Daniel S. Peña Sr.

Daniel S. Peña Sr., born on August 10, 1945, is a successful American businessman, entreprenuer, mentor and high performance coach originally from East Los Angeles.

He is the Chairman and Founder of The Guthrie Group, an investment consortium specializing in facilitating transactions, founded in 1997. With offices in the UK and Asia it has acted as principal, advisor and agent to global and regional companies and institutions. Peňa was also founder, former Chairman, President and Chief Executive Officer of Great Western Resources Inc., (GWRI), a Houston-based natural resource company. At the time of Mr. Peña’s decision to retire in 1990, GWRI was operational in the US, the Gulf of Mexico, the UK and South America and had a public market capitalization of over $450 million, with interests in coal, and oil and gas exploration and production, drilling and construction pipeline. At the time the company was acquired (January 1997), he was the largest individual shareholder.

In an 8-year period, starting in 1982 with only $820, Mr Peña grew Great Western Resources to $450 million while energy prices collapsed. The price of oil dropped from $40 to less than $8 per barrel and more than 10,000 energy companies in the US alone went out of business. His first year in business he did over a $50 million in revenue with one employee (himself), a leased fax machine, and a phone out of his new born son's bedroom. During this massive energy decline GWRI grew 542,000% or an average of over 67,000% per year!

He has been a lecturer for the Continuing Education for CPA’s program, has travelled extensively and lectured on strategic planning, finance and economics, and has taught pro bono a year long course to minority business students on entrepreneurism at his alma mater, California State University. He also volunteered his time to rebuild LA subsequent to the devastating riots near his childhood home in Los Angeles and served at the request of the mayor on the Executive Committee for The Alliance for a Safer LA.

In recent years, since retiring in 1992, he has given keynote addresses, interactive workshops, seminars and conferences on both sides of the Atlantic and Pacific on building businesses exponentially and has been recognized as a “super success business coach” and mentor.

Mr. Peña is an extremely dynamic and powerful speaker, motivator, and grand master entrepreneur. He has captivated audiences of up to 7,000 with his many vignettes about world leaders and relating to his personal financial transactions. His Quantum Leap Advantage™ business success seminars have been in demand in the United States, Canada and Europe and are the first and only such event to receive free Public Service Announcements in the US on commercial television for the business success coaching industry. His seminars have been sponsored by various universities and corporations such as Dell as well as The National Association of Women Business Owners (NAWBO).

He still travels extensively through out the US, Asia, Europe over seeing business interests. He splits his time between homes in Manila, Monte Carlo and the UK where he spends the summers and holidays with his three grown children, Kelly, Derrick and Danny at their 15th Century storybook estate, Guthrie Castle, Scotland. Peña and his sons play golf on their own private golf course and he and all three children work out in their fully equipped fitness center.

He is a member of the Jonathan Club in Los Angeles; The London Capital Club, Manila Golf and Country Club and the Clermont Club and Mosimann's in London.

Early Years

Born to Hispanic American parents Manuel S. Peña, who was born in Deming, New Mexico in 1918 and Amy Peña, who was born in Mexico City in 1921. Dan Peña was born in Jacksonville, Florida at the end of World War II, while his father served in the US Naval Airforce. His father was a 28 year veteran of the LAPD and Peña has been a strong proponent of law and order. His father worked 2 additional jobs to make ends meet, after returning from World War II as a young man on the LAPD. His mother was a housewife and is credited with building Dan's self esteem as a child. His father was head of the Sirhan Sirhan investigation for the LAPD subsequent to the assassination of Robert Kennedy in 1968.

Peña was expelled from elementary school 3 times before he was 10 years old for various acts of aggression. He was extremely rebellious through his early college years before he voluntarily entered the military in June 1966.

Peña had a distinguished career with the US army, entering voluntarily as a private and graduating from Infantry Officer’s Candidate School (OCS) at Fort Benning, Georgia, a Second Lieutenant serving as Military Police, Intelligence Officer and Security Officer at NATO Headquarters during the late 60s.

After being honorably discharged from the US Army in 1969, he re-enrolled in college as a probationary student, because of poor grades at various colleges prior to entering the military. Peña returned to school with vengeance, completing a 4-year degree in 2.5 years taking as much as 26 units in a semester and 15 units in summer school while attending two colleges at the same time, California State University and UCLA.

He graduated on the Dean's List with a BS in Business Administration, from California State University, UCLA, Northridge (CSUN) in January 1971. He attended graduate school at CSUN, but didn’t complete his Masters in Finance. He had a scholarship to attend law school, but never pursued it.

Career

Creator, author and lecturer on creating and managing explosive growth sponsored by various international universities, organizations and corporations. He calls his methodology "Quantum Leap Advantage" a hard-hitting, no-nonsense seminars focused on making big money. Upon retiring in 1992, Mr. Pena travelled around the world to conduct seminars and conferences on building business exponentially and personal development.

Prior to Mr. Peña’s founding of Great Western, he was the Chairman of JPK Industries, Inc., a vertically integrated company in the petroleum industry, involved in oil and gas drilling, operating, production, crude oil refining and marketing.

