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The McGuire Center for Entrepreneurship at the University of Arizona’s Eller College of Management has named Jeremy Woan and Emre Toker recipients of the 2012 Entrepreneurial Fellows awards. The men will be honored at the Center’s Entrepreneur’s Grand Championship event on April 27.

The McGuire Center established its annual awards program in 1985 to recognize champions of entrepreneurship education and people who help advance a culture of innovation commercialization. The Entrepreneurial Fellowships honor Arizona’s accomplished entrepreneurs and recognize their roles in the state’s economic development.

About this Year’s Winners

Jeremy Woan is chairman and CEO of CyraCom International, Inc., which became the world’s second-largest provider of over-the-phone interpretation services under his leadership. The company has generated 700+ jobs in Arizona since Woan took the reins, giving it the second-highest job growth rate among southern Arizona employers. Woan is also directly responsible for building two technology companies through to IPO: one in high-performance notebook computing, one in electronic patient record systems.

Emre Toker founded two biomedical technology companies in Arizona (and a third in California). One of his most recent venture involvements is Surgical Tools, a company that develops products to improve surgical outcomes for breast cancer patients. The company was among only six ventures statewide named in the first crop of Arizona Innovation Challenge awards from the Arizona Commerce Authority last year. ACA granted Surgical Tools $173,735 to help bring its products to market in 2011.

Arizona Rock Stars

“These aren’t names you’ll hear about on the radio or maybe even in local buzz, but people like Jeremy and Emre are the rock stars of Arizona’s economy,” said McGuire Center director Sherry Hoskinson. “They’re on the front lines making a difference in ways that are critical to transforming our state, and we’re the ones who are honored to be recognizing them for their achievements.”
Woan and Toker will receive their awards at the McGuire Center’s Entrepreneur’s Grand Championship, which also features a competition among the 22 new venture teams in the Center’s top-ranked McGuire Entrepreneurship Program. Teams of business and law students will deliver their venture concepts and projections in rocket-pitch format and field questions from a panel of expert judges.

The Grand Championship is free and open to the public at the University of Arizona’s McClelland Hall just north of the main campus, 1130 E. Helen St.

For more information, visit http://entrepreneurship.arizona.edu.

The McGuire Center for Entrepreneurship is a National Model Program of the United States Association for Small Business and Entrepreneurship and is home to the McGuire Entrepreneurship Program, ranked the #2 public undergraduate and #1 public graduate program in the nation byEntrepreneur magazine and The Princeton Review. Established in 1984, it was one of the first university-based entrepreneurship centers in the country. Today, the Center offers entrepreneurship education for any graduate program at the University of Arizona and reaches more than 1,000 undergraduate students every semester. With courses in business, law, science, engineering, health, medicine, arts, and humanities, the McGuire Center advances the state and regional economy, advances entrepreneurship education nationwide, and teaches life-long problem solving for economic, social, scientific, and environmental progress.

The Eller College of Management at the University of Arizona is internationally recognized for pioneering research, innovative curriculum, distinguished faculty, excellence in entrepreneurship, and social responsibility. U.S. News & World Report ranks the Eller undergraduate program #14 among public business schools and three of its programs are among the top 25 —Entrepreneurship, MIS, Management, and Accounting. U.S. News & World Report ranks the Eller MBA Full-Time program #57 in the U.S. The College leads the nation’s business schools in generating grant funds for research. In addition to a Full-Time MBA program, the Eller College offers an Evening MBA program and the Eller Executive MBA. The Eller College of Management supports more than 5,000 undergraduate and 600 graduate students on the UA campus in beautiful Tucson, Arizona.

Press Contact: 
Liz Warren-Pederson, Eller College of Management
520.626.9547, news@eller.arizona.edu