Gifford Pinchot just can’t help it. He’s too happy being a badass entrepreneur.

That’s why the Bainbridge Graduate Institute’s Co-founder and President Gifford Pinchot rescinded his role as a judge during Seattle’s first ever #SocEnt (Social Enterprise) Weekend so that he could pitch an idea and lead a team in the competition instead. It was Gifford’s extensive background in business that originally brought him to #SocEnt Weekend (as a judge), but his relentless desire to create better enterprises for the world got the better of him, and he quickly switched roles.

Gifford and his team are designing a venture currently named “Flipped Publishing”, which will be a for-profit subsidiary of BGI. It’s a dream project for the nation’s first sustainable business school, and it’s getting legs at #SocEnt’s 50 hour “idea to enterprise” weekend. Here’s a longer description from Gifford’s blog:

“Flipped Publishing is taking content from BGI and other sources and building distance learning modules in various aspects of sustainable business for use in other schools and corporate education. We will also sell non-accredited sustainable business education directly.”

If you have ever met Gifford, you would know that his entrepreneurial spirit has never been impacted by his age, despite the fact that he’ll turn 68 this year. A recently-released article from The Economist titled “Enterprising Oldies” suggests that the Boomer Entrepreneur is actually an emerging trend. While the media buzz often leads us to believe that the ideal entrepreneur is in their 20′s, the article paints a different reality:

“The Kauffman Foundation’s most recent study of start-ups discovered that people aged 55 to 64 accounted for nearly 23% of new entrepreneurs in 2010, compared with under 15% in 1996.”

At the Bainbridge Graduate Institute, we are thrilled to have Gifford (and many others) leading the way toward a sustainable future. Clearly, his creative thinking and willingness to challenge the status quo show no signs of stopping. After all, what is sustainable business if not to plan for the indefinite future?

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Gifford Pinchot III is the Co-founder and current President of the Bainbridge Graduate Institute, the first business school in the country to offer a Sustainable MBA. Gifford is asking for feedback on his “Flipped Publishing” idea throughout #SocEnt Weekend. Visit Gifford’s blog “The Pinchot Perspective” to ask questions or offer support.