As cofounder he helped grow the company to $50,000,000 in three years. Prior to JPK Industries, he was with the investment banking firm of Bear Stearns and Co. where he advised clients throughout the US and internationally.

Subsequent to this tenure at Bear Stearns, he served as President and CEO of Kennedy Industries Inc., a company with major interests in real estate, insurance, financial services, and the entertainment industry. While still in college, he was made a principal in a real estate firm and led the nation in sales.

Since leaving Wall Street and while building his own companies exponentially, Peňa has successfully negotiated transactions with multinationals such as Siemens, AG Teijin Industries, Credit Lyonnais, British Petroleum, Chemical Bank, Shell Oil, Midlantic bank, Chevron, Bank of Scotland, Hunt Oil, Credit Suisse, Citicorp, Texaco, Union Bank, Fidelity, Barclays Bank, Prudential, Baring Brothers, Samuel Montagu, Onassis Shipping Lines, S.G. Warburg, Bank of America, Wells Fargo Bank, Union Bank, Security Pacific Bank, Midland Bank, Home Savings, Coppers & Lybrand, Ernst & Young, Arthur Anderson, Deloitte Touche, Price Waterhouse, KPMG, and the US, Israeli, Kuwaiti, Yemen, Mexican, Indonesian, Philippine, Netherlands and Japanese Governments. In addition, he has successfully transacted business with both the Church and Bank of England.

As a quantum growth strategist, Mr. Peña was the principal speaker at the prestigious Center of Entrepreneurial Management’s annual management course. He has been a member of the National Speakers Association (NSA), the International Platform Association, and has been listed among “Who’s Who in Professional Speaking”.

Mr. Peña was also the speaker at “Success Magazine’s Annual Conference” on entrepreneurism. As one of America’s leading business executives and business success coaches, he was asked to articulate his methodology on “Managing Growth and Diversification” as well as “Growth Strategies for the Next Millennium”. He has also articulated his methodologies on “How to Achieve Explosive Growth” to the YPO’s (Young Presidents Organisation) North and South America International Resource Convention and continues as a “highly rated resource speaker”. In addition to his commanding leadership and communication skills, Mr. Peña has written a column on "Explosive Growth Strategies" for Agora Publishing, one of the largest financial newsletter publishers in the world. Agora Publishing researched, produced and distributed the highly successful financial instructional product – "Financing Your Dream" – where Peña walks you through a step by step methodology to achieve your dream.

He has also sponsored and taught interactive workshops on entrepreneurism at the Center for the Advancement of Small Businesses at Arizona State University. Peña also participated in the launching of The Entrepreneurs Club by the Grampian Enterprise Board for the regional government in Aberdeen, Scotland near his home, Guthrie Castle. He has also given a keynote address for Nijenrode University’s (Holland’s leading business school) 50th Anniversary Celebration in Amsterdam. Subsequent to this successful address, Nijenrode sponsored a three-day Quantum Leap Advantage Business Success Seminar at the University. In February 1998, the Entrepreneur Club of the University of Nijenrode presented Dan with the title “First Honorary Member of Ordernemend Nijenrode”.

Peña has also conducted day-long workshops at Erasmus University in Rotterdam and articulated super-growth strategies at EuroFit, Kassel, Germany. He has also been keynote speaker at the prestigious De Amstel club in Amsterdam and The World Trade Center Clubs both in Rotterdam and Amsterdam where his topic was "Explosive Growth". Mr. Peña also led The Executive Studies (London) Series Chief Executive Program featuring the "21st Century Boardroom and Quantum Growth". He was also retained as a consultant to bring QLA methodology to one of the top 25 companies in the world where Mr. Peña mentored for 10 years Dr. Klaus Kleinfeld, who became CEO of Siemens (2005), AG.

He was appointed to the US Presidential Roundtable Senatorial Commission in 1991. He has served on the Alumni Association board of California State University, Northridge (where he graduated with a BS in Business Administration in 1971). He has also served as a member of the University’s Trust Fund Board, serving on the finance and investment committees, and the University’s Foundation Board. He is a 1972 graduate of the New York Institute of Finance.

Mr. Peña was Director of Financial Planning and a television media spokesperson at Pain-Webber, Jackson & Curtis (where he is credited for starting the first financial planning department), and a financial advisor to entities as diverse as the Vatican and the Los Angeles Police Protective League.

In 1997 his autobiographical business success-oriented, limited-edition book entitled “Build your Own Guthrie” was published by Great Wisdom Publishing. It articulates the step-by-step methodology he used to build Great Western Resources from scratch to a market capitalization of over $450 million against all odds. Peña signed a contract with British publisher, Medina Ltd, to distribute a revised, even more comprehensive edition of the book entitled “Your First 100 Million” on a world-wide basis in 1999. In early 2009 the second edition of “Your First Hundred Million” is due out for world wide distribution.

Dan Peña currently serves as Chairman of his personal holding and other growing companies in various industries in the US, Europe and Asia.

