LOU MYERS...

Lou Myers  is currently working with Debbie Allen and Robin Givens  on a new sitcom entitled "MY PARENTS, MY SISTER AND ME."  He can also be seen preforming his one man cabaret show "Just a little bit of Somethin'" at Windows Over Harlem in New York city.    He recently completed his  fifth appearance  on  Broadway    in “Cat on a Hot Tin Roof” African American Style.  “Oprah Winfrey’s The Color Purple” marked Lou Myers fourth Broadway appearance.  He was the only performer in the play the audience recognized and applauded every time he appeared on stage and that was better than having his name in print.  They all knew him from his work through the years. Lou  is best known as the irascible restaurant owner “Mr. Gaines” on the, hit Television series “A Different World”.  

“King Hedley II” represented   Lou Myers’ second appearance in this critically celebrated August Wilson play.  He won the NAACP “Best Actor” Award and  off-Broadway Audelco “Best Actor” Award   for his role of Stool Pigeon in “King Hedley II.” He was recently awarded the coveted “Living Legend Award” from the National Black Theatre Festival.   Mr. Myers first appeared on Broadway with the   Negro Ensemble Company’s production of  “The First Breeze of Summer,” “Ma Rainey’s Black Bottom” and the Lovable, suit selling, gambling, piano playing, uncle in August Wilson’s Pulitzer Prize Play, “The Piano Lesson.”    He previously won the off-Broadway Audelco “Best Actor” Award for the tap dancing bodyguard in “Fat Tuesday.”   Mr. Myers also preformed at local New York concert halls, cabarets, night clubs, colleges and universities, Off-Broadway, American Place production of “Do Lord Remember me and a long list of Regional Theatres.   He wrote, produced and co-directed off Broadway his critically acclaimed one man show “Just a Little Bit Something” and his historical play “Foot Steps from Before.”

He was founder and director of the “Tshaka Ensemble Players,” who for eight years, during Black History month, continually performed the historical and educational play “Foot Steps From Before” which was written and produced by Mr. Myers.   They also toured in the acclaimed play, “Shakespeare’s Julius Caesar,” set in AFRICA …  He served as the griot and dancer for several dance companies such as the Dinizula Dancers, Drummers and Singers.  He was a regular feature at the New York Museum of Natural History for (8) years.  He reads, writes and speaks French, German, Spanish and some African Dialects… Mr. Myers received his Masters and is currently a candidate for the PhD. in Comparative Literature.

Mr. Myers TV credits include: NYPD Blue, EVE, E.R., The Cosby Show, Touched By An Angel, Jag, and The Jamie Fox Show to name a few… His movie credits include: The Fighting Temptations, Lakawanna Blues (HBO) Wedding Planner, How Stella Got Her Groove Back, Bullworth, Friday After Next, Passions of Darkly Noon (Showtime), Cobb.  Tin Cup, Volcano, Everything’s Jake, The Stand In, All About You and Goodbye Lover. 

Mr. Myers has come a long way from the mountains of West Virginia. He began singing Jazz and Blues with the touring company of “Negro Music in Vogue.”   His Cabaret show has been acclaimed in Berlin, Paris, Hong Kong, Tokyo, and New York, as well as Los Angeles at the Roosevelt Hotel..  Mr. Myers is Chairman and  Chief Enlightenment Officer for Global Business Incubation (501c3) and Chairman of the Lou Myers Scenario Motion Picture Institute/Theatre.  Mr. Myers is a futurist, historian, mentor, lecturer, trainer and has toured Colleges, Universities, and many other venues  performing, storytelling our ancestral history and speaking on panels with professors and business experts around the world about new trends in business and urban community economic development. 
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Ms. McDonald is President of The Lou Myers Scenario Motion Picture Institute/Theatre and Global Business Incubation, Inc. (GBI) (501 c3)   Through her leadership GBI provides a wide range of services from focus group development to arranging strategic alliances, from training leadership teams to facilitating executive board meetings.

Tonia McDonald was selected and joined 49 of California’s Top Women Corporate Executives, Business Professionals, Educators and State Government & Non-Profit Leaders  in Leadership California a prestigious, yearlong program for 50 women leaders from across the state of California. The Annual Issues Program (AIP) provides focused development of women leaders, exposing them to critical public and private sector issues and enhancing their competitive knowledge. It connects women leaders from across the state with each other and with top decision-makers, thinkers and practitioners. 

 Through GBI she lead the collaborative  partnership with Los Angeles downtown community development agencies, corporations, colleges and universities to create a multi-media, entertainment, technology Incubator in the Historic Core of downtown LA. Over 50 companies were incubated which helped to create 300 new jobs in a depressed and high unemployment area. In April of 2000, she and her GBI partner received the White House Millennium Council Award for “...modeling hope, imagination and courage in incubating small businesses in Los Angeles”. 

Also through GBI she lead  the team collaborative  partnership with the Port of Los Angeles to create a series of interactive cooperative  workshops focused on Small and Mid-sized Companies partnering with and doing Business successfully with China. These workshops brought together Chinese buyers from China, U.S. Bankers, Export Officials, and other partners crucial for trading successfully with China to over 400 small and mid-sized companies from southern California.

Ms. McDonald has also designed computerized telecommunication systems for the Chicago Board Trade stock market floor worked in the  electrical manufacturing industry, served on the Board of Directors of several technology companies and as a corporate lobbyist for the National Center for Manufacturing Sciences (NCMS).

 She has co-authored a book on business incubation and published many articles and niche market magazines that focused on future trends.   Currently, she is launching The Urban Futurist Publication and Newsletter to address and track the economic, technological and educational trends of urban communities. 

