EMC 2009 Entrepreneur Celebration

The Entrepreneurial Management Center (EMC) at San Diego State University (SDSU) will hold a special welcome and celebration for all incoming Entrepreneur majors, both freshmen and transfer students within the College of Business Administration. Students' parents are invited as well. This celebration is being done in partnership with the Management Department and the College of Business Administration and will feature the following attendees: the Entrepreneur Society, faculty from the Entrepreneur major, incoming 2009 Lavin Entrepreneurs, SDSU entrepreneur alumni and the EMC staff.

The event will be held on August 28th from 4:00pm - 7:00pm at Scripps Cottage and deck on the SDSU campus. For more information, please contact Bernhard Schroeder at bschroeder@projects.sdsu.edu or at 619.594.2781.

• Cologel H.R. McMaster to Speak at EMC Business Forum Event

  May 2009

  The EMC Business Forum and Chairmen’s Roundtable are proud to present, “Leadership Lessons from the Economic Meltdown.” Colonel H.R. McMaster will be speaking about valuable leadership lessons he believes to be transferable from the battlefield to a complex business environment. This event will be moderated by George Chamberlin, Executive Editor of The Daily Transcript.

  This event will take place on May 21, 2009 from 4pm – 7pm at the Marriott Mission Valley.

  For more information please contact Kelli Lem at 619-594-2781 or klem@projects.sdsu.edu

• Christie Hefner to Speak at EMC Event

  February, 2009

  Christie Hefner, retiring Chairman and CEO of Playboy Enterprises Inc. is slated as the keynote speaker at the Fourth Annual Family Business Retreat. The Retreat is staged by the SDSU Entrepreneurial Management Center and will be held from February 27 – 28, 2009 at the Inn at Rancho Santa Fe.

  Hefner’s presentation, entitled “Adapting to Change” will take place following dinner on Friday, February 27 at 7:45 p.m.

  For more information on the retreat visit the web site, or contact Carmen Bianchi at 619-594-4949 or cbianchi@projects.sdsu.edu.

• EMC's WebCompass Program

  January, 2009

  SDSU's Entrepreneurial Management Center's (EMC) recently launched the WebCompass program in order to offer paid internships for undergraduate seniors majoring in business, graphic/web design and computer science.

  Students from each major team up during the semester-long internship and are given the task of completing a web-based project for a local non-profit. The end result provides the students with real-world experience and the non-profits with much needed web services.

  With support from Qualcomm Inc. the program's pilot phase was established in late September of 2008 with the first WebCompass student teams completing websites for non-profits, La Cuna and Innovations Academy. La Cuna is a San Diego-based Latino foster care agency and Innovations Academy is a new charter school in La Mesa.

  WebCompass will be offered to students each semester, beginning Spring '09. For more information, please contact Clare McCarty at cmccarty@projects.sdsu.edu or (619) 594- 0462.

• Ron Fowler Offers Tips for Success

  November, 2008

  The Chairman and CEO of Liquid Investments, Ron Fowler, presented information on how to be a successful entrepreneur to a nearly full-to-capacity audience on November 12, 2008. Liquid Investments is the parent company of beverage distributors throughout California and Colorado and has annual sales in excess of $285 million.

  The presentation was part of the L. Robert Payne Lecture Series that provides a forum for accomplished entrepreneurs to share the secrets of their success with SDSU entrepreneurship students and faculty, as well as to the public.

  Fowler shared his 10 tips for entrepreneurial success and talked about how he became an entrepreneur by “eliminating the things he didn’t want to do” until he settled on a career in beverage distribution.

  As the presentation concluded, Dr. Sanford Ehrlich presented Fowler, an avid sports fan, with an autographed portrait of Chargers’ running back, LaDainian Tomlinson.

• Ted Waitt, Gateway Computer Founder, Visits SDSU Business Class

  November, 2008

  On November 17, Gateway Computer founder, Ted Waitt, was the guest lecturer at Dr. Massoud Saghafi’s class (Marketing 769 – International Marketing), where he discussed how he co-founded Gateway Inc. and their rise and fall in the international market.

  While working at a computer store in Iowa, Waitt dropped out of the University of Iowa in mid-1980’s to start his business. The company, first called TIPC Network, began by manufacturing computers and selling them over the phone. By 1999, Gateway had become one of the most successful computer manufacturers in the world.

  Waitt discussed Gateway’s entry into the international market, starting in Ireland in 1993 and moving throughout Europe and Asia. At first, Waitt and Gateway experienced phenomenal success, however, after Waitt’s first retirement from the company in 1999 and his return to the company in 2001, the company’s stock prices and sales, both domestically and abroad, were dropping.

