As many of my friends and business associates are aware, for the past 9 months, I’ve been actively (some would say obsessively!) involved in creating a vertical entrepreneurship program, starting with the educational component. To date, we have met with resounding success and like the theme of the Hollywood action film, “The Perfect Storm,” it appears that the “stars have aligned” in order to manifest my ultimate entrepreneurial goal…to create the country’s first and only fully accredited College of Entrepreneurship.
Starting in late August 2005, with a single class of 19 bright interdisciplinary students at Barrett Honors College at ASU in a course of my own making entitled “Ready, Fire, Aim,” our newly fashioned Barrett Honors Entrepreneurship Program now boasts 94 students in four interactive classes at Barrett’s. What is even more impressive is the fact that as of March 31st, we will have actually funded and started five student-inspired businesses launched from last semester’s class, which ended a scant three months ago!
One student project, Club Entrepreneur (www.club-entrepreneur.com), is now a fully functioning ASU-sanctioned student organization that may very well become the largest and most powerful club on campus in very short order. Initial estimates of potential membership exceed 1000 members, which is being accomplished by the assimilation of existing student organizations under the Business Council at the W.P. Carey School of Business. The creation of e-Lab, which utilizes selected Club Entrepreneur members in student teams to research business concepts provided by local EO (Entrepreneur Organization) members is another exciting student-inspired project. Each student team will prepare a marketing, feasibility or full blown business plan for the entrepreneur’s idea and if economically viable, that entrepreneur will fund the plan and provide internship and perhaps an equity position for both the student teams as well as compensate e-Lab with fees and an equity position.
From the overwhelmingly positive response garnered from students and their parents, guest speakers and local business people that have had the pleasure of interacting with students in the Barrett Honors Entrepreneurship Program…it seems only natural to continue with this momentum. Phoenix, itself, has been enjoying a recent Renaissance of sorts by fashioning itself as an entrepreneurial mecca and of course, ASU has become reborn as the “New American University.” It seems only a natural evolution to utilize this combined synergy and create a private, fully accredited, four year educational institution for the purpose of teaching, supporting and nurturing entrepreneurship in the first ever College of Entrepreneurship.
Recent press of our educational efforts in ASU’s State Press, The Arizona Republic and the Business Journal has attracted some very impressive attention. Dean Jacobs of the Barrett Honors College recently fielded a call and had a subsequent meeting with one of the co-founders of Quiznos Subs and now the current owner of Crocs Shoes. This 30-something serial entrepreneur told Mark Jacobs that he had amassed $100MM business, saw the article of our program at Barrett’s in the Business Journal and wanted to make an initial gift to our program of $1MM. He stated that his accountants and lawyers had told him that he had to give away some money and fortunately for us, that day saw our article in the Business Journal. I had the opportunity to speak with Anthony Kruse a couple of times on the phone and we plan on getting together when he returns to town in mid May to discuss how we can work together on the entrepreneurial front. (Update-I had an excellent lunch meeting with Anthony only days ago and he has wholeheartedly endorsed my sweeping entrepreneurship and has agreed to serve on my new College of Entrepreneurship’s Board of Advisors and is considering investing a significant amount in either the University Venture Fund to capitalize student-inspired enterprises or any of several other financial initiatives that I presented to him.)
Additional inquiries came from potential benefactors who read the press and wanted to contribute to “the cause.” One such potential partner had given $500k to ASU some eighteen years ago for the purpose of establishing an entrepreneurial program… which was never implemented. Now, this gentleman has access to the significant amount of many millions of dollars that he represented would like a “home” at an Arizona educational institution. In light of the unsatisfactory treatment by unnamed administrators at ASU, that gift may very well land in our camp for our own plans. I am in conversation with this gentleman and his associates at this time discussing just that possible scenario.
I recently received an email from locally-based construction entrepreneur Jim Riggs of Shea Commercial, who expressed his desire to speak in one of my classes. We met-four times now- and I find him to be bright, energetic and thoroughly engaged in the entrepreneurial process. Having first met him in regards to his pending speaking engagement at my class, we’ve since entered discussions involving his desired participation in the Phoenix downtown-based Entrepreneur Factory project. My partner, Bill Kilburg and I have entered into negotiations to acquire and refurbish a defunct hotel on Van Buren and 22nd Street, whose 160 rooms will be outfitted as offices in this state-of-the-art business incubator to house fledgling businesses prior to their launch into the community. Jim Riggs is the perfect contractor/ partner for such a project and we’re moving towards that possible alliance.
