MINDING BUSINESS - ship and innovation.” FinDinG solutions to thE BottlED WAtER ContRoVERsY A Unique “Solution Plan” Competition for the Cornell Community v With an eye toward

Entrepreneurs-in-Residence + McGovern Family Venture Center + Kessler Fellows Program

MINDINGtheir

BUSINESSCornell students pursue their entrepreneurial dreams through businesses, internships and academics

WINTER 2008-09www.eship.cornell.edu

SAVE THE DATEAPRIL 16-17, 2009

“Finding and fostering the entrepreneurial spirit in every Cornell participant in every college, every �eld and every stage of life.”

For more information on Celebration 2009 visit eship.cornell.edu/events/celebration09 or contact the Entrepreneurship@Cornell office via email at [email protected] or phone at (607) 255-1576.@Cornell Entrepreneur Network

College of EngineeringThe College of Human Ecology’s Sloan Program in Health AdministrationCornell Program in Real EstateCornell Community and Rural Development InstituteFaculty of Computing and Information Science

The Johnson School College of Agriculture and Life SciencesThe School of Hotel Administration’s Leland C. and Mary M. Pillsbury Institute for Hospitality EntrepreneurshipStudent Agencies, Inc.Cornell Center for Technology Enterprise and Commercialization

Join alumni, students, faculty, and staff for two days of on-campus events including:Keynote address by Cornell Entrepreneur of the Year 2009 Gala Dinner hosted by President David J. Skorton CCTEC New Business Showcase “The Big Idea” Undergraduate Idea Competition Finals Symposia on the topics of entrepreneurship in hospitality, real estate, healthcare, agriculture, food

and life sciences, engineering, computing and information science, and venture capital Technology, Business and Resource Expo Cornell Entrepreneur Network (CEN) Event Cornell Venture Challenge

CELEBRATIONPhoto by Leslie Nydick ’85. www.PhotocardsbyLeslie.com

4TH ANNUAL ENTREPRENEURSHIP@CORNELL

From the Executive Director of

EntREPREnEuRshiP@CoRnEll Welcome to the third issue of eship. Today’s swiftly changing economic environment continues to underscore the value of entrepreneurship education for any student, regardless of major or career aspiration. Most students understand that starting their own business during or right out of college is unlikely. However, they do understand that being able to develop an entrepreneurial approach to problem recognition and solution is a lifelong asset. On campus, enrollment in the more than 150 courses that comprise the cross-campus entrepreneurial course map reached 9,817 this year. Several new entrepreneurially-focused student clubs have been formed. This past summer, 58 students were challenged through summer internships with startup and entrepreneurial companies. A new undergraduate business incubator (Student Agencies eLab) opened in April and had three occupants quickly, one of which has gone on to get $500,000 in seed funding. Our cover story explores some of the many roads students are taking to create their own entrepreneurial futures and some of the many ways Cornell is supporting them. Also in this issue, we are pleased to share an early report on the research being done by Professor Deborah Streeter, graduate stu-dent Romi Kher, and Professor David Just regarding the impact of entrepreneurship classes on alumni. Two main points emerge from their study — entrepreneurship courses positively impact the “entrepreneur” career choice and entrepreneurship courses positively impact an entrepreneurial mindset for non-entrepreneurs. Around the world and at Cornell, Global Entrepreneurship Week, supported by the Kauffman Foundation, was celebrated in Novem-ber. Its goal was to inspire, connect, inform and mentor the next generation of entrepreneurs. Students, faculty and staff at Cornell heard engaging speakers, took part in seminars and networking events and worked on their own business ideas for upcoming competi-tions as part of the celebration on campus. This issue also contains articles about:

The new engineering initiative, the Kessler Fellows Program, which combines classroom work related to entrepreneurship with a •summer internship program to help engineering students learn what it takes to turn a technology into a business.Entrepreneurs-in-Residence, alumni who come back to share their stories, advice and know-how with students.•The new Kevin M. McGovern Family Center for Venture Development in the Life Sciences.•The Cornell Center for Technology Enterprise and Commercialization (CCTEC); Entrepreneurship@ Johnson; The Pillsbury In-•stitute for Hospitality Entrepreneurship and The Entrepreneurship@Cornell Celebration 2009 (April 16-17).

All the best for the holidays and the New Year,

John P. Jaquette, Jr.

Executive Director

Entrepreneurship@Cornell

+ Entrepreneurship@Cornell Governing Board

Chair:sChool oF hotEl ADMinistRAtion

Michael D. Johnson, Dean

thE Johnson sChool

Joe Thomas, Anne and Elmer Lindseth Dean

CollEGE oF AGRiCultuRE AnD liFE sCiEnCEs

Susan A. Henry, Ronald P. Lynch Dean

CollEGE oF ARChitECtuRE, ARt AnD PlAnninG

Kent Kleinman, Gale and Ira Drukier Dean

CollEGE oF ARts AnD sCiEnCEs

G. Peter Lepage, Harold A. Tanner Dean

CollEGE oF EnGinEERinG

W. Kent Fuchs, Joseph Silbert Dean

CollEGE oF huMAn EColoGY

Alan Mathios, Dean

sChool oF inDustRiAl AnD lABoR RElAtions

Harry C. Katz, Kenneth F. Kahn Dean

CoRnEll lAW sChool

Stewart J. Schwab, Allan R. Tessler Dean

2 eship magazine www.eship.cornell.edu 2

eship Fall 2008

+ CONTENTS

WINTER 2008-09: Vol. 2, No. 1eship is published twice a year by


at Cornell University.

www.eship.cornell.edu

Executive Director | John P. Jaquette, Jr.

Program Manager | Debra Moesch-Shelley

Administrative Assistant | Carol Peters

Communications Manager | Becca Bowes

Writer | Kathy Hovis

Design | Jacob Souva, Two Fish Illustration & Design

We welcome feedback from readers.

