Pro Sports Agent Headlines Confab
Some 500 people are expected in Irvine for the sixth African American Business Summit June 19 to 22.
The summit seeks to offer management advice and strategy for businesspeople, said Pat Means, founder and publisher of Turning Point, a Los Angeles magazine about minority entrepreneurship.
Attendees “will be able to pick information on better management, management techniques, products, services, strategies for increasing your business, how to run your business better,” Means said.
The city of Irvine, 100 Black Men of Orange County, the Orange County Black Chamber of Commerce, along with Turning Point and the TPC Foundation Inc., are hosting the event at the Irvine Marriott.
African-Americans make up only about 60,000 of the county’s 2.9 million people. But Means said that’s not a factor.
“From the time that 100 Black Men of Orange County approached us four years ago about possibly locating the summit in Orange County, it became, ‘Why not Orange County?'” Means said. “It’s a vibrant, economically viable area.”
Means said she was encouraged by Irvine Mayor Larry Agran’s stated goal of attracting more African-Americans to the city. Blacks make up just 1% of Irvine’s 145,000 people.
Negotiating is set to be one of the summit’s main topics. Bill Strickland, a longtime sports agent and chief executive of Strickland & Ashe Management LLC, is among the speakers.
In the 1970s, Strickland worked in OC at McDonnell Douglas Corp. and what’s now Rockwell Automation Inc. He also practiced securities law for a number of years.
Strickland played a key role in negotiating the “Air Jordan” contract between Michael Jordan and Nike Inc. Most recently, Strickland struck a $102 million, six-year extension for Daunte Culpepper, the Minnesota Vikings’ massive quarterback.
In the National Basketball Association, Strickland counts as clients Rasheed Wallace, the intense star power forward of the Portland Trail Blazers, along with Cuttino Mobley of the Houston Rockets and Allan Houston of the New York Knicks, a pair of shooting guards.
Other scheduled summit speakers include Tony Brown, author and television commentator of “Tony Brown’s Journal” fame; Terrie Williams, a public relations executive whose clients include Def Jam entertainment honcho Russell Simmons and singer Janet Jackson; and E. Lance McCarthy, a Los Angeles-based economist and urban development specialist.
,Vita Reed