As part of my classroom experience, I’ve engaged local business leaders and fellow entrepreneurs to share their stories with my students as guest lecturers. Recent speakers such as Avnet’s CEO, Roy Valle, Pepsico’s Chairman, Steve Reinmund, Don Budinger, Rodel Foundation Chairman and Diane Graham, Committee of 200 Chairwoman and Stratco Global CEO, have all spoken and interacted with my students. Roy Valle actually took the time to write the (namesake) Barrett Honors College’s main benefactors, Barb and Craig Barrett (Intel Chairman Emeritus) to tell them about his positive experience with our program. I recently met with a former CEO of Motorola who contacted the Barretts on my behalf to share with them some of the kudos being offered about our program. Finally, the gentleman who had previously donated the $500k for the ill-fated ASU entrepreneurship program, has arranged for me to have a personal meeting with Barbara Barrett to share about the success of BHEP, as well as to discuss my new College of Entrepreneurship initiative.
The Entrepreneurs Organization (fka the Young Entrepreneurs Organization) is a collection of nearly 6,000 extremely successful independent business founders in 40 countries around the world. I was one of the original members in 1987 and have recently become very active in both the local Arizona chapter, as well as the National Board, serving on committees on two groundbreaking initiatives. The local chapter (Arizona) has spearheaded one of our classroom-developed concepts, called e-Lab. This exciting new development will take EO member-inspired business concepts and hand them over to hand-picked student teams ( taken from the ranks of Club Entrepreneur) to fashion marketing studies, feasibility reports and business plans with the goal of bringing these new concepts to market in a combined effort of entrepreneur and student teams. We are just launching this program with the local EO Board approval having been granted only weeks ago. The National EO board is watching closely with plans on replicating the program chapter-wide (140 locales) if proven viable here in Arizona.
I’ve joined the committees of both the Global Student Entrepreneur Award and the Accelerator Program at the national level of EO. Each program incorporates much of what I’ve been doing in my own initiatives at the Barrett Honors College and I’ve forged strong new networks within the infrastructure of the global EO organization.
Additionally, I’ve been making great strides at allying myself and new initiatives with the Kauffman Foundation, first through an alliance with Jeff Horvath, the head of Fasttrac, which offers the business plan curriculum that we use in my classes, “Ready, Fire, Aim” and “Adventures in Capitalism.” Jeff and Fasttrac came to me by way of my friend and colleague, Dr. Francine Hardaway, noted entrepreneurship educator and proponent here in Phoenix.
Further interaction and hopeful cooperation with the formidable Kauffman Foundation comes by way of Sue Hesse’s introduction to various members of Kauffman. Sue was my Forum trainer in EO and is the “Entrepreneur in Residence” at the Kauffman Foundation. One such introduction is Desiree Vargas, a team member of Kauffman’s collegiate entrepreneurship team. ASU has recently been selected for the designation as a “Kauffman Campus,” which provides significant funding prospects for the University. I was told by Ms. Vargas that our program at Barrett Honors greatly helped ASU’s application for this award. My new College of Entrepreneurship should have considerable chances of being designated a “Kauffman camous” itself, once it is up and running.
My entire business life has been immersed in entrepreneurship, having started the first of over 100 companies at the age of 19, while a freshman at the University of Virginia. Fate brought me to Phoenix at the threshold of its own re-birth as the “mecca of entrepreneurship” and I’ve now come full circle by being given the privilege of teaching entrepreneurship at Barrett Honors College…just as I was taught at the University of Virginia 29 years ago.
