LSI to Host Second Part of Breakfast Series

Breakfast Series
Tuesday, March 6, 7:30-9 AM at Ivy Tech Community College

LSI will host the second part of its Breakfast Series March 6, from 7:30 AM to 9:00 AM in the Community Room of the Horseshoe Foundation Assembly Center at Ivy Tech Community College, 8204, Highway 311, Sellersburg, IN 47172.

Guest speaker Bill Samuels, Jr., Chairman Emeritus, Maker’s Mark Distillery, will share his leadership journey and challenge us all to be better leaders in our community. Bill has been called a maverick, a giant in the distillery business, a marketing genius, a visionary, and the best friend the Kentucky bourbon industry has ever had. But he prefers another label: Eyewitness.

Bill has personally seen it all: the creation of the premium bourbon category and the resurrection of the entire industry. That first-hand perspective has given Bill what many recognize as the most comprehensive view of the business today and the best stories.

• Bill’s next-door-neighbor as a child, and his godfather, was bourbon legend Jim Beam.
• He was there when Bill, Sr. burned the family’s 170-year-old whisky recipe – and caught his sister’s hair on fire.
• He listened to his father lose the argument with his mother about sealing their new bourbon with dripping red wax, resulting in one of the most recognizable trademarks in the spirits world.
• Bill tagged along to his father’s advisory board meetings where all the key distillers of the day – otherwise competitors –helped his father create this completely new approach to making bourbon.
• The only day of school he missed was in 1954 when he watched as the first barrels of Maker’s Mark were produced.
• He learned much of the distillery business not from his dad, but from Jack Daniel’s great nephew Hap Motlow, and sat in on company meetings that helped expand that great brand to international fame.

As a teenager, Bill got a PhD in salesmanship by driving Harland Sanders around Kentucky as the Colonel was launching his new chicken business. Later, Bill earned a degree in engineering physics, helped design both the Gemini and Polaris missiles, and became friends with the founding administrator of NASA and with America’s leading physicist at the time (Edward Teller). Then it was on to law school and the White House (as an intern) before joining his father in the family business.

Bill also witnessed the merger of bourbon and tourism. Sixty years ago, a distillery wasn’t considered a tourist destination. But his mother insisted that a dollar’s worth of improvement go into the Maker’s Mark distillery grounds for every dollar his father put into operations, eventually creating one of the most popular visitor experiences in Kentucky.

The cost for active LSI alumni and area students is $23 and $28 for the general public. Please register by Friday, February 24, 2012. Pay online or mail payment to LSI, 8204 Highway 311, Sellersburg, IN 47172. Contact info@leadershipsi.org or 812-246-6574 for more information.

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