Check out a great resource for entrepreneurs who would like to be coached and mentored in growing their business.

• www.advantagevalleyels.com

This is a fantastic initiative to help West Virginia entrepreneurs in the Advantage Valley region successfully create wealth and jobs through growing their business. On a personal note, my very good friend Mark Burdette is the General Manager of this project. Mark is a seasoned entrepreneur himself and was my business partner and co-founder of Citynet Corporation, WV's first and largest commercial Internet service provider. I had the privilege of serving as the President of the company and Mark served as Vice President. Together, with a great team of employees, we worked closely together to start and grow the business from idea, inception, startup, venture capital funding through our partners at Fourth Venture Investment Group, to a successful sale to a $3.4 billion dollar bank holding company (CHCO). Mark's insight from this experience equips him very well to help other entrepreneurs start and grow the business of their dreams.

Preserve your magazine or newspaper articles and showcase them in your office. Get a high quality wood lamination of your newspaper or magazine article from In The News, they have a national customer base with over 500,000 clients and do a great job for your or your clients.

Here is the scoop on this great company:

• www.inthenewsonline.com
• View Samples

Here is a very powerful, free tool from Google. Have you ever had a hard time locating one of the thousands of files on your hard drive? Now you can find any peice of information you have stored locally instantly.

• Download Google Desktop (its free of course)

• http://desktop.google.com/

It's amazing what Google just gives away for $400 a share

I'll be 'unplugged' for a week and enjoying our honeymoon in Riveria Cancun.

We're staying at www.secretsresorts.com - I'm really looking forward to the rest and relaxation.

They advertise "Breathtaking beauty, peace & tranquility in some of the world's most romantic Caribbean locations." - I'll let you know upon returning!!

Here is a great tool that we have found that lets you make your own PDF files for free.

Use the Cute PDF Writer to create a .pdf file of your documents, spreadsheets, or print off web articles to save or forward as a .pdf file.

This saves you hundreds of dollars and works great for sharing information in .pdf files. You'll want to download and install both the PDF Writer and the Converter to make things work.

It takes less than 10 minutes to get it all up and running. Enjoy.

Innova Fast Track Workshop, May 9th, Noon-4pm, $35 Reception, May 9th, 5:30p-7:30p, Charleston Marriott All Tracks, May 10th, $155 SBA Small Business Awards Banquet, May 10th >> 5:30p-8:30p at the Charleston Marriott, $50

Build your Brand. Build your Wealth! This is one of the most exciting conferences if you are a real-world entrepreneur and want to learn how to grow your business and take things to the next level!

The event is attended by over 400+ entrepreneurs and features excellent world-class speakers and workshop leaders.

This year the keynote speaker is Harry Beckwith, bestselling author of Selling the Invisible and What Clients Love. Harry has led major marketing initiatives for 14 Fortune 100 companies, including Target, Wells Fargo, Merck and IBM, work that has won the American Marketing Association's highest award.

Also enjoy the SBA Small Business Awards dinner recognizing the SBA's Entrepreneur of the Year and the DreamQuest Awards Luncheon honoring a WV high school student for outstanding achievement in the area of business plan development!

• Visit the http://www.wvcoe.com conference website
• Here is the detailed conference agenda.

April 27th, 2006 at the WV High Technology Foundation Fairmont, WV, 8am to 5pm, $75 Fee

This is a great event. Each year I have learned so much about the capital and funding aspects of high-growth businesses. I encourage you to check out this conference. Learn about how to raise venture funding, finding angel investors and how to leverage local resources to help launch your company. A great selection of speakers and programs are focused on helping entrepreneurs enjoy the highest level of success.

Keynotes by Phillip Singerman, Ph.D., Venture Partner with Toucan Capital - Discusses "What to Know Before you Try to Raise Funding" - Dr. Singerman has 30 years of experience in technology commercialization and a national reputation for successfully investing public funds in technology start-ups.Also on the agenda are presentations by Dr. Gregory Moore, O.D. of the WV Laser Eye Center, "Raising Angel Capital through the Eyes of an Entrepreneur." A discussion panel with Steve Platz, CFO of Vested Health and venture partners Richard Ross, Executive Director of WV JIT and Patrick Bond, Partner with Mountaineer Capital.Dr. Henry Harmon, President & CEO of Triana Energy helps wrap up the day with a presentation entitled "Making it Over the Financial Hump".

This is a full day and an exceptional learning experience.Here is a 4 page .pdf of the Agenda & Registration Form Visit www.innovawv.org or www.wvhtf.org for more information regarding the conference and the various resources each organization can share with you or call Connie Runyon at (304) 368-4522 to register.

May 3rd-4th at the Stonewall Resort Program Fee: $325/person, $150/student >> 11am through Dinner on the 3rd >> 8am to 1:15 on the 4th

This has been one of the best leadership learning conferences in WV. Each year since its inception it has attracted world-class speakers and provided an invaluable educational experience to those who attend.

Visit http://wvleadership4.wvu.edu/ for full details. Call Sandy Clagett Brown with the WV Roundtable at (304) 357-0850 or email her at sb.wvrt@verizon.net

A very exciting personal announcement to share right away!!

Here is Kristen and I's engagement and wedding announcement:

• www.paulhelmick.com/weddingannouncement.htm

April 15th will be a very special and joyous day in my life from now on!

So exciting! Just had to share the great news!!

Everyone is doing it! Blogging that is. And as I have come to learn over the past few months - running a blog is one of the very best ways to share dynamic, up-to-date information with clients, colleagues, and friends.

At the same time the information shared is syndicated to millions of servers worldwide and a real contribution can be made by the sharing of knowledge through a blog. Since our newest member of the company is an absolute technical wizard (thanks to Paul McNeely) it is now so much easier to post current content every couple days vs publishing it on our website or putting everything into an e-newsletter.

Now we can just send out summary emails that highlight topics and articles - and more simply share the links to that content vs putting it all into an email. This makes the e-newsletter updates much easier to quickly scan and get to specific articles / updates that you find of interest and value.

Thanks again for your readership, interest and most of all your personal and professional relationship. I look forward to sharing some great information on how to profitably grow your business and reach your personal and professional goals.