It is only fitting and right that I do whatever it takes to assemble the people and resources that I have in my life and work towards the goal of creating the first of its kind….the College of Entrepreneurship, right here in Arizona. A short time ago, I met with Shea Commercial’s Jim Riggs yet again. Jim has an extraordinarily ambitious commercial project being built right smack in the middle of downtown Tempe and which actually abuts ASU. Since the development process will take all of the next year, he has generously donated as many of the existing buildings on this 1 1/2 city block downtown Tempe property as we need for our entrepreneurship purposes. Specifically, Jim’s property will serve as the interim Entrepreneur Factory - an incubator format for the growing number of student-inspired businesses….at no cost to us for the next year.
Since I am no academic, I reached out to Dean Stuart Mann, the head of the Harrah School of Hotel Management at UNLV. Stuart and I are friends and I value both his direction as well his significant introductions to leaders in literally every field of industry. He will be one of the academic administrators that I will look towards in negotiating the accreditation process and professorial staffing for our new College of Entrepreneurship.
I also spoke with Nick Rago, former Fortune 100 CEO and now an adjunct educator about my plans for launching the College of Entrepreneurship. He offered the sage advice of teaming up with an already accredited institution like Thunderbird or the University of Phoenix. He suggested that rather than reinventing the wheel, I fast track my plans by joining forces with one of these already accredited schools and establish of College of Entrepreneurship, in conjunction with them. I concur and recently met with the president of Thunderbird, Dr. Angel Cabrerra and their Director of Entrepreneurship, Dr. Robert Hisrich to open discussions together. We will hopefully be working together on a Masters of Entrepreneurship program, a possible relocation of Thunderbird’s newly launched incubator to our anticipated Tempe location and a collaboration on the undergraduate entrepreneurship curriculum, which will result in this country’s first Bachelor of Entrepreneurship issued from a wholly dedicated undergraduate insititution.
Negotiations with the fully accredited Grand Canyon University recently resulted in a contract that will allow us to open up the brand new College of Entrepreneurship as early as this coming Fall. We are busy creating the curriculum and searching out the top entrepreneur/professors to teach as Adjuncts in our new school. We will be operating out of an interim facility, most likely in Tempe, until our permanent location is negotiated…also, hopefully, in Tempe.
The road from small niche business operator and novice member of the adjunct faculty teaching entrepreneurship (pro bono) to Barrett Honors College students is a far cry from establishing this country’s first College of Entrepreneurship. However, with the help of my friends and associates and with the determination and tenacity of the “pure blood” entrepreneur…I have no doubt as to this project’s ultimate success. After all…it’s all about the journey anyway.
Wednesday, August 29, 2007
Pedigree of An Entrepreneur
Growing up in New Canaan, Connecticut, the ‘Land of the Fortune 100 CEO,’ was not exactly conducive to becoming an entrepreneur. Yet, even at the tender age of seven, I was out by one the local country club’s water holes, ostensibly pedaling lemonade but really wading into the water and then selling the duffers’ balls back to them when they hit into the pond. That enterprise ended abruptly when the club’s manager called my father, one of their members, to please remove me the course. “Peter is just a child,” my mother said to my father. “Don’t worry, he’ll be like the other children,” she said.
Numerous other entrepreneurial ventures sprang over the years. “Boogie at the Beach,” became an annual summer event where I rented out the beach club where our family belonged, throwing a huge keg party, with hamburgers and hot dogs galore and a live rock band…all for an admission price to my ‘thousand closest friends.’ I learned about supply and demand, inventory control and the pluses and minuses of an all cash business.
“He’s just trying to find his place in the world,” Mom told Dad.
Meanwhile, I barely made it out of high school and when one of my “sure thing” business deals soured and my dad couldn’t take me anymore, I found myself with the unenviable choice of paying for college myself or joining the Army. Off to basic training I went and after four months of Infantry and AIT in the swamps of Ft. Polk, Louisiana (the only hole above ground), I found myself the proud and somewhat surprised recipient of a Secretary of the Army Appointment to the United States Military Academy at West Point. You see, in the mid-seventies the United States instituted the “All Volunteer Army” and compared to the room temperature IQs of my fellow soldiers I was a genius. “He’ll make a wonderful military officer,” my mother told my father.
Since the Academy had started for the year, I was placed at the United States Military Academy Preparatory School, where I met another cadet candidate whose father was the Colonel in charge of the Army ROTC Scholarship Program. I learned quickly that it was much better to be an officer than an enlisted man and now I surmised that going to a civilian school and coming out a full fledged officer was way more fun that matriculating to the Point.