Address correspondence to:

eship Magazine, Entrepreneurship@Cornell

Cornell University, 51 Warren Hall, Ithaca, NY 14853

Phone: (607) 255-1576 | Fax: (607) 255-9330

Email: [email protected]

features

departments

12KEsslER FElloWs PRoGRAMEngineering Program Helps Students Embrace their Entrepreneurial Spirit

By Becca Bowes

REsiDEnt ExPERtsEntrepreneurs-In-Residence Share Insights with Students

By Kathy Hovis

VEntuRE CREAtionMcGoverns Fund Life Sciences Incubator in Weill Hall

By Jennifer Campbell

MinDinG thEiR BusinEssStudents Pursue their Entrepreneurial Dreams

By Kathy Hovis

stuDEnts 03 Student Business Profile, Pillsbury Institute News,

eLab Update, Global EntrepreneurshipWeek,

Entrepreneurship@Johnson

FACultY & stAFF 08Alumni Survey, Institutions and Entrepreneurship

Conference, CCTEC News, E@C Faculty List

AluMni 10Alumni Business Profile,

Celebration 2009, CEN & CSV Update

ADVisoRY CounCil nEWs 23News From Council Members,

Fall Meeting

142023

www.eship.cornell.edu 3

ENTREPRENEURSHIP@CORNELL

+ STUDENTS

EFFiCiEnCY thRouGh PARtnERshiPStudent’s Procurement Business Serves Pharmaceutical, Research Companies

Jonathan Santomauro’s ’10 business helps companies procure everything from needles to nectarines, saving them money and time and helping them to focus on the more valuable aspects of their business. Santomauro, a government major in the College of Arts and Sciences, is the newest student to sign on with Stu-dent Agencies eLab, where he hopes to connect with alum-ni mentors and learn more about growing his business, Global Procurement Strategies (GPS). “I know it will be important to have this knowledge base behind me as I’m making decisions,” said Santomauro, who started his company in 2005 as an offshoot of his parents’officesupplybusinessinPhiladelphia(ISGOfficeConcepts). “The eLab will really help me with business planning and development.” The idea for the business came from one of his parents’ customers. “The customer had this request for an obscure productandmyteamwasabletofinditcheaperandfasterthan the customer could,” Santomauro said. “I knew that we could reduce the cost of procurement for companies and alsoincreasetheefficiencyofprocurementdepartments.” Santomauro said the business works mainly with phar-maceutical companies and large contract research orga-nizations, which need products for clinical trials and re-search. “We have an excellent story to tell from our customer base,” he said. “On average, we’ve saved customers 31 per-cent.” Santomauro is founder and president of GPS, which is headquartered in Philadelphia. He focuses on marketing, sales and strategy. The company has 30 employees who work as “ancillary supply teams” for companies. Santomauro manages his end of the business from his cell phone and laptop, taking conference calls, designing presentations, calling clients and doing research. On campus, Santomauro has been active in the Cornell Entrepreneur Organization (CEO) and the Undergradu-

ate Startup and Venture Capi-tal Club and has taken entre-preneurship courses, including Introduction to Entrepreneur-ship, Entrepreneurship and Personal Enterprise Speaker Series and Entrepreneurship and Private Equity. “I knew a lot of business con-cepts going into the classes, but I didn’t know what they were called and why they worked,” Santomauro said. “What I’ve learned in class has made me a much more effective busi-ness leader.” Starting Cornell as a biology major with hopes of becoming a plastic surgeon, Santomauro found out through a freshman externship that wasn’t the job for him. At the same time, he took on more of a leadership role in GPS, which was grow-ing quickly. Santomauro is contemplating an MBA-JD de-gree as he considers the next steps for his company and his future. “I’m looking forward to talking with alumni entrepre-neurs through the eLab and learning more about how they became successful,” he said.

+ To find out more about Santomauro’s company, visit the

Web site at www.globalprocurementstrategies.com.

“What I’ve learned in class has made me a much more effective business leader.”

- Jonathan Santomauro ’10+

Jonathan Santomauro ’10 handles sales, marketing

and strategy for his procurement business from his

laptop and cell phone.

Photo: Jon Reis Photography and Design

4 eship magazine


+ STUDENTS

innoVAtion nEtWoRK MEEtinG Mary and Lee Pillsbury ’69 attended the second Innovation Network meeting on Sep-tember 3-4, 2008, hosted by the Pillsbury Institute for Hospitality Entrepreneurship (PIHE). Lee Pillsbury writes that, “The event brought together over 25 senior executives from major companies in the service in-dustries, including Marriott International, American Express, Sunstone Hotel Inves-tors, Inc. and a cross-section of privately held companies at the Hotel School. The program, under the direction of Tom Ward, Director of the PIHE, featured presentations by faculty from the Cornell Hotel School and the J.L. Kellogg Graduate School at Northwestern University on innovation and how to man-age it. Also featured was a presentation by Cornell Professor Tony Simon based on his new book, “The Integrity Dividend,” which is being published in October. Both the social events and the program were attended by Dean Michael Johnson of the Hotel School; two Associate Deans, Steve Carvell and Jon Denison; and a good number of faculty and students from the Johnson School as well as the Hotel School interested in entrepreneur-ship and innovation.”

FinDinG solutions to thE BottlED WAtER ContRoVERsYA Unique “Solution Plan” Competition for the Cornell Community With an eye toward creating solutions to the complex issues surrounding the bottled water industry, the Leland C. and Mary M. Pillsbury Institute for Hospitality Entrepre-neurship is proud to announce the launch of the 2008-09 campus-wide competition, “Find-ing Solutions to the Bottled Water Contro-versy.”

WhAt’s hAPPEninG At…

ConVERsAtions With EntREPREnEuRs The Conversations with Entrepreneurs speaker series brings to campus leading hospitality entrepreneurs who share their experience, wisdom and insights with students. These leaders meet with students, helping them shape their ideas, thereby motivating the next generation of hospitality entrepreneurs.

