mid-Atlantic Marketing Summit at Gannett Headquarters in McLean, Virginia. The summit included sessions on B2B marketing, using social media to engage your customers, video for PR, and much more. Here are several summaries presenting highlights from the summit:
Employment Enterprises was proud to sponsor this year's Northern Virginia Executive Forum Luncheon honoring past Chairmen of the Prince William Chamber of Commerce. Both our CEO and President, Jana Yeates and Lovey Hammel, have been chairs of the Prince William Chamber of Commerce in the past.
The event was invitation-only and was held at the Robert Trent Jones Golf Club in Gainesville, Virginia on April 11. Jeff Kaczmarek, Executive Director of Prince William County Economic Development, was the featured speaker at the luncheon.
Here is a video of Lovey talking about our core services before introducing Jeff Kaczmarek:
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