What it takes: Entreprenuership Program offers students, investors a "ground-floor opportunity"

Vision. Daring. Sharp analytical skills. Commitment.

Those qualities aren't openly listed in the course guide, but they are just as much prerequisites for the successful entrepreneur as are marketing and financial management.

Launched last fall with a major gift from Binghamton University alumnus Barry Goodman '79 and his spouse, Alison Aronson, who also attended Binghamton, and enhanced by gifts from other successful alumni and friends, the new Entrepreneurship Program at the Binghamton University School of Management is designed to prepare students to bring their creative business ideas to life.

"...a great example of how someone with vision and commitment can truly make a difference."

School of Management Dean Upinder Dhillon meets Barry Goodman '79, whose leadership gift helped launch the entrepreneurship program.

"Students in the program are innovative and smart," said Goodman, principal and executive vice president of Millburn Corp., an international investment management firm based in New York City. "With a little bit of guidance on how to approach a business plan and research the market viability of an idea, these skills in the hands of raw talent will pay back huge dividends -- to the students and to the University."

"The entrepreneur has to be somebody who is completely driven by what he or she wants to achieve," said Upinder Dhillon, dean of the School of Management. Before the class began, he noted, each student was required to submit a two-page outline of a new business idea. "Normally, students just sign up for a course. We don't let them do that here."

The course begins with peer selection of the top five student business ideas. Students then form teams to fully research and develop the business plan. At the end of the semester, a team of judges -- successful businesspeople and real-life venture capitalists -- evaluates the proposals and awards a cash prize for the team to use as venture capital.

"All the ideas were interesting," Dhillon said of the fall semester proposals. "I was delighted and so were the judges. They were impressed by the quality of our proposals."

"The course was absolutely phenomenal," said Cheryl Strickland '87, president of "Replication Station," the idea that won the inaugural entrepreneurship prize. Strickland is assistant to the director for budget and planning at the University Libraries and earned her MBA at Binghamton. "I would have to say it was the most beneficial class I've ever taken in the School of Management. I probably worked as hard on this class as on anything I've ever done. I wish it had been there 15 years ago when I got my degree."

Cheryl Strickland '87 (front) shows members of her prize-winning entrepreneurial team an example of the three-dimensional scans the team would use to create lifelike sculptures for clients. Behind her are (left) Jennifer Kim '02 and Goksenin Cesur '03.

Replication Station (a temporary name) would employ high-resolution, 3D scanned images to produce sculpture "portraits" of people, pets or other figures. The technology has been used primarily in engineering and anthropological settings, but no other company in the northeastern United States is offering this technology to people who want fully dimensional sculptures of their loved ones, Strickland said. The sculptures could be produced in plastic, bronze, marble -- even as holographs -- and would cost about $450 and up, depending on the customer's choice of size and material.

"The class taught me the importance of doing research," said Jennifer Kim '02, the team's financial manager, who earned her accounting BA in December. "Above all else, it taught us very clearly what investors are looking for."

"The judges' feedback was amazing and very helpful," agreed Goksenin Cesur '03, the team's marketing and information technology specialist, who will graduate with his MBA this spring. "There were two classes that changed my life and my way of looking at things -- a marketing class and the entrepreneurship class."

"The program affords all students at the University, not just in SOM, the opportunity to learn skills that will help them in their future endeavors as entrepreneurs, or for positions within corporate America," Goodman said. "Corporations nowadays need people with fresh ideas to create, evolve and grow business opportunities."

In addition to helping students gain the skills they'll need in a work environment and economy that are undergoing fundamental changes, the Entrepreneurship Program can also have a positive impact on the economy, Goodman said.

"I was in business for close to 35 years -- a small business, which I thought was the ideal way to be employed," said Charles Brink, retired owner of a Binghamton-based industrial supply company who supports the Entrepreneurship Program with a major planned gift. Brink said his own father was an entrepreneur, striking out at the age of 57 with a partner to launch a new company. "I have felt right along an empathy toward the smaller businesspeople -- the ones who want to start a new product or provide a new service," Brink said.

"The majority of new jobs being created in the United States are in smaller businesses and entrepreneurial start-ups," said program Professor Angelo Mastrangelo. "This is particularly relevant for us because of the need to develop good, new jobs for our area's skilled workforce."

Mastrangelo himself is an entrepreneur and former owner of the highly successful Adirondack Beverage company. The son of an Italian immigrant in Endicott, Mastrangelo went to work as a salesman for a small upstate soda company after graduating from high school. He worked his way up to become general manager and then bought the company.

Over the next 13 years, Mastrangelo built the firm into a $60 million business. He sold the company in 1993 and enrolled in Harvard University, where he earned an MBA, followed by a PhD in organizational studies from the University at Albany. "My belief in entrepreneurship and my commitment to it have always been driven by the freedom of creativity and expression it provides to individuals," Mastrangelo said. "That the Entrepreneurship Program itself was created and supported by private, individual donations is a great example of how someone with vision and commitment can truly make a difference."

-- Susann Thiel

giveto.binghamton.edu