FAll 2008 sPEAKERs inCluDE:

v September 16-17, 2008D. Teddy Zhang ’97, President/Chief Executive Officer, HUBS1

v OctOber 21-22, 2008Jeffrey A. Mayer MMH ’05, owner and operator, That Burrito Place

v OctOber 28-29, 2008John A. Griswold ’71, President, Harbor Hotel Investors, LLC;

President/Chief Executive Officer, Linger Longer Hotels and Resorts

v NOvember 11-12, 2008Diane Darling, Founder, Effective Networking

v NOvember 18-19, 2008Brian Brault, Founder/Chief Executive Officer,

PURE Solutions NA, LLC

+ To learn more about the Conversations series, visit

www.hotelschool.cornell.edu/industry/centers/ihe/series/.

Tom Kammerer, Managing Director of

Thayer Lodging Group; Lee Pillsbury, Co-

Chairman/CEO of Thayer Lodging Group;

Mike Jannini, Executive Vice President/Gen-

eral Manager of Global Brand Strategy and

Innovation at Marriott International, Inc. at

the Innovation Network meeting.

Photo: University Photo

Teddy Zhang ’97, President/Chief Executive Officer, HUBS1, presents during a

recent “Conversations with Entrepreneurs” event.


v Number of entrepreneur-

ship-related courses offered at

the School of Hotel Adminis-

tration: 27

v Number of School of Hotel

Administration faculty

teaching entrepreneurship

related courses: 19

v Number of Student Clubs

dedicated to Entrepreneurship

in the Hospitality Industry: 3

v Number of successful

hospitality entrepreneurs

brought back to campus with

the Conversations with

Entrepreneurs series: 18

+ See page 19 for additional information on the contest, or visit www.hotelschool.

cornell.edu/industry/centers/ihe/spotlights/article.html.


StudentAgencieseLab,thenot-for-profitbusinessaccel-erator for Cornell undergrads, already has success stories to report.

Funded by the Student Agencies Foundation, Entrepre-neurship@Cornell, the Leland C. and Mary M. Pillsbury Institute for Hospitality Entrepreneurship and a group of dedicated Cornell alumni, the eLab provides access to a network of successful alumni mentors and investors, physicalofficespace,andasuiteofprofessionalservices,including legal and accounting support.

The eLab, directed by Dan Cohen, eLab’s Entrepreneur-in-Residence and a faculty member in the School of In-dustrial and Labor Relations, started with three teams of seniors last spring. One of those companies, wiggio.com, which created an online toolkit that makes it easy to work in groups, has since secured $500,000 in seed stage fund-ing, launched its Beta site on Sept. 15 and boasts users at 112 colleges.

“I think seeing what’s happened with wiggio really gives me a tremendous amount of satisfaction that we have something special here,” Cohen said.

This fall, Cohen has been working to build the eLab brand on campus and recruit a new class of student entrepre-neurs by speaking in entrepreneurship classes, network-ing with professors and advertising in local publications and on Web sites like facebook.com. He plans to work with seven to 10 businesses each year.

“Our biggest strength is our group of more than 30 dedi-cated alumni mentors,” Cohen said. “The intensity and quality of that group is what lifts these startups off the ground.”

The eLab is always searching for new mentors in every area of expertise.

Another exciting development is a new marketing rela-tionship with Plug and Play Tech Center in Silicon Val-ley, an incubator for startups that also offers a summer camp for promising young entrepreneurs. Through the arrangement,fiveeLabcompanieswillbeinvitedtoPlugand Play’s summer camp each year, where they’ll receive $20,000 in seed funds, free housing and intense help de-veloping their businesses.

The founder of Plug and Play, Saeed Amidi, is reaching out to a select group of entrepreneurship universities, Cohen said, with the hope of accelerating engagement in entrepreneurial startups.

Entrepreneurship@Cornell has engaged the eLab to take the lead in administering its Undergraduate Big Idea Competition, which drew more than 150 applicants last year. Matt Wagner, a second-year Johnson School student working with eLab this year, will be heading that project, hoping to grow the competition, which offers cash prizes and the opportunity to use eLab services. Vijay ’75 and Sita Vashee have established an endowment to provide for these prizes.

The eLab has secured funding through 2009, but its board is actively engaged in fund raising and seeking partner-ships to ensure this resource will continue to be avail-able.

+ To find out more about eLab or ways you can support

the program, visit the Web site at www.elabstartup.com or

e-mail Cohen at [email protected].

elab update

“Our biggest strength is our group of more than 30 dedicated

alumni mentors”-Dan Cohen

eLab’s Entrepreneur-in-Residence

6 eship magazine


+ STUDENTS

CoRnElliAns joined entrepreneurs and aspiring entrepreneurs in 75 countries to celebrate the Ewing Marion Kauffman Foundation’s “Global Entrepreneurship Week” from Nov. 17-23, 2008. During the weeklong event, which focuses on young people, partner organizations conducted a range of activities — from simple speeches to comprehensive competitions — designed to inspire, connect, in-form, mentor and engage the next generation of entrepreneurs. At Cornell, activities included an entrepreneurship faculty lunch; a special Web site carrying video clips of entrepreneurs speaking about various topics and a Cornell Center for Technology Enterprise and Commercialization seminar and social hour. “Young people are involved in entrepreneurial ventures all around the world, using their creativity, ingenuity and energy to start busi-nesses and solve problems,” said Carl Schramm, president of the Ew-ing Marion Kauffman Foundation. “This enterprising spirit — the core of Global Entrepreneurship Week — is an invaluable resource theworldmust tap as we seek to extend the benefits of economicgrowth to more people across the globe and address the complex chal-lenges facing us all.” Global Entrepreneurship Week is a combination and expansion of Kauffman’s previous initiatives — EntrepreneurshipWeek USA in 2007 and the inspiration behind it, Enterprise Week in the UK, which was kicked off in 2004 by now-Prime Minister Gordon Brown. Cornell’s university-wide engagement in entrepreneurship was evi-dent in the wide array of activities during the week. Among some of the highlights:

