Credit card processing entrepreneur to deliver Harder Lecture

Robert O. Carr, chairman and CEO of Heartland Payment Systems Inc., will deliver the annual F. William Harder Lecture in Business Administration at Skidmore at 5:30 p.m. Thursday, March 29 in Gannett Auditorium of Palamountain Hall. The talk, titled "The Wonders and Worries of a 20-Year-Old-A Look Back Four Decades Later," is free and open to the public.

Just a decade old, Heartland is one of the nation's leading independently owned payment processors, handling $40 billion in credit-card and debit-card transactions for more than 100,000 restaurant, hotel, and retail merchants throughout the U.S. The Princeton, N.J.-based company was hailed in 2002 and 2003 by Inc. Magazine as one of the nation's Top 500 fastest growing companies, and made it onto BusinessWeek's InfoTech 100 list in 2006.

Carr has served as chairman and chief executive officer of Heartland Payment Systems since the company's inception in October 2000, and was co-founder in 1997 and CEO of its predecessor, Heartland Payment Systems LLC. Previously, he had founded Credit Card Software Systems, Inc. He earned a B.S. and M.S. in mathematics and computer science from the University of Illinois, and worked as a math teacher, bank manager, and software consultant before making his mark providing credit-card processing services for small and midsize businesses.

Carr credits his independent commissioned sales force with Heartland's growth and takes pleasure in reporting the number of employees who earn more in a year than he does. At the company's IPO in August 2005, 63 of them became millionaires-and Heartland became an overnight sensation, with its IPO 21 times oversubscribed, breaking the previous record held by Paypal.

An outspoken advocate for business policies that treat small and midsize businesses equitably, Carr recently spearheaded "The Merchant Bill of Rights" to promote fair credit- and debit-card processing practices on their behalf.

He was honored in 2003 with the bankcard industry's first Lifetime Achievement Award and in 2006 and with the Greater Philadelphia Venture Group's Walter M. Aikman Entrepreneur of the Year Award. A generous philanthropist as well, he and his wife, Jill, founded the Give Something Back Foundation, which offers full college scholarships to high-achieving, at-risk eighth-graders.

Carr was chosen to deliver the lecture "because of his stature and record of success in the business world," according to Paul Calhoun, F. William Harder Chair of Business Administration, who said he expects Carr will energize students about the success to be had when "you follow your instincts and jump on opportunities as they present themselves."

The College's annual F. William Harder Lecture was inaugurated in 1985 through the generosity of F. William Harder, a Skidmore parent who served as trustee from 1968 to 1980. The lecture brings together students and faculty with industry leaders to explore the current business environment and the challenges that lie ahead.