Summit organizer builds on momentum

Clearwater native Brian Kornfeld did the rocket scientist thing after he earned a bachelor’s degree from the University of Michigan and a master’s from the University of Florida, both in aerospace engineering. He moved to Los Angeles and worked for Northrop Gruman.

But Kornfeld longed to get back to Tampa and launch his own business. He returned to the region, got an MBA from USF in 2014 and started a software company — a startup, he says, that soon became “a complete and utter failure.” One reason it flopped, Kornfeld heard, was people told him Tampa wasn’t really a tech startup kind of town. “One of the things I kept hearing was there was not enough talent, not enough money and not enough customers,” says Kornfeld, 37. “But that didn’t make sense to me. I had to find out why.”