Fasttrac Instructors Chosen From Waco's Business Leaders

Waco businessmen Pat Holiday, president of Product Development and Marketing Company, and Allan Morris, senior vice president of First Waco National Bank, have been chosen as instructors for the Premier FastTrac program in Central Texas, a cooperative community effort.
Premier FastTrac, a national program that has just been launched in Waco, is geared toward aspiring and current entrepreneurs. The program is co-sponsored by the Baugh Center for Entrepreneurship at Baylor, the City of Waco and the Greater Waco Chamber of Commerce in partnership with McLennan Community College (MCC), Cen-Tex Hispanic Chamber of Commerce and Heart of Texas Black Chamber of Commerce. The Center for Entrepreneurial Leadership Inc. at the Ewing Marion Kauffman Foundation and the Waco Foundation are special benefactors to the FastTrac program.
As instructors, Holiday and Morris will receive training in the FastTrac curriculum - a curriculum that has been taught, tested and refined in classes held in 31 states.
Holiday will teach students enrolled in FastTrac I, a nine-week session for people interested in beginning a business, testing their entrepreneurial ideas, and completing a feasibility study.
Originally from St. Paul, Minn., Holiday has lived in Waco since 1973. He has owned Product Development and Marketing Company since 1980, which specializes in new product introduction, industry focus groups, telemarketing plans, and marketing plans and strategies.
Additionally, Holiday has taught business continuing education courses at MCC for five years. His courses have included fundamentals of starting your own business, advertising on a shoestring, the marketing umbrella, and how to write your own business plan.

Holiday graduated from the University of Minnesota in 1965 with a degree in electrical engineering. He serves as president of the board of directors of MCC's Business Resource Center.
When asked why he interviewed for the FastTrac position, he said, "I love entrepreneurs. I'm a very practical person, and it's fun to be in an exchange environment where people are really getting the information they need."
Morris will instruct students in FastTrac II, an 11-week session for existing and growth oriented entrepreneurs. This more advanced session will concentrate on existing financial and marketing plans, improving operational aspects of a business, and writing a business plan.
Morris is originally from Gilmer, Texas. He graduated from Baylor with a bachelor's in business administration degree in finance and economics in 1974.
Morris has used his professional experience at First Waco National Bank to teach banking courses at MCC since 1978.
"I have studied the FastTrac curriculum and believe these courses will definitely benefit our beginning and existing entrepreneurs and, in turn, our community," Morris said. "I want all of our businesses to do well, which makes for a better economy."
Holiday and Morris were chosen as FastTrac instructors after an extensive application process and presenting a 10-minute presentation on the five key elements to a successful, growing business. The selection committee was compromised of Leah Jackson, associate professor of law and associate dean of the law school at Baylor; Lu Billings, director of the Small Business Development Center; Warren Johnson, dean of continuing education at MCC; Tina Ray, from the president's office at Texas State Technical College; and Nancy Upton, director of the Baugh Center of Entrepreneurship and the Institute for Family Business at Baylor.
Applications are being accepted for both sections of the Premier FastTrac program that begin in September. Classes will be held in the Huaco Room of the Waco Convention Center. Applications are available at the Small Business Development Center, the Greater Waco Chamber of Commerce, the Hispanic Chamber of Commerce, the Black Chamber of Commerce, or the Baugh Center for Entrepreneurship at Baylor Hankamer School of Business.
For more information, contact 755-2265, extension 3.