B. Mayo Boddie, Sr., Chairman of the NorthEastern Entrepreneur Roundtable (NEER), has announced the names of the four finalists for the 2008 NEER Entrepreneur of the Year Award.

"We received over 20 qualified nominations for this year's Entrepreneur of the Year Award competition. Our selection committee had a difficult time choosing our finalists for this honor, but we believe we have selected four outstanding candidates," commented Boddie.

2008 NEER Entrepreneur of the Year Finalists.

The four entrepreneur finalists and their companies are Bob Babington, Babington Technologies, Rocky Mount; Frank Edwards, Riverside Printing, Rocky Mount; Patrick Robinette, Harris-Robinette Farms, Pinetops; and TransTech Energy, Rocky Mount.

The winner will be announced at the 14th Annual Entrepreneur of the Year Banquet sponsored by NEER on Monday, May 12, 2007 at 5:30PM at the Rose Hill Conference Center in Nashville. Richard Johnson, founder of HotJobs.com will be the keynote speaker. In 1999 Johnson mortgaged his house and all of his assets to borrow four million dollars to run a thirty second TV commercial in that year's Super Bowl. The gamble paid off as HotJobs became the sixth-most-recognized Internet brand in the world, went public and raised over $165 million before that same year ended.

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The Chamber will embark on an aggressive new member campaign beginning April 8 and continuing through May 20, 2008. The campaign is themed The Locomotion, representing The Chamber’s location at the historic Downtown Train Station and its work in the community to maintain a healthy economy and forward Local Motion. Growing member ranks is key in any membership organization and especially so with The Chamber.

With almost 5,000 businesses in the area we know we have huge opportunity to grow our membership, and thus grow our ability to better serve the Rocky Mount area. Since 1904, The Chamber has been a partner for progress working at the heart of issues that have helped to propel our community forward. Your Chamber stands ready as the leading strategic community partner - guided by area leaders representing both large and small businesses, to continue this momentum of community progress with job creation through business recruitment, with positive impact to matters of great importance for our area and with support of our emerging quality of life.

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