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Phil Borden Biography

Dr. Philip Borden has advised businesses, nonprofits, universities, professional associations, governments, and elected and appointed officials on small business development, strategic and tactical planning, business/nonprofit financing and funding, intellectual property, and policy issues on four continents. He has presented about 100 papers to professional and civic associations in the United States, China, Russia, Japan, Brazil, and Iraq; and in professional journals and popular magazines from the United States to Kurdistan.

Trained in history, mathematics, political theory, and business management in the U.S. and at Oxford, Dr. Borden left UCLA as a full time faculty member in 1974 to found or co-found high technology businesses in artificial intelligence, electronic and electro-optical design, and forensic image processing. Several of his ventures were featured in national media for their innovative ideas.

He entered the non-profit world in 1993 to head Asian American Economic Development Enterprises, then Woman’s Enterprise Development Corporation, and since 2008, Essergy Consulting. Essergy, which he co-founded, brings together top flight consultants to help socially and environmentally responsible small companies grow and prosper and to conduct economic development studies for governments.

SELECTED PUBLICATIONS/PAPERS, 2009-10

  • 2010 “PubHist4GenTxt: … on Cary Carson’s ‘What’s Plan B?), California Council for the Promotion of History, with Howard s. Miller.
  • 2010 “High Technology Business Incubation: An Idea Who’s Time Has Come?” Minority and Small Business Review, with Jill Dominguez.
  • 2009 “Market Assessments: Business Constraints and Opportunities at Enabling Environment, Sector, and Firm Levels,” Tijara Iraq Business Development Program, U.S.A.I.D., with Eric Nigh, Mohammad Shohaieb. Separate reports on the following provinces:  Anbar (211pp), Babil (219pp), Al Najaf (217pp), Dhi Qar (200+pp), Baghdad (332pp), Salahadin (190 pp).
  • 2009 “Innovative Models for Financing University Spin-Out Technologies,” Pontifica Universidade Catolica do Rio de Janeiro, Brazil.
  • 2009 “Stimulating SME Growth: Strategies for Boosting/Supplementing University Activities,” World Intellectual Property Organization, Brazil.
  • 2009 “Alternative Financing Models for Technology Development: U.S. Models for Brazil’s Technology Transfer Officers,” REPICT (Brazil’s professional technology/economic development association)
  • 2009 “Impact of New Environmental Regulations on California Small Business,” Minority and Small Business Review.
  • 2009 “Very Small Business Creates Very Large Change,” Minority and Small Business Review, with Terry Bibbens.
  • 2009 “AB-32 and California Small Business: Economics and Political Impacts for the Coming Decade, California Small Business Association White Paper.

Dr. Borden also is the author of Shaku Maku: On the Ground in Occupied Iraq (2008), on his experience as Chief of Party, attempting to implement economic development at the height of the violence there. One Iraq expert called Shaku Maku “one of the five must reads” on the subject.