People On Campus for Noveber,1999
First Monday
People On Campus
People On Campus is published in FirstMonday by the Public Affairs and Publications offices at SFSU. 415/338-1665. pubcom@sfsu.edu


People On Campus

Connie Marie Gaglio and Rich McCline: Entrepreneurs on Campus

When Connie Marie Gaglio and Rich McCline, both assistant professors in the department of Management, submitted their curriculum and structure redesign of the Center for Enterprise in the College of Business, they included a proposal for a "business incubator," a place that provides support to business start-ups, to be completed by year five. When former dean Art Wallace took the plan to the College of Business's advisory board; however, board member and successful businessman Robert Ohrenschall asked, "What are you waiting for?" Why not do it in year one? To spur them further, he offered an irresistible incentive: a $100,000 endowment.

The endowment caught the management professors by surprise. Luckily, McCline sits on the board of the Renaissance Entrepreneurship Center, a business incubator based in San Francisco. The parties involved struck a deal whereby the Ohrenschall grant would help two to three SFSU students reduce the their business start-up cost by paying for office space at the Renaissance Entrepreneurship Center. The grant would also allow the young businesses to share a secretary, photocopier, conference room and othe r resources-thus freeing up the student's own capital for expenses more directly related to the actual product. To encourage entrepreneurship across all disciplines, any student with a business concept could apply.

The business incubator was only part of McCline and Gaglio's plan to remodel the Center for Enterprise (renamed the Ohrenschall Center for Entrepreneurship last May). As co-directors of the program, they brought a dual perspective to the job-both ran successful businesses before going back to school and obtaining doctoral degrees. Their concern was how to teach skills that would translate well into the business community. Good students, even good business students, they reason, do not necessarily mak e good entrepreneurs.

McCline and Gaglio did not rely solely on their own business experience to rework the program. They looked at what's been written about the keys to business success or failure and talked with local entrepreneurs and venture capitalists (people who invest in business start-ups). According to Gaglio, the conclusion they came to was that "entrepreneurship is not a personality trait-not a type of person-but a way of thinking and behaving."

It is with this understanding that the two decided to borrow the definition of entrepreneurship employed by Harvard Business School: the pursuit of opportunity without regard to resources currently controlled. At the Ohrenschall Center, that definition is not left as some vague theoretical model, but translated into practice. Students are taught to look beyond potential cash resources and search for opportunities to get what they need to start their business by trading or borrowing resources.

"Most start-ups in America begin with less than $25,000. Those that fail don't fail because they didn't have enough money, but because they spend their money incorrectly," says Gaglio McCline adds, "The new entrepreneurs are skilled at controlling … not owning resources … they must use their analytical time to make sure that they address the control issue."

McCline and Gaglio's enthusiasm for the re-worked entrepreneurship program extends beyond the new approach. They also are excited that it is happening in a campus with diverse, socially responsible students. One of McCline's research interests is "how socially responsible entrepreneurs maintain a balance between their bottom line and the needs of the society at large." He also seeks to mentor entrepreneurs from underrepresented groups. Gaglio believes that addressing the demands of cultural diversit y is going to be the major question business's will need to have to confront in the next twenty-five years. It is a process, an exciting trading of attitudes and ideas, that is very much a part of San Francisco State's present and past.

--William Morris

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