Calling All Entrepreneurs

Charles Gardner, owner and CEO of Gardner Rich, a brokerage firm in New York, will be visiting Detroit on Aug. 18. Gardner, whose life story was the subject of a major Hollywood film called “The Pursuit of Happyness” starring Will Smith (the movie grossed more then $300 million at the box office), will be addressing an entrepreneurial conference at TechTown, a business incubator at the north end of Wayne State University’s campus. He will speak as part of a program, called FastTrac to the Future, which is dedicated to creating 400 companies in Detroit over the next three years. The effort is being financed with a $9.3 million gift from the Kansas City-based Kaufman Foundation.