Timothy M. Stearns is the holder of the Coleman Foundation Chair in Entrepreneurial Studies and Executive Director of the Lyles Center for Innovation and Entrepreneurship at California State University, Fresno www.lylescenter.com. Professor Stearns received his MBA degree in management and a doctorate in management/sociology from Indiana University. He previously was a member of the Management faculty at the University of Wisconsin, Madison and Marquette University. He has served on the editorial board of the Academy of Management Journal, and currently services on the editorial boards of the Journal of Business Research and the Journal of Small Business Management.

Professor Stearns has co-authored a textbook on management and is the author of more than 75 research articles and presentations. He has taught and lectured on entrepreneurship and innovation to students and executives in Thailand, Poland, Japan, Kazakhstan, Macau, Germany, and the Peoples Republic of China. He is a co-founder of the National Network for Technology Entrepreneurship and Commercialization www.n2tec.org, a nonprofit located in Rapid City, South Dakota. He currently serves as past Chair of the Entrepreneurship Division of the Academy of Management www.aomonline.org having served as Chair in 2006 and 2008. In addition, he is President of the Central Valley Business Incubator, a not for profit facility www.cvbi.org.

Professor Stearns is also co-founder of Kids Invent! www.kidsinvent.com a company that sells creative hands on learning around the world. In 2007, Professor Stearns won the prestigious Wang Family Excellence Award given each year to 4 faculty members selected from the 23 campus wide California State System. He is a member of the Regional Jobs Initiative Executive Committee www.fresnorji.org and the Fresno Mayor’s Creative Economy Council www.fresnocec.org. You can listen to him on radio on the Pulse weekly on Saturday at noon and again on Sunday at 9am on KFSR 90.7 www.kfsr.org.