The challenge was that I was Regular Army and the ROTC Program was for civilians. Still, I persisted and managed to get my new friend to convince his father to let me apply. To everyone’s surprise, including my own, I won a spot. I applied to a number of great schools and chose the University of Virginia, where I started in the fall of 1976. I relinquished my West Point Appointment to some deserving alternate and off to college I went. Dad was starting to believe my mother that I “was finally coming around.”
UVa. was great fun and there I spied a second semester course that really caught my interest…”Entrepreneurship.” The challenge this time was that I was a freshman and the course was a Senior Management elective in the esteemed McIntire School of Commerce. After filing my petition with the professor at the undergraduate business school, I was forced to verbally defend myself in front of the entire class with why a “lowly first year student felt that he merited the honor of being in a fourth year course.” I must have done ok because I was admitted into the class, where I seemed to fit in as I had never done before.
The course required us to come up with a potentially viable idea and draft a business plan to make its case for funding. I had a cool idea and convinced a couple of the business school nerds to help draft the pro formas and put the plan together. That brainstorm, the importation of mopeds from Europe to the U.S. with the plan of establishing rental operations at select resorts, became the subject of my class project.
I got an “A” on my project and decided to go for it in the real world.
In May of 1977, I rented a dirt lot in the middle of downtown Nantucket Island, bought a folding table and cash box from the local thrift shop for 50 cents, unloaded my 15 brand new mopeds and started my first “official” business. Using my class business plan as my guide, I quickly threw it away, since nothing we researched and forecast had an resemblance to the “rough and tumble” world of real life business ownership. I learned many invaluable lessons that summer and after counting my pennies (actually $55,000) at the summer’s end, I tendered back the three remaining years left on my Army ROTC Scholarship, wrote my professor to tell him that he’d be right about me and set about on my expansion plans for world domination in the recreational rental industry.
Thirty years and one hundred businesses from renting mopeds and exotic cars to e-mail marketing, cost segregation, dining cards, destination club, magazines, etc. later….my parents were still wondering when I was going to grow up, finish school and get a “real job.” I managed to return to UVa. each of the next ten years to lecture in that same professor’s class until he retired from academia. Along the way, I was accepted to Harvard Business School’s Owners and Presidents Program, the youngest ever at 29 in the Program’s history. That same year, I became one of the original members of the Young Entrepreneurs Organization, (now called EO) a collection of independent business owners that could be considered the world’s 52nd largest economy with a collective $100B in annual sales from 6500 entrepreneurs in 40 countries.
I now find myself in the “Wild West” and in the past five years I’ve been here in Phoenix, I’ve been involved with a dozen different enterprises, some good, some bad and some great. Recently, I’ve undertaken the greatest challenge in my entrepreneurial career and entered into the world of education…entrepreneurial education that is. After a one year pro bono stint at ASU’s Barrett Honors College teaching some “Entrepreneurship 101” courses, I decided to start this Nation’s first “pure blood” College of Entrepreneurship. First, testing the waters at ASU’s W.P.Carey School of Business to try and partner up, I got trashed there for my efforts and decided to find another “dance partner.” Grand Canyon University stepped up to the plate and in January, we are offering a combination of fantastic courses, taught by “entrepreneur-teachers,” offering start-up capital to select student businesses and granting the first-ever Bachelors of Entrepreneurship accredited degree.
Maybe I’ll finally get my diploma and my mom (God rest her soul) and dad can be proud of me!
Numerous other entrepreneurial ventures sprang over the years. “Boogie at the Beach,” became an annual summer event where I rented out the beach club where our family belonged, throwing a huge keg party, with hamburgers and hot dogs galore and a live rock band…all for an admission price to my ‘thousand closest friends.’ I learned about supply and demand, inventory control and the pluses and minuses of an all cash business.
“He’s just trying to find his place in the world,” Mom told Dad.