Campus-wide entrepreneurship faculty and staff met to hear •the results of a Cornell survey involving responses from 1,500 alumni about the impact of entrepreneurship classes on future endeavors.The eClips online video clip collection created playlists for each •day of the week focused on the themes of startup issues and business planning; sustainable entrepreneurship; global and

international entrepreneurship; social entrepreneurship; com-mercialization and technology entrepreneurship; hospitality en-trepreneurship and human resources and leadership. This series was advertised on campus daily and through e-mail to 40,000 alumni.Undergraduates began working on their ideas for the Big Idea •Competition, where they compete against each other in a busi-ness idea and presentation contest.Entrepreneurship student clubs at Cornell conducted a variety •of membership, educational and networking events.The Cornell Center for Technology Enterprise and Commercial-•ization (CCTEC) hosted a seminar for Johnson School students on new commercialization opportunities, as well as an informa-tion session with faculty and staff from the College of Arts and Sciences about technology transfer and intellectual property.The Leland C. and Mary M. Pillsbury Institute for Hospitality •Entrepreneurship at the School of Hotel Administration hosted atalkbyBrianBrault,Founder/ChiefExecutiveOfficerofPURESolutions NA, LLC as part of its “Conversations with Entrepre-neurs” series.Student Agencies eLab hosted an open house November 21st.•Entrepreneur Matt Russo ’90, managing partner, the Russo Fi-•nancial Group, was on campus to speak to students as part of AEM 1210, “Entrepreneurship and Personal Enterprise Speak-er Series.” Russo also brought staff from his companies to hold workshops with students on the possibilities of unleashing their entrepreneurialcareersinhisfinancialservicesbusinesses.

+ To find out more about Global Entrepreneurship Week, visit www.

eship.cornell.edu/events/gew, www.kauffman.org or www.unleash-

ingideas.org.

Cornell Joins Worldwide Celebration of Kauffman Foundation’s Global Entrepreneurship Week


+Entrepreneurship@ JohnsonnEtWoRKs, CluBs AnD stARtuPs FuEl EntREPREnEuRiAl EnERGY At Johnson sChool

At the Johnson School, students interested in entrepreneurship focus on academics for theory and research-based knowledge, but also take ad-vantage of a full spectrum of applied entrepreneurship programs with responsibility for results. “Students are interested in starting companies, getting jobs at existing startups,andjoiningventurecapitalfirms.Theyreallyunderstandthecritical need to network on a large scale, and our activities at the John-son School are aimed at enabling our students to reach out, connect and get satisfying results,” said Entrepreneurship@Johnson Director Zach-ary J. Shulman ’87, JD ’90.

some of the newest initiatives at Entrepreneurship@Johnson include:First-year MBA students act as consultants for BR Incubator.

Photo: Jon Reis Photography and Design

Cornell Venture Capital Directory

Shulman has compiled a comprehen-sive directory of Cornell venture capital-ists, which is continually updated. The document, available at johnson.cornell.edu/research/entrepreneurship/VC_Di-rectory.pdf, offers biographies and Web sites for more than 120 alumni and has proven to be a great tool for students and alumni.

EVCs Club Expands its Reach

The Entrepreneurship, Venture Capi-tal and Startup Club is launching a num-ber of educational and networking events this year as it expands its work at the Johnson School and across campus. Along with the annual spring sympo-sium that coincides with the Entrepre-neurship@Cornell Celebration, the club has launched three new series – focused on startups, learning and networking. The startup series includes social meet-ings where students can match ideas, an “elevator pitch” competition and a busi-ness plan review event, where local ven-ture capitalists and entrepreneurs advise students on their business plans. The learning series will include panels of student interns talking about their ex-periences, meetings to highlight Cornell resources for entrepreneurs and roundta-ble discussions between Johnson School

students and entrepreneurs who have speaking engagements on campus. The networking series includes meet-ings with inventors and staff from the Cornell Center for Technology Enter-prise and Commercialization and cross-program networking with other schools on campus with entrepreneurship pro-grams.

VlAB Collaborative

Cornell will be one of a large group of universities and organizations to take part in “EntrepreneurTrek,” by VLAB, the MIT/Stanford Venture Lab. The event is a three-day intensive program designed to help entrepreneurs of tomor-row network and sharpen their tool kit for securing funding or seeking a job or internship in the startup space. EntrepreneurTrek offers entrepreneurs the opportunity to explore their areas of interest, learn about emerging technolo-gies and network with fellow entrepre-neurs, business mentors, and potential investors through a wide range of inno-vative activities. It’s scheduled for March 21-23, 2009 at Stanford University. The focus at EntrepreneurTrek 2009 will be on greentech, social networking and mobile innovations with an underly-ing theme of an “Era of innovation that transcends boundaries.”

BR MicroCapital launched

BR MicroCapital (BRM) was launched by Johnson School students in May 2008 to catalyze microenterprise development in Tompkins County. BRM works with the Alternatives Federal Credit Union (AFCU) and the Center for Sustainable Global Enterprise (CSGE) to support low-income entrepreneurs. By offering small loans and targeted client support services to promising, low-income entrepreneurs, the organization’s goal is to support in-clusive wealth creation and local econom-ic development goals. BRM serves as a bridge connecting the human capital and resources of a premier business school with talented, communi-ty-based entrepreneurs. Through cus-tomized support services that recognize both the strengths and challenges faced by low-income entrepreneurs, the organi-zation helps clients develop the skills and resources they need to build successful small businesses.

8 eship magazine

+ FACULTY & STAFFENTREPRENEURSHIP@CORNELL

E ver wonder if taking even one

class in entrepreneurship really

has an impact on your future career?

Deborah Streeter, the Bruce F. Fail-ing Sr. Professor of Entrepreneurship in the Department of Applied Econom-ics and Management, and Romi Kher, a graduate student in the department, decidedtofindout. Kher and Streeter, along with Da-vid Just, an associate professor in the department and the Director of Grad-uate Studies, developed a survey for

alumni to measure the impact of entrepreneurship classes on alumni’s careers and opinions about entrepreneurship. They found that taking at least one entrepreneurship class made a graduate’s attitude toward entrepreneurship much more positive. What was most surprising was the strength of the impact, Just said,

especially for those who took four or more classes. To gather their results, Kher and Streeter sent a survey in the sum-mer of 2008 to 15,000 alumni on a listserv for the Cornell Entrepreneur Network. They received 1,520 responses. Kher said that more than 100 of the participants also took the time to e-mail him with details of their experiences. “Not everyone had started a business, but many said that the entrepreneurship classes they took helped them think more entrepreneurially, even in a corporate environ-ment,” Kher said. Results show that alumni from across Cornell’s schools and colleges perceiveclearbenefitsfromtakingentrepreneurshipclasses. Thisalumnisurveyisoneofthefirstofitskind,Justsaid.Alumnidatabases aren’t usually readily available to researchers. Kher said the group plans to publish its results in an academic journal and is willing to share the survey instrument with other universities to expand this type of research. “There’s obviously this passion for the topic out there, if our results are any indication,” Kher said. “People want to share their insights.”

