Innovate State: The Power of Legacy

651 N. Shaw Ln,East Lansing MI 48824

30 November, 2022

Description

The Innovate State Speaker Series brings both emerging and accomplished Spartans back to campus for a fireside chat-style interview. These 60-minute sessions offer the chance for guests to share their perspectives on a wide array of topics like innovation, startup life, investments, and career paths. Students get the opportunity to hear firsthand about the hard knocks of the entrepreneurship & innovation hustle to maintaining work/life balance. These are stories of success, stories of failures, and stories of uncommon will—and you do not want to miss them. Innovate State kicks-off at 6 p.m. ET in the Larry & Teresa Gaynor Entrepreneurship Lab (651 N. Shaw Ln., M025 Business Pavilion, East Lansing, MI 48824) and are free to the community. Events will be offered in-person only but are available virtually on the Friday following the event at eship.msu.edu/innovate-state/. Early registration is highly encouraged.  About our Speakers Andrew Blake, President, Blake's Family of Companies An innovative entrepreneur, Andrew celebrates every aspect of what it means. A husband, father, farmer, business owner, and spiritual explorer are some of the avenues in which Andrew cultivates his perspective. Andrew’s commitment to blazing his own trail has served him well professionally; he turned an obscure college idea, which would later become Blake’s Hard Cider Company, into one of the fastest growing beverage companies in the country. All of this happened while Andrew worked to evolve the fields that raised him, by transforming Blake Farms into a leader in the agricultural space and becoming one of the preeminent destinations in the Midwest. Today, Blake's has expanded its offerings into 24 states and has a 40,000 square foot production facility with 250,000-barrel capacity in Armada, MI. Blake's Hard Cider is now the fastest growing business in its category in the nation. Blake Family of Companies now staffs over 800 employees and has expanded its portfolio to include a wholesale food and non-alcoholic beverage company under the Blake's umbrellas as well as a franchisable modern take on a farm fresh bakery that rolled out in 2020 as Bakehouse46. In 2022, Blake’s Beverage Collective portfolio grew with the acquisition of Bend, Oregon’s AVID Cider Co., a regional craft cidery and seltzer company in the Pacific Northwest. Additionally, Blake’s invested in an alternative alcohol-facility aimed at bringing a variety of infused non-alcoholic beverages to the marketplace, the first being Blake’s Cold Pressed Juices which will be available in all major retailers throughout the Midwest. Location Larry & Teresa Gaynor Entrepreneurship Lab (651 N. Shaw Ln., M025 Business Pavilion, East Lansing, MI 48824) To access more information about Innovate State or the Burgess Institute for Entrepreneurship & Innovation, please visit eship.msu.edu. For any further questions, please email Aubrey Haase, [email protected].