Meanwhile, I barely made it out of high school and when one of my “sure thing” business deals soured and my dad couldn’t take me anymore, I found myself with the unenviable choice of paying for college myself or joining the Army. Off to basic training I went and after four months of Infantry and AIT in the swamps of Ft. Polk, Louisiana (the only hole above ground), I found myself the proud and somewhat surprised recipient of a Secretary of the Army Appointment to the United States Military Academy at West Point. You see, in the mid-seventies the United States instituted the “All Volunteer Army” and compared to the room temperature IQs of my fellow soldiers I was a genius. “He’ll make a wonderful military officer,” my mother told my father.
Since the Academy had started for the year, I was placed at the United States Military Academy Preparatory School, where I met another cadet candidate whose father was the Colonel in charge of the Army ROTC Scholarship Program. I learned quickly that it was much better to be an officer than an enlisted man and now I surmised that going to a civilian school and coming out a full fledged officer was way more fun that matriculating to the Point.
The challenge was that I was Regular Army and the ROTC Program was for civilians. Still, I persisted and managed to get my new friend to convince his father to let me apply. To everyone’s surprise, including my own, I won a spot. I applied to a number of great schools and chose the University of Virginia, where I started in the fall of 1976. I relinquished my West Point Appointment to some deserving alternate and off to college I went. Dad was starting to believe my mother that I “was finally coming around.”
UVa. was great fun and there I spied a second semester course that really caught my interest…”Entrepreneurship.” The challenge this time was that I was a freshman and the course was a Senior Management elective in the esteemed McIntire School of Commerce. After filing my petition with the professor at the undergraduate business school, I was forced to verbally defend myself in front of the entire class with why a “lowly first year student felt that he merited the honor of being in a fourth year course.” I must have done ok because I was admitted into the class, where I seemed to fit in as I had never done before.
The course required us to come up with a potentially viable idea and draft a business plan to make its case for funding. I had a cool idea and convinced a couple of the business school nerds to help draft the pro formas and put the plan together. That brainstorm, the importation of mopeds from Europe to the U.S. with the plan of establishing rental operations at select resorts, became the subject of my class project.
I got an “A” on my project and decided to go for it in the real world.
In May of 1977, I rented a dirt lot in the middle of downtown Nantucket Island, bought a folding table and cash box from the local thrift shop for 50 cents, unloaded my 15 brand new mopeds and started my first “official” business. Using my class business plan as my guide, I quickly threw it away, since nothing we researched and forecast had an resemblance to the “rough and tumble” world of real life business ownership. I learned many invaluable lessons that summer and after counting my pennies (actually $55,000) at the summer’s end, I tendered back the three remaining years left on my Army ROTC Scholarship, wrote my professor to tell him that he’d be right about me and set about on my expansion plans for world domination in the recreational rental industry.
Thirty years and one hundred businesses from renting mopeds and exotic cars to e-mail marketing, cost segregation, dining cards, destination club, magazines, etc. later….my parents were still wondering when I was going to grow up, finish school and get a “real job.” I managed to return to UVa. each of the next ten years to lecture in that same professor’s class until he retired from academia. Along the way, I was accepted to Harvard Business School’s Owners and Presidents Program, the youngest ever at 29 in the Program’s history. That same year, I became one of the original members of the Young Entrepreneurs Organization, (now called EO) a collection of independent business owners that could be considered the world’s 52nd largest economy with a collective $100B in annual sales from 6500 entrepreneurs in 40 countries.
I now find myself in the “Wild West” and in the past five years I’ve been here in Phoenix, I’ve been involved with a dozen different enterprises, some good, some bad and some great. Recently, I’ve undertaken the greatest challenge in my entrepreneurial career and entered into the world of education…entrepreneurial education that is. After a one year pro bono stint at ASU’s Barrett Honors College teaching some “Entrepreneurship 101” courses, I decided to start this Nation’s first “pure blood” College of Entrepreneurship. First, testing the waters at ASU’s W.P.Carey School of Business to try and partner up, I got trashed there for my efforts and decided to find another “dance partner.” Grand Canyon University stepped up to the plate and in January, we are offering a combination of fantastic courses, taught by “entrepreneur-teachers,” offering start-up capital to select student businesses and granting the first-ever Bachelors of Entrepreneurship accredited degree.
Maybe I’ll finally get my diploma and my mom (God rest her soul) and dad can be proud of me!