Recognition

Peña has been a major benefactor {through The Charlie Soladay Award, named after his deceased partner and The University of Texas graduate, J. Charles Soladay) to the Moot Corp.’s International Entrepreneurial Challenge at the University of Texas, at Austin. Here, top graduate business schools from all parts of the globe compete. They include winners of the North American Business Plan Competition, the International Business Plan Competition and the New Venture Competition.

He has been on the roster of Who’s Who in America, was a nominee for INC magazine’s Entrepreneur of the Year in 1989, and was chairman and major shareholder of Success Development, Inc. (SDI), a company on INC’s 500 1996 and 1997 list of fastest growing privately held companies (# 152 and #195 respectively) in the US. He was also chairman and major stockholder of the company which was presented with the “MKB Innovation Prize of 1998” award for company of the year by the Economic Minister of the Netherlands (Holland). The CEO of that same company was nominated "European Entrepreneur of the year, 1999".

He has been the recipient of many awards including:

The 1981 Latin Business Association Outstanding Business Owner Award;The 1994 John Regan Award for Excellence by the Center of Entrepreneurial Management;The American International Real Estate Expo and Conference AIREEC 2008,“Man of the Year Award”;The 2008 AIREEC “Inspirational Leadership Award”

He has been featured in many US publications such as the Los Angeles Times (an article which won the Pulitzer Prize), Entrepreneur magazine, Success magazine, Business Solutions, The Texas Lawyer, The National Law Journal, The Houston Chronicle, Robb Report, Hispanic Business Magazine, The LA Opinion, Investor’s Business Daily (Leaders and Success), and the Houston Business Journal as well as dozens of UK publications such as The Times, The Observer, The Independent, The Sunday Telegraph, The Financial Times, The Daily Telegraph, Press and Journal, Scotland on Sunday, Today, The Guardian, The Daily Mail, The Sunday Times, Business Opportunity World, Streetwise Business, Executive Woman, and Success Now, along with the Dutch publications OBJEKT, Bouwteam and Limburg Bagblad. He was also featured on US, UK and German television.

Mr. Peña is also an active sportsman, having received the Bronze Show Award, 1976, from Los Angeles Athletic Club, and the Award of Merit in 1977 from Sports Illustrated. He was featured in People’s Court Judge Joseph Wapner’s book, “A View from the Bench” as one of the most courageous cases he adjudicated in his thirty year career. In addition, Peña stair masters and/or lifts weights almost daily in spite of his busy schedules in retirement and has recently taken up golf again as a form of relaxation.

Books

"Your First $100 Million", published by Medina Ltd. in UK, 1999. Can be found here * [http://www.danpena.com/downloads/100.pdf] ; "Building Your Own Guthrie", published by Great Wisdom Publishing, 1997

External links

* [http://www.danpena.com Dan Pena Website]
* [http://www.theguthriegroup.co.uk The Guthrie Group]
* [http://archive.thisischeshire.co.uk/2005/1/13/137160.html Be inspired...]
* [http://www.aireec.com/speakers.html?speaker=pena AIREEC California]
*http://www.epressreleases.org/event-news-press-releases.asp?auto=6446 Exponential Business Group
*http://www.newswiretoday.com/news/8107/ Newswire / Press Release
*http://www.smithfam.com/ebn/marketing/index.htm Quickturn Marketing Exposed
*http://www.wcspeakers.com/speaker.cfm?ID=8093 World Class Speakers & Entertainers
*http://www.prlog.org/10040735-super-success-high-performance-exponential-business-growth-wealth-creation-program.html Super Success, High Performance
*http://www.marketingprinciples.com/pena-case-study Advanced Marketing Consultants
*http://www.legal-blog.org/article.cfm/id/28070 Why Litigation is Nothing More Than..
*http://www.thephantomwriters.com/free_content/d/p/conventional-wisdom-is-wrong.shtml TPW Free Reprint Article
*http://www.goldwaressupport.com/index.php?_m=knowledgebase&_a=viewarticle&kbarticleid=47&nav=0 Who is Shawn Casey?
*http://http://www.web3direct.com/CaseHistory/SDI_Legrand_real_estate_training_Case_History.htm Web3direct.com: SDI Ron LeGrand
*http://www.favoritearticlesinc.com/self-help/self-help-success-planning.htm Self Help/Success Planning
*http://www.streetdirectory.com/travel_guide/6425/online_business/random_whimsy_uncensored_interview_with_dan_lok.html Random Whimsy: Uncensored Interview with Dan Lok
*http://www.websiteconversionexpert.com/public/department3.cfm What Do Multi-Millionaires...
*http://www.buynick.com/millionairesuccess.htm The Millionaire's Success Club...
*http://www.edecible.com/self-help/article482.htm Do You Love Your Job?
*http://www.topfindarticles.com/self-enhancement/article2577.htm Use the Power of Assignment Wisely
*http://www.instantwebprofitsystem.com Dan Lok Presents... Mr. Pena turned $820 into a $400
*http://www.thatnewpublishingcompany.com/quick/ Quick Turn Marketing Exposed CD-ROM
*http://www.ceoclubs.org/main/talks.htm The CEO Clubs