ClAssEs shAPE EntREPREnEuRiAl AttituDEsAlumni Survey Shows Taking Entrepreneurship Classes Impacts Career Choices

Kher and Streeter received 1,520 responses

from alumni for their survey on the impacts of

entrepreneurship classes.


ConnECtinG Cornell innovations to poten-tial business partners continues to be the focus of outreach and economic development activities at the Cornell Center for Technology Enterprise and Commercialization (CCTEC). “Technology-based entrepreneurship re-quires three indispensable elements: tech-nology, management talent and financialresources. CCTEC tries to triangulate these three elements, especially among Cornellians, to facilitate entrepreneurial endeavors locally to promote regional economic development,” said Dr. Alan Paau, Vice Provost for Technol-ogy Transfer and Economic Development and Executive Director of CCTEC. CCTEC organizes events on both Ithaca and New York campuses and also creates and maintains networking web sites to bring Cor-nellians together online. The Cornell Technology Venture Forum (CTVF) is a day-long event that takes place in

Ithaca in October. CTVF showcases Cornell innovations and their commercial potential to the venture capital and business community. The Cornell Startups and Emerging Tech-nologies Showcase is organized in partner-ship with Entrepreneurship@Cornell during its annual Celebration in April. Other events organized by CCTEC include IP and Pizza, Seminar and Social Hour, Startup Book Camp, and Innovators Round-table. “CCTEC events (www.cctec.cornell.edu/events) are free and are open to anybody in-terested in Cornell technologies,” said Laura Cima, Manager for Economic Development. CCTEC also launches private, industry fo-cused networking sites for Cornellians in its Cornellboration™ suite of online sites. The suite (www.cornellboration.com) is open and free to all Cornellians. The Cornell BioPharma Network, launched in June, fo-

cuses on the biopharma and life sciences in-dustry and already has more than 200 users. The Cornell NanoMat Network focuses on nanotechnology and material sciences and is being launched this October. CCTEC actively showcases Cornell tech-nologies nationally and internationally at in-novation shows and technology fairs. “We present technologies at events; but our larger goal is to present Cornell as the place to go if you are interested in tapping into Cornell’s rich intellectual property portfolio,” said Melba Kurman, Manager for Outreach and Mar-keting.

+ CCtEC ConnECts CoRnEll innoVAtion to BusinEss

Dr. Alan Paau speaks with

a Johnson Graduate School

student at a Seminar & Social

Hour event earlier this year.


CollEGE oF AGRiCultuRE AnD

liFE sCiEnCEs

Lou Albright

Ralph Christy

Aija Leiponen

William Lesser

Pedro Perez

Per Pinstrup-Andersen

Robert Seem

Deborah Streeter

Michael Thonney

Michael Timmons

Cindy van Es

Anke Wessels

CollEGE oF ARChitECtuRE,

ARt AnD PlAnninG

Susan Christopherson

David Funk

Brad Olson

CollEGE oF ARts AnD

sCiEnCEs

Bruce Ganem

sChool oF inDustRiAl AnD

lABoR RElAtions

Susanne Bruyere

Daniel Cohen

Christopher Collins

CollEGE oF EnGinEERinG

Kathryn Caggiano

John Callister

Alton Clark

Mark Eisner

Emmanuel Giannelis

CollEGE oF huMAn EColoGY

Brenda Bricker

Sheila Danko

R. Brooke Hollis

John Kuder

Suzanne Loker

Anil Netravali

William White

DEPARtMEnt oF CoMPutER

sCiEnCE

Johannes Gehrke

Don Greenberg

sChool oF hotEl

ADMinistRAtion

Cathy Enz

Arturs Kalnins

Jan Katz

Adam Klausner

Jim Quest

Stephani Robson

Judy Siguaw

thE Johnson sChool

David BenDaniel

Ola Bengtsson

Alan Biloski

RobertBloomfield

Melvin Goldman

Stuart Hart

Daniel Huttenlocher

Gary Katzenstein

Mark Milstein

John Nesheim

George Schneider

Zachary Shulman

Wesley Sine

+ Entrepreneurship@Cornell Faculty

Researchers from nine countries explored topics ranging from the grass-fed beef industry to wind power to nanotechnology during the second Cornell-McGill Conference on Institutions and Entrepre-neurship held in Montreal, Canada from June 24-26. More than 60 researchers from 43 universities participated in the event, which was the second conference of its kind to be hosted by The Johnson School and the Desautels Faculty of Management at McGill. The firstconferencewasheldatCornellinJuly2007.

“The conference was fantastic,” reports Wesley Sine PhD ’01, a J. Thomas Clark Professor in Entrepreneurship and Personal En-terprise at The Johnson School and one of the conference’s orga-nizers. “It was amazing to have so much intellectual horsepower in one room. We heard and discussed the latest research from en-trepreneurship scholars from all over the world.”

The conference featured a keynote address by Howard Aldrich, professor of organizations in the sociology department and adjunct professor of management in the Kenan-Flagler Business School at the University of North Carolina, and “one of the best known entrepreneurship scholars in the country,” according to Sine. Other notable participants included Dick Scott from Stanford, Anne Miner from the University of Wisconsin, Royston Greenwood from the University of Alberta, Tina Dacin from Queens Univer-sity and Pam Tolbert from Cornell.

