Washington -- Minority Professional Network (MPN) www.minorityprofessionalnetwork.com is a combination of components: a career center, events calendar and specific content channel for entrepreneurship and business targeted at a broad group of minorities. 

"One thing we are doing as we grow, said Thomas Brooks, Vice-President of Marketing and Senior Webzine Editor for Minority Professional Network, LLC and Black Engineer of the Year 1998 award winner for Excellence in Technical Sales and Marketing, "is offer info connection with e newsletters: events; job and career information."

In 1998, CJ Bland, President, Chief Technology Officer and Vice president of sales for Minority Professional Network launched weekly ATLinfoconnection and JOBINFOconnection electronic informational newsletters, which focused on networking events and activities involving minority professional organizations and groups, plus job listing career opportunities. The InfoConnection publications reached thousands of readers weekly, and served as the foundation and building blocks for Minority Professional Network (MPN)

Launching an internet business not too long after thousands of dotcoms have come and gone is not a problem for the two MBA wiz kids. And they've done it without angel investors or venture capital.

"Handling cash flow well is a must for any business to succeed," Brooks commented.

"We are leveraging existing customers. With three revenue channels: career centers, companies pay us to post jobs; events calendar, people pay us to list events i.e. faith-based events, book clubs and advertising."

MPN has more than 100,000 hits a week and is attracting 20,000 unique visitors per month since the site was launched November 2001. The typical MPN user is a minority from a broad group - college educated, completed a bachelor degree. About a third hold a Masters.

"Companies seeking to grow their workforce in a diverse way can target a very desirable group, Brooks says"

MPN is a digital community. It's typical for subscribers to subscribe 4 to 8 times a year.

"If I own a business, I can put the word out on the small business portfolio, users do information sharing as they network, and they create and drive the micro economy of minorities"

"With more than 100,000 hits a day MPN is clearly pushing out the kind of content people want - information and tips on career development .We're concentrating on driving traffic up and generating revenues."