DURHAM, N.H. - Peter Egelston, founder and president of Smuttynose Brewing Co. and the Portsmouth Brewery, will speak at the next meeting of the University of New Hampshire CEO Forum Thursday, Sept. 19, 2013, at 9 a.m. The program begins at 8 a.m. in Huddleston Hall with coffee and networking, with a full breakfast at 8:30 a.m.

Egelston grew up in Southern California and earned a degree in Spanish literature at NYU. He went on to teach English as a Second Language in two New York City schools and was in graduate school when his sister Janet convinced him to join her in founding what is now the oldest brewpub in the Northeast, the Northampton Brewery in Northampton, Mass.

Egelston and his sister opened the Portsmouth Brewery, the Granite State's first brewpub, in 1991. Two years later the brother and sister opened Smuttynose Brewing Co. Today, Egelston and his partner Joanne Francis are the sole proprietors of Smuttynose and the Portsmouth Brewery, while Egelston's sister is sole proprietor of the Northampton Brewery.

After two decades, the Portsmouth Brewery has become one of New Hampshire Seacoast's signature restaurants. This year Smuttynose Brewing Company will ship more than 45,000 barrels of beer, making it one of the top 50 regional specialty breweries in the country. Smuttynose's award-winning beers are distributed from Maine to Florida and west to California and east to Scandinavia. Also in 2013 Smuttynose will complete its new brewing facility in Hampton, which will include a restaurant and visitors center and is registered to attain gold-level LEED certification.

Smuttynose and the Portsmouth Brewery support a variety of cultural, environmental and social organizations and causes. In 2000 the companies were named jointly Small Business of the Year by the Greater Portsmouth Chamber of Commerce, and in 2002, Egelston was named Humanitarian of the Year by Share Our Strength at its annual conference in New York City. Egelston is a former member of the Currier Museum's Advisory Board and Share Our Strength Seacoast, and is chair of the Piscataqua Region Advisory Board of the New Hampshire Charitable Foundation.

Upcoming speakers at the UNH CEO Forum include:

• Thursday, Oct. 17, 2013,  Anne Jamieson, CEO, Portsmouth Regional Hospital
• Thursday, Nov. 14, 2013, Matthew Albuquerque, founder and CEO, Next Step Bionics and Prosthetics
• Thursday, Jan. 23, 2014, James Teetzel, CEO, Wilcox Industries
• Thursday, March 13, 2014, Joseph Faro, CEO, Tuscan Brands
• Thursday, April 17, 2014, Gene Geiger, owner and CEO, The Geiger Group

Initiated in 1997, the UNH CEO Forum is an outreach program of the UNH Peter T. Paul College of Business and Economics and the UNH Graduate School serving CEOs, presidents, and senior managers of companies in northern New England. The forum provides its members with opportunities to meet and exchange ideas with their peers in business and industry in an informal setting. The UNH CEO Forum is sponsored by the law firm of Pierce Atwood, Optima Bank and Trust, Sprague Energy, and Crystalvision. For more information about the CEO Forum, visit http://www.unh-ceoforum.org/.

To register or become a member of the UNH CEO Forum, contact Barbara Draper at 603-862-1107, or barbara.draper@unh.edu. The event is free to members and $49 for first-time attendees.

The University of New Hampshire, founded in 1866, is a world-class public research university with the feel of a New England liberal arts college. A land, sea, and space-grant university, UNH is the state's flagship public institution, enrolling 12,200 undergraduate and 2,300 graduate students.

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