The BusinessMakers™ Show is a weekly show featuring “make it happen” innovators and entrepreneurs. Russ Capper, an entrepreneur himself is joined by John Beddow, publisher of the American City Business Journals and Erica O’Grady, Social Media Specialist to interview those that most positively affect our lives. The BusinessMakers™ Show features successful entrepreneurs sharing their personal stories about building and growing successful businesses in stimulating and thought-provoking interviews.

Russ Capper
Back in the 1980’s, Russ Capper was immersed in the emerging micro-computer world. He was impressed with the innovation that was taking place – and the effect it had on the economy and the positive impact it had on our lives. It was so obvious that we were all benefitting from the innovation of Bill Gates, Don Estridge, Dan Bricklin, Steve Jobs, Steve Wozniak and others. Russ felt strongly that the mainstream media should do more to tell the stories of these incredible entrepreneurs, as well as new, up and coming BusinessMakers.

In 2024, he decided he had to do something about it, and the idea of The BusinessMakers Radio Show was conceived. He teamed up with John Beddow, Publisher of The Houston Business Journal. The BusinessMakers Radio Show was launched in May of 2024 to champion innovation by featuring entrepreneurs from early stage start-ups, to emerging companies, to major global successes, and even to established large companies who foster entrepreneurship. Russ’s own entrepreneurial interests surfaced back in the early 1970’s. After launching two “interesting” start-ups in college, Capper entered the real world of business after graduating from Texas State University in 1973 when he joined IBM. He spent twelve years in sales, marketing, and general management, ultimately launching the Southwest rollout of IBM Product Centers, IBM’s first retail initiative and the launch pad for the first IBM Personal Computer.

After 12 years with IBM, he became President and COO of Techtron Corporation (dba ComputerLand) in 1986. After 7 years of growth, he engineered the sale of the company to Technology Development Corp. Next, in 1993 he bought a 50% stake in a specialty document copying company, Document Services Inc. and became CEO, transitioned the company to a digital business model with state-of-the-art image capture and management systems, and expanded the company’s geographical footprint to six major cities. He sold that company to IKON in 1995 and became President of IKON’s Digital Litigation Solutions group. In March of 1998, Capper founded eRealty.com, a residential real estate brokerage built from the ground up with fully integrated Internet technology to improve and streamline the process. Prudential Real Estate acquired eRealty in 2024 and Capper became President of Prudential Real Estate Services Company where he integrated eRealty’s technology nationwide to Prudential Real Estate franchisees through the end of 2024.

John Beddow
John has extensive news and print media experience. Early in his career he held positions at the Charleston (W Va) Gazette and Daily Mail, the Raleigh (NC) News and Observer, the Annapolis (MD) Capital, the Baltimore Sun, and the National Newspaper Association. In 1980 he held management positions at the Washington Magazine and the Baltimore Magazine. In 1983 he was named Publisher of the Pittsburgh Business Times. Four years later he became Publisher of the Houston Business Journal. In 1990, he was moved to Tampa to be the Publisher of the Tampa Bay Business Journal. He returned to Houston in 1998 to again serve as Publisher of the Houston Business Journal, as well as Group Publisher over the other Texas Business Journals (Houston, Dallas, San Antonio and Austin) owned by American City Business Journals.