Sunday, August 19, 2007
Why I Teach Entrepreneurship"
My first experience in teaching anything, let alone entrepreneurship, occurred at Arizona State University's Barrett Honors College in late August 2005. Dean Mark Jacobs was kind enough to let me teach my own version of entrepreneurship in a course I only half-jokingly named "Ready, Fire, Aim."
Inevitably, I was queried by more than one student who wanted to know "What's in it for you?" You see, all Adjuncts teaching in Barrett Honors College Enrichmnt Program instruct pro bono. Why would a decidedly capitalistic businessman take time off from his for-proft ventures to teach 20 undergraduates each week...for free?
Let's go back to the year 1976, when yours truly started at the University of Virginia in Charlottesville. Enrolling in all of the required freshman sunjects, I spied a 4th year Management elective course in the McIntire School of Commerce, entitled "Entrepreneurship." Reading about this unique offering (in 1976, only 4 schools in the country had any entrepreneurship courses)...I wanted in. The only problem was that the course was offered only to 4th year students enrolled in McIntire and I wasn't even eligible to apply to the McIntire School of Commerce for two more years.
Did I let that stop me? Of course not! I promptly petitioned my way into the course and after the professor had me get up in front of the rest of the class and explain how I, a lowly first year student, felt that I should be permitted to take this fourth year course...I was in. This course called for each student to come up with an original idea and then develop a business plan to bring that idea to market.
For my project, I picked importing mopeds into the U.S. from Europe and taking advantage of the new Federal legislation that allowed the individual States to allow any automobile licensed driver to ride a moped...which opened up the new niche business of moped rentals in America. That project earned me an "A" in the class but more importantly, my professor took me aside and said that my business idea had a great chance for success and that I should take advantage of the window of opportunity before me. I was sold and that summer after my first year of college, at the tender age of 19, I entered into the world of entrepreneurship on Nantucket Island, Massachusetts.
Fast forward to thirty years later, after learning many hard lesons and paying very high "tuition" involving over 100 business start-ups...I had plenty of "content" for teaching my own brand of entrepreneurship. Barrett Honors College gave me that first forum and I owe a debt of gratitude to both Dean Jacobs and the 100 plus students that I had the honor of teaching that first academic year.
That first semester's one class of twenty students grew to over ninety students in the second semester with four separate classes. After the little "challenges" I had with some of the more traditional members of academia at ASU caused me to think about teaching elsewhere...I was spurred to even bigger and better things. I decided to start my own College of Entrepreneurship and negotiated a strategic alliance with the private Phoenix-based Grand Canyon University to become my academic partner. On January 11th, 2006, I opened this Nation's first fully accredited College of Entrepreneurship at Grand Canyon University.
Why do I teach entrepreneurship(?) is the question we come back to. Well, for starters...entrepreneurship is my passion and after experiencing the pleasures and challenges of engaging a roomful of bright and eager young minds teaching that subject, I'm hooked.
Secondly, this country was founded by entrepreneurs-no 401Ks or benefits packages for those brave souls coming over on the Mayflower. Students today have seen their parents "short sheeted" by Corporate America with layoffs and outsourcing. There is no more gold watch and pension awaiting those entering America's corporate workforce any longer and if we don't stop embracing our natural born American innovation...there won't be any America left either.
Teaching entrepreneurship to our youth is of paramount importance and I'm not talking about having a so-called educator who never had to meet a payroll, teaching entrepreneurship out of a book, either. I'm talking about a bona fide "teacher-entrepreneur" educating our youth with practical subject matter and lessons learned from real life experiences taken from actual businessmen and women.
Finally, like all of us, I want to leave my mark on this world and teaching young people to help light that fire in their hearts and souls is how I want to do it. If I can be responsible for only one young person taking his or her idea and through undertaking a well-honed and practical curriculum, turning that fledgling idea into an actual business that supports the entrepreneur, his or her family and contributes to growing our Nation's economy...we will all have won.
Now, providing a state-of-the art entrepreneurial education is my mission. I have one College of Entrepreneurship in place with hopefully many more to follow. My Institute For Entrepreneurship (www.instituteforentrepreneurship.com) has also recently developed a comprehensive Certificate of Entrepreneurship, which will allow any person interested in starting their own company to learn every step of the way and all online.