Conference papers ranged from theoretical discussions on the

links between institutions and entrepreneurship to contextual research that included analyzing the development of mobile tele-phony and nanotechnology. Other topics included an evaluation of the impact of social movements on the wind power sector and the soft drink industry.

The three-day conference began with a workshop for doctoral stu-dents, which included student re-search presentations and a panel discussion that focused on the future of research in institutions and entrepreneurship.

Entrepreneurship@Cornell has been a co-sponsor for both confer-ences. John Jaquette, Executive Director of E@C, attended the conference this year and said, “Wes Sine and McGill University’s co-organizerRobertDavidPhD’01havemadeasignificantcontri-bution to entrepreneurship education by developing this confer-ence and engaging scholars from a wide variety of disciplines to focus on entrepreneurship.”

second Cornell-McGill Conference on institutions and Entrepreneurship held in Montreal in June 2008

+

Wesley Sine PhD ’01, a J. Thomas Clark

Professor in Entrepreneurship and Personal

Enterprise at The Johnson School


10 eship magazine

+ ALUMNIENTREPRENEURSHIP@CORNELL

nEW YoRK CitY — Thevaki Thambirajah ’97 says she feels like a student again. After years of interest in starting her own cosmetics company, Thambirajah took the leap to start her own business in 2006. She found her target market, devel-oped formulas, created distinctive packag-ing and design ideas and began working to build a recognizable brand. Her challenge now is building from a small local business to a nationally known product. “At this point, I need knowledge about how to get from this level to the next,” she said while visiting campus during a re-cent speaking engagement to a class. “I’m trying to network and meet mentors who have gone through the startup phases, so I can learn some strategies and ways to get there.” Thambirajah, who was born of Sri Lank-an parents, started her company, Thevi Cosmetics, because she found that tradi-tional makeup lines lacked products for women with strong cultural traditions and influences,whatshecallsthe“NewEthnicMarket.” “Many of these light to dark-skinned women of Asian, South Asian, Hispanic, Middle Eastern and Mediterranean de-

scent enjoy makeup that’s more colorful and intense than products available now,” she said. For them, color is an everyday look, not a trend. And for many of these women, their lives consist of mixing the traditions of culture and family with their modern lifestyle, she said. An undergraduate business major, Thambirajah took several classes in entre-preneurship and was a co-founder of the Cornell Entrepreneur Organization (CEO) for undergraduates. She was also very ac-tive in the South Asian community organi-zation and cultural events, was president of Sitara, a South Asian dance troupe and was co-chair of the StudentAssembly fi-nance commission. After graduation, she worked in bank-ing, then — wanting to follow through on her interest in cosmetics — took positions with Revlon and Coty to gain industry ex-perience. “At the same time, I was always doing research and writing business plans for my own business,” she said. “I was in plan-ning mode for a while, but then I decided to just go for it.” So far, she has visited retailers to show off her products, which are sold on her Web site (thevicosmetics.com), and has re-ceived good reviews from makeup bloggers and Web sites. Now she’s at the point where she needs to raise additional capital to refine herformulations, making them even more rel-evant to women of different cultures. She also needs to make a bigger break into the retail world and build her customer base.She’s testing other distribution strategies to reach ethnic communities until she can obtain financing – through direct sales,

“makeup party” style gatherings, wedding planning events and small ethnic boutique distribution within each ethnic commu-nity. “I hope to gain a grassroots following this way to have a stronger impact on larger retailers,” she said. “It’s challenging because I don’t have the brand recognition that big companies have.” She’s even contemplating taking an-other job to bring in some capital for her business, but she doesn’t want to get dis-tracted from her goal. “This is really what I want to do,” she said. “I’m passionate about it.”

+ To learn more about Thevi Cosmetics,

visit www.thevicosmetics.com.

’97 GRAD stARts hER DREAM BusinEssThevi Cosmetics founder reaches out to ‘new ethnic market’

Thambirajah’s cosmetics line offers colorful makeup for women

with strong cultural traditions and influences.

Thambirajah enjoys some time with her twin girls,

Meena and Meera.


FRoM JEnniFER CunninGhAM, DiRECtoR oF CEn,

AnD shAnnon MuRRAY, DiRECtoR oF CsV:

CEN and CSV continue to provide valuable net-

working opportunities for all entrepreneurial

Cornell alumni. Highlights from summer 2008

include:

In June, CEN had one of its fastest breakfast sell-outs ever in NYC for an event featuring Da-vid Einhorn ’91, President of Greenlight Capital and author of the best-seller, “Fooling Some of the People All of the Time: A Long Short Story.”

In September, another sell-out crowd in NYC got valuable advice on “How to Get Funding for Your Startup” from Savneet Singh ’05, Startup Investor and Co-founder of streamline.com, Pat-rick Kandianis ’88, Co-Founder, Executive Vice President&Chief SalesOfficer of SimpleTuit-ion, and Zack Schildhorn ’07, MBA ’08, Associ-ate of Lux Capital. In Washington, D.C., CEN paired up Professor Jon Kleinberg ’93 and Gar-rettGraff,friendofCornellandthefirstbloggeradmittedtocoveraWhiteHousepressbriefing,to present “Social Networking: How Does it Af-fect Elections?”

InOctober,CENlaunched thefirstEastCoastWomen’s Networking Luncheon with an event called “Growing a Business, Maintaining a Life” featuring Susan Kurz Snyder ’81, founder of Greene-Levin-Snyder Legal Search Group and Dr. Svetlana Kogan ’93, founder of Doctors at Trump Place. This event notice was sent out at 5:00 am on a Saturday and by 10:30 am on Sun-day was already oversold.

+ Visit cen.cornell.edu to see upcoming events.

+ CoRnEll EntREPREnEuR nEtWoRK (CEn) AnD CoRnEll siliCon VAllEY (CsV) uPDAtE

ChECK out CEn’s onlinE nEtWoRKinG oPPoRtunitiEs:

v CEN’s New Networking List: groups.google.com/group/cornell-entrepreneur-network-posting-list v Cornell’s LinkedIn Group: linkedin.com/e/gis/958/69DBD44472B3

v Facebook: “Cornell Entrepreneur Network” group v MySpace: myspace.com/cornellnetwork v Alumni Directory: directory.alumni.cornell.edu

Plans are underway for Celebration 2009 which will take place April 16-17 on campus in Ithaca. A record 11 groups are participating in this year’s event making it the most diverse and comprehensive Celebration yet.