  Eventually, Waitt said, the company pulled out of the international market altogether in order to concentrate on sales domestically. In 2007, Gateway was sold to Acer, a Taiwan-based electronics manufacturer.

• Dr. Sandy Ehrlich - Quoted in BusinessWeek

  October, 2008

  Dr. Sandy Ehrlich, Qualcomm Executive Director of Entrepreneurship at the EMC, has been quoted in a recent BusinessWeek article about how entrepreneurs can sometimes make a success out of failure.

  From: Entrepreneurs Turn Business Failure into Success.

  By Amy S. Choi

  "Failure is a great tuition payment," says Sanford Ehrlich, director of entrepreneurship at the Entrepreneurial Management Center of San Diego State University. "Failure is not something one has to be ashamed of. And if you can recover from it, it is a badge of honor."

  Copyright BusinessWeek - Full Article

• Alex DeNoble Quoted in Entrepreneur Magazine

  June, 2008

  Alex DeNoble, Professor of Management and Entrepreneurship at San Diego State University, was quoted in Entrepreneur magazine in an article about creating multiple businesses in their June 2008 issue. Full article below:

  Who's Counting? Full of ideas? Create multiple businesses while still in school. Here's how.

  By Nichole L. Torres

  If you're young and full of the energy it takes to start a business while still in college, why not start two--or even three? That's exactly what 21-year-old Jeremy Clarke did. He started his first business, a website design company called Vortex Web Solutions, while still in high school. After starting college at Rose-Hulman Institute of Technology in 2006, he launched SharperResults.com, a web resource used as an assessment tool in classrooms and in homes. And last year, he launched IndyDining.com, a directory of Indianapolis restaurants that includes menus, coupons and reviews. Together, his Middlebury, Indiana-based businesses bring in five-figure sales.

  Clarke is full of ideas, and his entrepreneurial spirit is what drives him to launch new business concepts. "I'm really ambitious," he says. "I'm always looking for new opportunities. I want to dip my fingers into as much as possible."

  Running more than one business while still in school is certainly a big challenge, but it can be done if the businesses complement each other or, as in Clarke's case, if they're based on similar technology platforms. In fact, the startup process is made easier by rapidly evolving technologies. "Today's entrepreneurs have Web 2.0 tools available to them that entrepreneurs even five years ago didn't have," says Alex DeNoble, professor of management and entrepreneurship at San Diego State University. Not only do these specialized tools enable entrepreneurs to manage technological processes more efficiently than in years past, but they also make it much easier for small startups to rapidly ascend to the global playing field, DeNoble says.

  Copyright Entrepreneur Magazine - June 2008

• EMC Directors Present in Mexico

  May, 2008

  On May 22 and 23, 2008 Dr. Sanford Ehrlich, Executive Director of the EMC, and Carmen Bianchi, Director of the EMC Business Forum, presented in Monterrey Mexico at the University of Monterrey (UDEM). The topic was Governance and Structure for Families in Business and was well attended by family businesses in the $10 - $100 million revenue range.

  Gail Naughton, Dean of the College of Business Administration at San Diego State University, traveled with them to Monterrey. While there she met with the Dean of UDEM and the Dean of ITESM to see how the two universities can collaborate with one another on MBA programs and dual degrees.

• SDSU Launches Entrepreneur Program for Undergrads

  May, 2008

  The College of Business Administration at San Diego State University (SDSU) announced today that the college would offer entrepreneurship and human resources specializations to undergraduate students pursuing management degrees starting in the Fall semester, 2008.

  While the university's entrepreneurship graduate program has long been nationally ranked, SDSU will be the only traditional university in the region to offer entrepreneurship and human resources as specializations to undergraduates. The addition of the two new specializations was created primarily to fill a need for individuals with these specific skill sets within the San Diego region.

  We founded this program to fulfill a business need for individuals with an entrepreneurial mindset. People who can recognize opportunities and react appropriately to them during the start-up phase are critical to the success of young organizations, said Dr. Alex DeNoble, incoming SDSU management department chairman. DeNoble will head up the entrepreneurship specialization, which will include courses in creativity and innovation, family business management and franchise management.

  The Human Resources (HR) specialization evolved from a lack of skilled HR managers within the local business community, explained Dr. Michelle Dean. Dean, who will be in charge of organizing the HR specialization said College graduates from this area tend to stay in San Diego and this creates a valuable resource for the business community to draw on workers with skills in labor relations, diversity issues, compensation and employment law knowledge. It is these areas and more which the program at SDSU will be specifically addressing to the benefit of our students and San Diego employers.

  Both specializations require that students complete an internship at local businesses in order to earn their diplomas.