Santa Fe's High-Tech Chaparral
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Randy Burge presides over Coronado Ventures Forum like a daytime talk-show host. He even dresses like one, in his black turtleneck and tan blazer. The 6-foot-4-inch master networker calls on each of the 70 people in the room by first name, encouraging them to introduce themselves. The room is so crowded, some guests are standing dangerously close to the flaming sternos on the buffet table in Santa Fe's adobe-and-mauve Eldorado Hotel conference room.
"That guy [Burge] knows everyone," says Jim Glover, founder of WorldOne Media, an Internet startup that streams TV programming. For Glover, this rates as serious praise: He is at CVF hoping to meet investors through Burge.