The two-day program includes: symposia on the topics of entrepreneurship in hospital-ity, real estate, healthcare, agriculture, food and life sciences, engineering, computing and information science and venture capital; a New Business Showcase from CCTEC; finalpresentationsin“TheBigIdea”UndergraduateIdeaCompetitionandtheCornellVenture Challenge; a Technology, Business, and Resource Expo; and the traditional keynote address from the 2009 Cornell Entrepreneur of the Year and Gala Banquet hosted by President David J. Skorton.

For more information or to register, visit www.eship.cornell.edu/events/celebration09.

PARtiCiPAtinG sChools, CollEGEs AnD oRGAnizAtions:

The Johnson School•

College of Agriculture and Life Sciences•

School of Hotel Administration’s Leland C. •

and Mary M. Pillsbury Institute for

Hospitality Entrepreneurship

Student Agencies, Inc.•

Cornell Center for Technology Enterprise and •

Commercialization (CCTEC)

Cornell Entrepreneur Network (CEN)•

College of Engineering•

College of Human Ecology’s Sloan Program •

in Health Administration

Cornell Program in Real Estate•

Community and Rural Development Institute•

Faculty of Computer and Information Science•

+ Mark your calendars for Entrepreneurship@Cornell Celebration 2009

Participants enjoy

networking time as part

of the Cornell Entrepre-

neur Network event dur-

ing Celebration 2008.

Howard Milstein ’73,

Cornell Entrepreneur of

the Year 2008, left, enjoys

a conversation with

Cornell President David

Skorton, during the gala

dinner honoring Milstein

in April 2008.

Photos: Jon Reis Photo

and Design

12 eship magazine

New Kessler Fellows Program in the College of Engineering Offers Students the Chance to Embrace their Entrepreneurial Spirit

By Becca Bowes

KESSlEr FEllOwS

PrOgram


Wanted: Internship Host Companies for the Next generation of Successful Technology Entrepreneurs

The Kessler Fellows Program is looking

for startup technology and engineering

companies to provide internships to the

first group of Kessler Fellows. The ideal

employer will meet the following crite-

ria:

Access to a senior level mentor

within the company (e.g., CEO, VP,

or founder): Although the Fellow may have daily supervision by another employee, it is critical to the success of the program that each student has a senior internal sponsor concerned with his or her wel-fare and activities. Quality of Work Assignments: Kessler Fellows are some of the most accomplished and dedicated engineer-ing students at Cornell. Employers should be willing to create high impact assignments that allow the student to demonstrate his or her innovation and creative thinking skills. While me-nial tasks are obviously part of life in an entrepreneurial environment, this program strives for special, mutually beneficial relationships between thestudent and the company by allowing fellows to focus their time on high level projects.

Compensation:

Fellows are paid $12,000 for a 10-12 week internship. Funding will be pro-vided by the Kessler Fellows Program.

For more information on how to host a

Kessler Fellows Program intern, please

contact Tracey Brant, Director, Kes-

sler Fellows Program, at tlb10@cornell.

edu or 607-254-6438, or Mark Savage,

Director, Co-op and Career Services at

[email protected] or 607-255-5006.

By Becca Bowes

THaNKS to a gift from Andrew Kessler ’80, the Col-lege of Engineering will now offer a select group of stu-dentsthechancetotakethefirststepinlearninghowto make their technological innovations into working businesses. The newly formed Kessler Fellows Program will award fellowships to 10 engineering students who excel in the critical thinking of technological innovation and entre-preneurship. “Andrew Kessler felt that engineering students need a better understanding of the business side of invention and innovation,” says Betsy East, Assistant Dean for Student Services in the College of Engineering. Kessler is a former hedge fund manager, a successful author and frequently writes on technology and the mar-ket for The Wall Street Journal, The New York Times, Wired, Forbes and others.

The program consists of three phases: a spring course that introduces students to the myriad issues related to starting and leading a new enterprise; a summer internship in a startup technology company or innovations unit in a larger company and a fall seminar that allows students to share their experiences with colleagues and faculty, and take their ideas to the next level. “This program offers a unique opportunity for students to combine classroom learning with real world, hands-on experience,” East says. The spring course, The Essentials of Entrepreneurism, will be taught by John Spoon-hower, a newly appointed adjunct professor in Materials Science and Engineering, a visiting lecturer at the Johnson School and the Managing Director of its Business of Science and Technology Institute (BSTI). The course symposium will focus on preparing students for their internships and cover topics such as creating, managing, and licens-ing intellectual property; market segmentation, positioning, and identifying potential opportunities;understandingventurecapitalfinancinganditsimplications;andbasicbusiness operations and communications, such as how to run a meeting and manage confidentiality. “This is not a course on how to write a business plan,” says Spoonhower. “We want to focus more on the day-to-day challenges that face an entrepreneur in the real world and really prepare the students for the experiences they will face in the technology startup environment.” Kessler Fellows will get a chance to use that “real world” learning during the program’s second phase, a 10-12 week summer internship. Fellows will receive mentoring from a seniorofficerintheirhostcompanyandearn$12,000fortheirwork.Alternatively,ifaFellow has an idea that will be better advanced by doing research with a Cornell faculty member, arrangements will be made for funding and space in Ithaca over the summer.In addition to the salary, Fellows will receive a $2,000 prize and associated travel ex-penses.Finally,ifFellowsarefinancialaidrecipients,theirloanswillbereducedduringtheir senior year. Thefinalcomponentoftheprogram,afallseminar,offersstudentsthechancetolearnfrom each other by evaluating their experiences with other Fellows, college faculty and invited guests. The Kessler Fellows program is open to all undergraduates in the College of Engineer-ing. “We are looking for students who are truly interested in entrepreneurial initiatives, who have an idea they want to take to market, and who are willing to take some risks,” East says. “Applicants must also demonstrate creativity and leadership skills. We think thisprogramhas tremendouspotential tohelpengineeringstudents learnfirsthandwhat it takes to make inventions and innovations into real businesses.”

