2019 LES Education—What We Have Done And Where We Are Going

By Mark Keagle, Director of Education—LES (USA and Canada)

I want to welcome Dr. Mark Shelley, Of Counsel for Womble Bond Dickinson, as the Senior Vice President of Education for The Licensing Executives Society. Mark brings a level of expertise and energy that will help to continue the momentum that LES Education has been generating. We are thankful for his generous offer to accept this position, and we are lucky to have his voice added to the conversation.

LES Education started 2019 with a remarkable custom course for Sanofi Genzyme in January. It was a well-received two-day course hosted by Sanofi at their Cambridge, MA office. There was a lot of hard work and hours put in by the instructors to ensure that the course was a success. Many thanks to Brian O’Shaughnessy, Jennifer Gottwald, Joe Miotke, Kevin McElroy, Gauri Prakash-Canjels, Paul Stewart, Krista Holt, Michele Riley, and Jeff Whittle. Without them the course would not have been possible. Thank you all!

LES was also well represented at the AUTM Annual Meeting in Austin, Texas at the JW Marriott in May. To kick off the meeting, LES offered our CLP Review course. To say that the attendees enjoyed the course would be an understatement. The response leaving the room was that many were nervous about the exam prior to the day-long course, but were now excited to take the CLP Exam. That is a compliment to the team of instructors who put on such an amazing course: Bob Held, Krista Holt, and Matthew McNeill. Thanks also need to be given to Eleanor Nelson who helped coordinate the event with JW Marriott and was on-site providing support for the instructors in Austin. Again, thanks to all involved that made our CLP Review Course so successful.

After AUTM, we had LES University West in Vancouver. Over the course of four days, from March 25–28, we offered three classes. On Monday, March 25, Norton Rose, Fulbright LLP, hosted our one day IP Basics Review course. LES is very thankful to Richard Johnson for all the work he did and for providing such a beautiful facility for presenting the one-day IP Basics course. For the next few days, the University of British Columbia hosted our three-day Business Development course at the Robson Square campus, as well as the IP Valuation course on March 28. A special thanks to Katja Mjos and Eleanor Nelson. Without their hard work and dedication those two courses wouldn’t have been as well attended. But it is our instructors who deserve the most thanks and the greatest credit. Karen Temple and Pat Gattari did an amazing job teaching the IP Basics course. And thanks to Bob Held, Gina Lupino, Mark Shelley, Jonathon Hance, Paul Stewart, Carolyn Tomberlin, and Sean Sheridan for teaching the Business Development and IP Valuation courses, which went off without an hitch. Our attendees were engaged and involved all three days.

May saw LES in Atlanta, partnering with AT&T, to offer our one-day IP Basics Review course customized to their corporate needs. A very special thanks needs to be given to Stephen Kabakoff, Scott Frank, and Cathy Lemons for all the work they did to help get this course off the ground. AT&T hosted LES and did so much to make the course a huge success. But this course wouldn’t have been possible without Matthew McNeill and Mike Gross, our amazing instructors. Those two put in hours of work to revise the material and conferenced with one another for weeks to bounce around ideas.

The remainder of 2019 should be as equally successful! In July, LES will be in Montreal, working with Young Members Congress and LES International, to present our two-day Negotiation Skills course. Thanks to Stacey Dunn, the course will be held at ROBIC LLP. This is an ideal location, because it is only blocks away from the YMC Conference.  We are fortunate to have Chuck Neuenschwander and Jennifer Gottwald joining us as instructors for this course.

In September, LES will be in Washington, D.C. Brian O’Shaughnessy has graciously offered to host our course offerings at the Dinsmore Shohl building in the heart of our nation’s capital. LES will offer two courses: a half-day Ethics course and a one-day CLP Review course.

At the LES Annual Meeting in Phoenix, in October, we are planning to both start and end our conference with add-on courses. The array of courses will include: Business Development for Life Sciences, Negotiation Skills, IP Business Basics, CLP Review, Ethics, and a one-day Valuation course.

And this is only a small sample of what we have going on. We are working with many of our local chapters to put on additional education courses. Keep an eye on the Viewpoints Education page to see all the current offerings and dates.

Lastly I want to thank the members of the Education Committee and the instructors who have worked so tirelessly to make sure LES Education serves the needs of our members and the Society. To Matthew McNeill, Paul Stewart, Karen Temple, Louise Levien, Mark Shelley, Carolyn Tomberlin, Sam Mercer, and Mark Solomon, my words of appreciation and gratitude will never be enough to thank you for all that you have done and continue to do. Without our instructors and the sacrifices they make, none of this would be possible. We are truly in their debt.

If you have questions regarding Education, please don’t hesitate to email me. If there is a particular course you are interested in you can contact me at any time. I am always here to help and listen to our members.