 She has served as the President and coordinator for the Greater Los Angeles Area Futurist a partner and Chapter of the World Future Society and is a Strategic Business Futurist focusing on the human side of enterprise, education and communities. One way she is helping to inform and educate Communities about the future is through yearly conferences that focus on modeling positive scenarios of the future.  
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 Paul G. McDonald is Founder and Chief Research Officer for The Lou Myers Scenario Motion Picture Institute/Theatre  and Global Business Incubation, (GBI) a highly effective researcher, innovator futurist,  communicator, facilitator, and change agent.    Over a 25 year period, he has documented and benchmarked the blueprints of successful entrepreneurs, corporations, business incubators, cooperatives, teaching and testing factories, economic development programs, and community and business wealth creation models and systems used around the world including: Sunkist Corporation, Control Data Corporation, Mondragon, REACH, Silicon Valley, McDonalds, National Center for Manufacturing Sciences, The Irish Answer, The Ben Franklin Partnership, and The Austin Technology Incubator. 

 As part of his research, Mr. McDonald has met and interviewed famous and notable wealth creators including Ray Kroc of McDonalds, Walt Disney of Disney, W. Clement Stone - the Father of Motivational Speaking, Jack Goldsen - founder of FTD Florist, MCI, and the AirPhone, and Dr. George Kotsmetsky - founder of Teledyne Corporation and the IC2 Institute at the University of Texas in Austin.

 As a nationally recognized Urban Futurist, Paul McDonald has taught students, conducted workshops, and participated in Strategic Alliance and Think Tank Conferences at HarvardUniversity, MIT, Yale, University of Texas at Austin, ChicagoStateUniversity, LoyolaMarymountUniversity, UCLA and San DiegoStateUniversitys Minority Business Development Corporation and San Diego State Foundation.  

 In his capacity as a "Zero Time Scholar", Paul McDonald has served as a new business development consultant for Amway, Operation PUSH, IBM, Fidelity Union Life, Encyclopedia Britannica, the World Bank, Philadelphia International, Curton Records, Eddie Thomas Productions, the Jackson Five Productions, Major League Baseball and Professional Athletes, Equity Life Insurance, the National Center for Manufacturing Sciences, the Port of Los Angeles, and Economic Development Department for the City of Los Angeles  among many others.

Paul McDonald is the "imagineer" of the blueprint for the implementation of the GBIs Collaborative Demonstration Project which is based on the "worlds best practices".  This project is envisioned to serve as an economic engine for the development of multimedia "edutainment" based small businesses within underserved communities to power and broadcast the rebirth of  viable new urban business communities in Zero Time. He is responsible for keeping this innovative project on track and focused on results.

 His background includes 25 years of entrepreneurial, small business and Corporate experience, extensive research, implementation, and teaching of human performance technologies, as well as designing innovative approaches to fostering innovation and creativity. In the  entrepreneurial arena, he has researched and  modeled successful, economies, institutions and  businesses in technology,  publishing,and  and more.   He has been using modeling/simulating and scenario techniques in the field of small business, and community, corporate training and consulting ever since.  His training and facilitating experience has enabled him to test and refine his research and futurists approaches to managing change and navigating the new economy. 

 Mr. McDonald has pioneered the  incorporation of  modeling, simulating and scenario planning experiential strategies into his work with cities, corporate executives, small business owners, educators and inner city youth.  He has worked and lead many events at Loyola Marymount University , (A GBI sponsor and partner) and many other colleges and universities, corporations, and community groups. Mr. McDonald  has influenced the learning of college, university professors, instructors, students and personnel, cities, community organizations, small business and corporate personnel.   as well as non-profit agencies.  He has coached, mentored and partnered with  colleges, universities, community organizations, corporations several nationally known Corporate CEO's and scientist.  

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Phil Brown is Executive Director for  The Lou Myers Scenario Motion Picture Institute/Theatre  and GBI.  He has followed his family's long line of successful entrepreneurs in San Diego.  His grandfather opened Browns Market on Imperial Avenue in 1942 and his father established a manufacturing assembly plant in LoganHeights and was nationally recognized in 1968 by President Reagan as one of the Department of Defenses first minority contractors. 

 In the early 90s Mr. Brown was the first to develop and construct a major subdivision consisting of high-end quality homes in Southeastern San Diego. Additionally, Mr. Brown constructed the first two major subdivisions (JarretHeights and Cypress Hills) for Carter Reese and Associates.  He followed this success by orchestrating GBIs establishment in 1994 of the Merge Project in partnership with the San Diego Neighborhood Housing Association and Michael Knox, the inventor of the Monday Night Football Game.  Most recently he served as the Executive Director of the San Diego Urban Leagues Urban Housing and Community Development Corporation. During his tenure he oversaw the organizations affordable housing and community development projects targeted for homeless veterans, low income, and first-time homebuyers (the underserved).

  Mr. Brown has served on various boards including the San Diego Planning Commission, the Private Industry Council (The Workforce Partnership) and the San Diego based California Southern Small Business Development Corporation, which provides loan guarantees to small businesses.  He is a graduate of the National Development Councils Affordable Housing Finance and Development Training sponsored by Bank of America in 2000 and the 2001 graduate of the Matrix Non-Profit Leadership Training Program sponsored by the Anne Casey Foundation and the Stewart Foundation.

 Mr. Brown has and will continue to focus on establishing the strategic alliances with community-based non-profit organizations, small business owners and entrepreneurs, educational institutions, foundations and major corporations for the purpose of implementing GBIs Collaborative Demonstration Project in underserved communities.