Craig Benson Quotes

I had a little delivery van, and I did work around Queens. I was also a waiter at Red Lobster, so I was working on the business in between jobs.

I always knew that I wanted to do something in business and I prepared myself for that.

I like the city. I like the concrete. I like big business. I like being a CEO of my own company and having a lot of responsibilities. At the same time, when I can go off with a backpack or off on a surfboard or even off on a run somewhere in the woods - that's where I'm really happy.

After I met my partner, Mr. Protherow, we decided to start a banking project, and at the same time we started to think already about a business on a bigger scale. At the very beginning we thought more about gaining money, to have a normal life with our families, etc.

I thought if anyone need a leg up, it was our foster children. So, I started getting involved in education reform, and that was back in 1998. And as a result of all the reform work that I had done, people urged me to run for the Minnesota state Senate. I did, I was there for six years.

Most regular, two-year MBA programs provide both experience and the capacity to link together the essential elements of management such as finance, marketing, organizational behavior, and operations.

I always thought of myself is a private-sector person. I was a reluctant candidate. I put in my time. Now it's somebody else's turn to take charge. But I am still very interested in politics.

It has been a tremendous privilege to serve the people of Utah during my time in the United States House of Representatives, but my time in the House should not be the sum total of my service.

There's smarter people than me. But you cannot have any one guy running 18 billion-dollar businesses. It just doesn't make sense to me. I've met some extraordinary leaders in my time. They struggle with running one billion-dollar business.

When I came to Congress, I came to bring what I thought was a real-world business perspective to government because, in the business world, I spent over 20 years in the high-tech industry, but it certainly was not unique.

I think running a business, doing what I've done for the last - since 1996, has taught me so many things because I started from just an idea and then had to figure out how to make it, market it, every single thing from soup to nuts on how to get a product done and out there.

It's easy not to bribe. But it's not so easy to keep a business running at the same time.

About half my time is spent on business operation type stuff.

Normally, people give up parliament because they want to do more business or spend more time with family. My wife said 'why don't you say you're giving up to devote more time to politics?'. And it is what I have done.

I came from Bill Blass, where it was a well-oiled machine and if I said I needed a fabric, it was done. Now, I have to budget everything. I have to take on the role not just as a designer but a business. But I'm a glass half-full kind of guy.

I'm an inventor. I don't enjoy running the business.

The biggest challenge is to build the team and start the company, while hiring people, raising money, building a brand which has no history, all at the same time. You're doing a lot of things that in an established company are already done.

Well, I've been in the political arena all of my life, and 10 years of that as a candidate and elected official, and that's about enough.

Admiration takes on a whole new level when you appreciate just how complex it is to run a modern business.

If you can run one business well, you can run any business well.

I've been in Parliament since 1983, and I've been involved in many issues over the time.

Every time I would give a talk, someone would say, 'You ought to go into politics.' I prefer to call it government leadership. My life has taken me to places where I have experiences that I think I can share. A lot of times, we see people who are career politicians. I'm not the conventional candidate, nor do I want to be.

It's much more difficult running a business than buying one.

I have run large organizations, I know what it takes to create a healthy business climate, and I have more experience than Jerry Brown doing that. So it'll be a stark contrast, a career politician vs. someone who has met a payroll, gotten a return on investment, knows how to use technology to do more with less.

I have dealt with politicians ever since I came into the government in 1971. I have seen many prime ministers, many finance ministers.