Whitney Hardy had her first taste of entrepreneurial energy sprawled on the floor of her parents’ front room, determined to use their better-than-fine vacuum to turn a skateboard into a hovercraft.

“I’d researched enough to know that the vacuum cleaner bottom produced enough air to lift up the little 7-year-old that I was,” she said, her eyes dancing not just with the notion of lift but the thrill of her own ideas taking shape in her hands. 

U of M’s Carnegie R1 status renewed

The vacuum was so expensive and powerful that her parents had her map out every inch of her plan before she could take the thing apart. Those drawings, product blueprints, were pinned up everywhere in the Hardy house, linear line drawings of an idea taking shape.

Hardy, 37, who’s innovated in many spaces since then — including designing two of the four hydrogen drinks made at Hardy Beverages, the company she co-founded with her mother, Carolyn Hardy — fell in love with giving ideas muscle to get up and go.

She spent five years at Epicenter, first as director of entrepreneurial programs, then as chief capacity officer. She co-owned logistics company, Henderson Transloading. She was an original investor in The Liquor Store restaurant and founded 3rdspace, an arts nonprofit. She’s also advised startups in pet care, consumer tech, retail, hospitality and health.

And four months ago, the University of Memphis named her director of its Crews Center for Entrepreneurship.