There's much more to do and I'm just getting started but I'm loving every step along the way!
Inevitably, I was queried by more than one student who wanted to know "What's in it for you?" You see, all Adjuncts teaching in Barrett Honors College Enrichmnt Program instruct pro bono. Why would a decidedly capitalistic businessman take time off from his for-proft ventures to teach 20 undergraduates each week...for free?
Let's go back to the year 1976, when yours truly started at the University of Virginia in Charlottesville. Enrolling in all of the required freshman sunjects, I spied a 4th year Management elective course in the McIntire School of Commerce, entitled "Entrepreneurship." Reading about this unique offering (in 1976, only 4 schools in the country had any entrepreneurship courses)...I wanted in. The only problem was that the course was offered only to 4th year students enrolled in McIntire and I wasn't even eligible to apply to the McIntire School of Commerce for two more years.
Did I let that stop me? Of course not! I promptly petitioned my way into the course and after the professor had me get up in front of the rest of the class and explain how I, a lowly first year student, felt that I should be permitted to take this fourth year course...I was in. This course called for each student to come up with an original idea and then develop a business plan to bring that idea to market.
For my project, I picked importing mopeds into the U.S. from Europe and taking advantage of the new Federal legislation that allowed the individual States to allow any automobile licensed driver to ride a moped...which opened up the new niche business of moped rentals in America. That project earned me an "A" in the class but more importantly, my professor took me aside and said that my business idea had a great chance for success and that I should take advantage of the window of opportunity before me. I was sold and that summer after my first year of college, at the tender age of 19, I entered into the world of entrepreneurship on Nantucket Island, Massachusetts.
Fast forward to thirty years later, after learning many hard lesons and paying very high "tuition" involving over 100 business start-ups...I had plenty of "content" for teaching my own brand of entrepreneurship. Barrett Honors College gave me that first forum and I owe a debt of gratitude to both Dean Jacobs and the 100 plus students that I had the honor of teaching that first academic year.
That first semester's one class of twenty students grew to over ninety students in the second semester with four separate classes. After the little "challenges" I had with some of the more traditional members of academia at ASU caused me to think about teaching elsewhere...I was spurred to even bigger and better things. I decided to start my own College of Entrepreneurship and negotiated a strategic alliance with the private Phoenix-based Grand Canyon University to become my academic partner. On January 11th, 2006, I opened this Nation's first fully accredited College of Entrepreneurship at Grand Canyon University.
Why do I teach entrepreneurship(?) is the question we come back to. Well, for starters...entrepreneurship is my passion and after experiencing the pleasures and challenges of engaging a roomful of bright and eager young minds teaching that subject, I'm hooked.
Secondly, this country was founded by entrepreneurs-no 401Ks or benefits packages for those brave souls coming over on the Mayflower. Students today have seen their parents "short sheeted" by Corporate America with layoffs and outsourcing. There is no more gold watch and pension awaiting those entering America's corporate workforce any longer and if we don't stop embracing our natural born American innovation...there won't be any America left either.
Teaching entrepreneurship to our youth is of paramount importance and I'm not talking about having a so-called educator who never had to meet a payroll, teaching entrepreneurship out of a book, either. I'm talking about a bona fide "teacher-entrepreneur" educating our youth with practical subject matter and lessons learned from real life experiences taken from actual businessmen and women.
Finally, like all of us, I want to leave my mark on this world and teaching young people to help light that fire in their hearts and souls is how I want to do it. If I can be responsible for only one young person taking his or her idea and through undertaking a well-honed and practical curriculum, turning that fledgling idea into an actual business that supports the entrepreneur, his or her family and contributes to growing our Nation's economy...we will all have won.
Now, providing a state-of-the art entrepreneurial education is my mission. I have one College of Entrepreneurship in place with hopefully many more to follow. My Institute For Entrepreneurship (www.instituteforentrepreneurship.com) has also recently developed a comprehensive Certificate of Entrepreneurship, which will allow any person interested in starting their own company to learn every step of the way and all online.
There's much more to do and I'm just getting started but I'm loving every step along the way!
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