In 1997, at the age of 21, Ash Huzenlaub wanted to learn more than the traditional college classroom was teaching him in business. Then a junior at Texas Christian University (Fort Worth, Texas) and an aspiring entrepreneur, he felt that his classroom experiences were directing he and his peers to become lifelong employees of companies rather than the entrepreneurs that started them. Unsatisfied, he set out to develop his own education.
After sharing with peers that he would travel the United States to interview the leading entrepreneurs and financiers of the day, a professor by the name of Dr. Charles Williams encouraged Huzenlaub to develop the project into a univeristy recognized Independent Study. Williams, then a tenured professor (and now Dean of Pacific Univeristy School of Business) became Huzenlaub’s sponsor and over a period of many months helped prepare Huzenlaub for his “education on the road.” At the age of 21, Huzenlaub set out in June of 1997 and spent the summer flying across the United States (with sponsorship from Southwest Airlines) interviewing financiers and entrepreneurs including Michael Milken, Howard Schultz (Starbucks), John Mars (Mars Candy), Wall Street investment bankers, and small business owners in each of the towns and cities he visited (selected photos). Williams next guided Huzenlaub through London, England in a leadership program where Huzenlaub then interviewed British entrepreneurs such as Ollie Vigors.
In addition to learning about entrepreneurs, Huzenlaub decided he wanted to plant a lasting seed of change at his own university. In each of the cities he visited, Huzenlaub made arrangements to study the process by which students at UCLA, Wharton, Harvard, Univeristy of Washington, University of Nebraska and other institutions were teaching entrepreneurship. He wanted to not only attend the classes, but meet the students, understand their endeavors, interview the administrators and learn why these leading national programs had embraced entrepreneurship.
Upon arriving in Los Angeles that summer in 1997, Huzenlaub met Dr. Alan Carsrud, then director of the student ventures program at the Anderson School of Management on the UCLA campus. Blown away by Carsrud’s energy and real life experience stories in the claassroom, Huzenlaub set out to convince anyone that would listen back in Fort Worth that the “hands on study of entrepreneurship” needed to find a permanent home at TCU. Ironically, Carsrud was also a TCU alumnus. Having been on the startup team of People’s Express Airlines, the faculty of the University of Texas entrepreneurship program and a lecturer in family business, Carsrud readily opened the doors to any and all information that was needed to assist Huzenlaub in the campaign.
From the road, Huzenlaub launched emails, letters, and phone calls to every University Trustee and entrepreneurial alumnus of TCU that would listen. While many letters fell on deaf ears, many more found willing entrepreneurial corrobartors. Information packets and white papers were written and widely distributed under a campaign led by entreprenuerial minded students called “Endeavor: Entrepreneurship@TCU.” Supporters helped Huzenlaub produce a video to communicate the vision of Entrepreneurship at TCU and this helped recruit additional university and community leaders to step forward.
A concept remains a concept if it has no traction and no identified leader. One alumnus by the name of David Minor, a seasoned entrepreneur that had recently harvested his business was looking for ways to give back to the community. Minor wrote letters in support of the student effort and fortunately his credibility, interest and support aligned with a willing audience at the university, namely Asst Dean Dr. Charles Williams and then interim dean, Dr. Bill Moncrief. Williams and Moncrief have long been believers in hands-on and program based education and fully embraced the entrepreneurial education inititative.
Entrepreneurship was a subject Minor knew backwards and forwards. He took on the task of founding and starting up what is today the Neeley Entrepreneurship Program at TCU funded by gifts from the William Dickey Family of Houston and also Sarah and Steve Smith of Austin, Texas. In his first five years, Minor and his team built the program into one of the leading undergraduate entrepreneurship programs in the United States. In 2007, the program boasted the $15 million Smith Entrepreneurs Hall, one of only three buildings completely dedicated to entrepreneurship in the country. Minor has since been named one of the ten top Entrepreneurship Directors in the United States.
In 2007, more than 400 students sought Entrepreneurial Management as their core subject of study at TCU. Through the management and execution strengths of business consultant Sheryl Doll, Minor also developed the Texas Youth Entrepreneur of the Year Awards Program which identifies, awards, and encourages practicing and successful high school entrepreneurs with scholarship grants. More than $50,000 has been earned by high school entrepreneurs to date through the program. Lastly, in 2006 and 2007, TCU maintained the largest active undergraduate Collegiate Entrepreneurs Organization in the United States with over 350 student members.
The right column of this page will take students on a journey down the path that shows with persistence, ideas can grow legs. If you are a student at a university that needs entrepreneurship, you too can plant a seed for change. Possibly the content in this student section will help show you the way. |
