Ten students received certificates in Entrepreneurship from North Central State College’s Urban Center on Thursday night. The students participated in a year long program, called a cohort, that fosters entrepreneurship and business skills with a unique approach.
While other programs teach skills, theories, and best practices in separate classes, this program takes a grassroots approach designed to empower students through practical application as they build a real business. The same group of students stay together in the cohort grouping for the entire year.
Charles Anderson, Jeffrey Davis, Jody Hazen (in absentia), Pam Mack (in absentia), Seth Mills, Andi Shifley, Leona Smith, Matthew Stanfield, Bernice Webber, and Deanna West-Torrence were all honored at the ceremony.
Author, entrepreneur, and international thought leader Gary Schoeniger gave the address via Skype projected on a screen, since his travel schedule did not permit him to attend the graduation in person. Without a college degree or any special training Schoeniger’s path to entrepreneurship began by cleaning gutters with a borrowed ladder, his service grew and transformed in response to his customer’s needs and within fifteen years he had transformed his business into a five million dollar company.
“People ask me, ‘How did you do that? Oh my goodness that’s amazing…blah, blah, blah…’ It’s not amazing. It’s following a basic logic that you already understand. What I learned was that if I could figure out how to solve problems for other people then I could empower myself, and that was the beginning of my entrepreneur journey that put me where I am today,” said Schoeniger.
“Entrepreneurship is not that complicated. The problem is it seems like it’s complicated because of all these silicon valley stories we read about in social media. On Facebook, we read about this seventeen year old kid who just sold his iPhone app for $30 million and that pollutes our thinking about what it means to be an entrepreneur. That is to entrepreneurship what winning the lottery is to financial literacy. The everyday entrepreneur looks just like me or you. They’re ordinary people that figured out how to transform their own ideas, interests, talents, and abilities into some kind of way to solve a problem for other people,” said Schoeniger.
Internationally renowned speaker and entrepreneur Jonathan Fields was unable to speak to the group, but a video was played instead. Fields also asked that the cohort be congratulated on his behalf.
The students came to the program at varied stages in the entrepreneurial process. One student was transitioning a family business to his leadership. Many changed the direction of their business several times. Stanfield is already a practicing architect, but ultimately decided to create a secondary business selling is GARD[EN]semble. In the end, all left equipped to run a business with confidence.
Seth Mills finished his degree this Spring as well. “I just started working at a bank in Galion and I noticed a lot of small businesses that go through there and it [entrepreneurship training] really does work. A lot of the things that I talk to them [small businesses] about I learned here,” said Mills.
Professor Heather Tsvaris taught the program and congratulated the students on their hard work.
“You’ve come so far, you have a lot to be proud of,” said Tsvaris.
