Dave Croasdell
Dr. David T. Croasdell is the inaugural Charles and Ruth Hopping Professor of Entrepreneurship, and an Associate Professor of Information Systems at the University of Nevada, Reno. He is the founding director of the Sontag Entrepreneurship Competition, former co-chair of the Nevada Governor’s Cup entrepreneurship competition and former Academic Director for the Mandela Washington Fellows Initiative for Young African Leaders.
Dr. Croasdell and his colleagues at the University of Nevada, Reno work hard to foster relationships with the broader community. Dave is a founding member of Entrepreneurship Nevada – a local portal for developing business networks and identifying entrepreneurial resources. He also sits on the board of Entrepreneurs Assembly working to support local startups and help develop business strategies. He is a founding mentor of Summit VMS – a local service that matches high value mentors to local ventures in a team mentoring approach to developing those organizations.
Dave has mentored numerous students and teams since first becoming involved in entrepreneurship. He has also pursued several of his own startup ventures. He served on the organizing committee for TedX-University of Nevada since its inception in 2012. As director of Global Initiatives at Business Assembly, Dr. Croasdell promoted building entrepreneurial ecosystems built upon what Thomas Friedman has called a “Flat World”. Simply put, technology has shrunk the world. As such, our ability to understand and work with different cultures and economies is more critical now than ever before as citizens in this global community. Entrepreneurs looking to develop and grow business across international boundaries must have the skills and knowledge to think and act globally if they are to be successful.
Dave teaches courses on Digital Transformation, Leadership in Business Analytics, Global Technology Management, Project Management, and Survey of Information Systems at the graduate and undergraduate levels. Dr. Croasdell’s research focuses on distributed knowledge systems, knowledge equity, and cyber security awareness. Prior to academia, Dr. Croasdell worked as a technical staff member at Los Alamos National Laboratory.
Pawel Pietrasieński, Ph.D.
Pawel Pietrasienski is a Granite Landings’ mentor & the associate professor of SGH Warsaw School of Economics in the Department of Market, Marketing and Quality and Rector’s Plenipotentiary for cooperation with the State of Nevada. He has been collaborating with the Ozmen Center for Entrepreneurship at the College of Business, University of Nevada Reno. Previously, he served as the Director of International Trade in The Nevada Governor's Office of Economic Development (GOED) and Coordinator of the Nevada Global initiative – an acceleration platform that leveraged GOED’s extensive contacts around the world with top business support institutions and mentors from Nevada and worked closely with the Honorary Consulate of the Republic of Poland in Las Vegas, Nevada.
He earned his Master Degree in Management & Marketing, his Doctorate in International Business and Post-Doctoral Degree (second doctorate called “habilitation” in Europe) in the Governance of Export Promotion Systems. Dr. Pietrasienski served as Deputy and Acting Consul General in Chicago as well as Minister Counselor, Head of the Trade and Investment Section at the Embassy of the Republic of Poland in Washington D.C. He was the inventor and supervisor of Poland’s first bridge organization – Silicon Valley Acceleration Center based in San Francisco; co-inventor and partner – with the Polish Agency for Enterprise Development (PARP) – of the first governmental acceleration program the “Polish Silicon Bridge”. He was also a member of the Public Governance Committee of the Organization for Economic Co-Operation and Development (OECD) based in Paris and member of Board of Governors for the European Institute of Public Administration (EIPA) in Maastricht.
Pietrasienski is the author of books “International Marketing Strategies” and "Stimulating the Internationalization of Enterprises” along with 69 scientific and business publications in the field of international business, global marketing, entrepreneurship, and public governance. He is the recipient of the Medal for Export Achievements (Warsaw 2014), the Outstanding International Business Leadership Honoree (Chicago 2015) and the Medal of Honor for Merits in Economic Development (Poland 2015).
GOED International Trade Division, under Pietrasienski’s leadership, was awarded the 2021 President’s “E” Award for excellence in export service. The President’s “E” Award is the highest recognition any U.S. entity can receive for making a significant contribution to the expansion of U.S. exports.
