en•tre•pre•neur - n. A person who organizes, operates, and assumes the risk for a business venture.

IN TODAY'S BUSINESS WORLD, traditional career paths that culminated at retirement with a pension and a gold watch are typically relegated to something of a by-gone era in the movies. Certainly, ethics, loyalty, and job security are still highly prized attributes in a corporate citizen, but with stockholders and executives pressing management to continually do more with less, there's no fat left to cut. What we're left with are often hard decisions that have pushed otherwise the moral envelope into new territory that bears names like Enron, WorldCom, and Tyco.

Another unintended consequence is something much more promising. As corporate loyalty wanes in some sectors, the need to be constantly sharp and reinventing oneself has given rise to a new class of people: the entrepreneurs.

We all have ideas of what an entrepreneur is. Most people would see entrepreneurs as those who have forged a business path of their own, casting aside the traditional 9-to-5, the cube farm, and the bureaucracy of a large corporation. No doubt, that's true, but it's important to take a look within each of us not to see if that entrepreneurial spirit exists, but rather how much of that intrepid soul is in our make-up. The reality is that we're all on a scale of sorts that has on one end someone who has to call the shots and be the risk-taker. These rare individuals are those that thrive on the adventure of running their own business. Success or failure rests in their hands. On the other end of that spectrum is the bureaucrat who needs structure and rigid guidelines.

Where we fall in that picture depends on us as individuals and we move on that scale depending on a number of factors. That you're reading this publication or are a Quorum member puts you closer to the former than the latter. Even if you work in a corporate setting, your ability to adapt, to think "outside the box," or to learn new skills in keeping yourself marketable all point to the entrepreneur in you.

I think you can see that if you march to the beat of the corporate drummer, you can benefit from the lessons of the successful entrepreneur. I hope as well that for our small business members, you can see the benefits of having some structure from your compatriots in the concrete jungle as well as from fellow self-proclaimed entrepreneurs. Without a doubt, it all comes down to innovation and doing whatever you do better, not necessarily with less.

I'm pleased to feature Kyle Simonson of Simonson Salon & Day Spas as our member in the spotlight near one end of the entrepreneurial spectrum and the employee resource groups at Best Buy and Ernst & Young as examples of successful corporate types to accentuate the positive of both worlds. Whichever end of the spectrum you gravitate toward, I hope you'll walk away with a positive direction.

Todd Park, Editor