+ lEarN mOrE aT www.engineering.cornell.edu/programs/undergraduate-education/kessler/index.cfm.

Andrew Kessler ’80 Photo Provided

From top: Jason Springs MBA ’09, CEO of

GeneWeave Biosciences; Jessica Prue ’09, founder

of the Social Business Consulting Group; Angeline

Stuma ’09, intern with Vermont Ventures and

Trevor Chan ’09, intern with Harrick Plasma

Photos: Jon Reis Photo and Design


ITHACA — Matt Dacey’s laptop can – at any time – operate as command central for two startups, two Johnson School clubs, a new business that’s still in the formative stages, and, last but not least, his class work as a second-year MBA student. “My heart is with startups,” says Dacey MBA ’09, who started multiple businesses while in college at Syracuse University and sold two of those companies. To say that students at Cornell are entrepreneurial can mean a number of things. Some, like Dacey, start theirownbusinessesornon-profitorganizationsasundergrads.Somebeginnewclubs.Someentertheirbigideas into business competitions. Some seek out summer jobs at small companies where they’ll get hands-on training. And still others hope to work with large corporations, but with a new product or in a new location, where their classroom training in entrepreneurship will be vital.

Being entrepreneurial means more than simply starting a new business.

CLASSES, PROFESSORS PROVIDE FOUNDATION Before beginning their careers, entrepreneurial students seek to build a strong foundation of knowledge through the many entrepreneurship classes offered on campus. It’snothardtofindonethatfitsthebill–therearemorethan150entrepreneurshiporrelatedskill-building courses listed on a cross-campus map in all of Cornell’s schools and colleges.

MINDINGtheir

BUSINESSSTuDENTS TAKE MANy PATHS TOWArD FINDING AND

FOSTErING THEIr ENTrEPrENEurIAL FuTurES

+ cover story

By Kathy Hovis

16 eship magazine

The undergraduate introductory classes, “Foundations of Entrepreneurship and Busi-ness,” “Entrepreneurship and Personal Enter-prise Speaker Series” and “Entrepreneurship, Life Sciences and Technology Speaker Series” had combined enrollment of 4,012 since 2004. In the 2007-08 academic year, there was an en-rollment of 9,817 in entrepreneurship courses. There are now two generations of alumni who count David BenDaniel’s classes as one of their most important experiences at Cornell. BenDan-iel, the Don and Margi Berens Professor of Entre-preneurship at the Johnson School, has played a key role not only at the Johnson School but also in supporting the concept of university-wide en-trepreneurship education. His advice continues to be sought after by current and past students and new and long-standing faculty. BenDaniel, who teaches the popular “Entre-preneurship and Enterprise” class for under-graduates and Johnson School students, is the longest-serving entrepreneurship professor at Cornell.

“I know the resources on campus are endless,” Dacey said. “But even more, there are people like Zach Shulman and Professor BenDaniel who can put me in touch with 10 people in a snap.” Anke Wessels, executive director of Cornell’s CRESP Center for Transformative Action, has been an inspiration for Jessi Prue ’09, founder of the Social Business Consulting Group. Prue said Wessels’ class, “Social Entrepreneurs, Innova-tors and Problem Solvers,” helped her strengthen her consulting group, which helps entrepreneurs throughout the world develop their businesses. Along with professors, many students take ad-vantage of several Entrepreneurs-in-Residence on campus, at the Johnson School, the School of Hotel Administration and the Student Agencies eLab. “Last year, I was able to bounce ideas off of Brad Treat MBA ’02 (then Johnson School EIR),” said Joe Strandberg ’10, founder of weplace.net and the Undergraduate Startup and Venture Capital Club.

STARTING A COMPANY Some Cornell students can’t wait until gradua-tion to start a business. Lance Polivy ’08 and Dana Lampert ’08 devel-oped the idea for wiggio.com as a class project during their senior year, when they discovered a need for software to help them manage all of their group activities. “Wiggio makes it easy to work in groups” is the slogan for the site, which launched Sept. 15 and is being used by students at 140 colleges (a num-ber that’s growing daily). The duo has already raised seed funds to take their business to the next level and the company’s launch received notice in The Boston Globe and numerous online tech blogs and sites. After months of holding important inves-tor phone calls in their bedrooms, Polivy and Lampert moved into the Student Agencies eLab during the spring of 2008, to take advantage of a professional office space and alumnimentoringnetwork. Many undergrads, like Polivy and Lampert, start businesses focused on solving student prob-lems. “I love being able to take something from noth-ing and build it up,” says Andrew Grauer ’09, the

“I love being able to take something from nothing and build it up”Andrew Grauer ’09

Top: David BenDaniel, the Don

and Margi Berens Professor of

Entrepreneurship at The John-

son School, has influenced two

generations of alumni.

Bottom: Matt Dacey MBA ’09,

founded two businesses as an

undergraduate and is working

on a third.

Photos: Jon Reis Photo and Design

Continued on pg.18 v

In the summer of 2008, Entrepreneur-

ship@Cornell placed 58 students in

internships with small to mid-sized com-

panies.

These interns were involved in key company projects, meetings and deci-sions. They moved research forward, developed marketing campaigns for new products, designed company databases and brainstormed about strategy. And they worked with founders, owners, fi-nancers and inventors. “We placed more interns this summer than ever,” said Debra Moesch-Shelley, Entrepreneurship@Cornell program manager and internship program direc-tor. “Since our interns come from all of Cornell’s schools and colleges, we’re able to help companies with tasks ranging from marketing and business strategy to research and product development.”

CREATING A MARkETING STRATEGYAngeline Stuma ’09 learned to set goals, prioritize projects and de-velop a vision for a small business

during her summer with Vermont Ven-tures. Stuma was responsible for creating a marketing strategy for a new destination wedding and events venue, so she focused on search engine optimization and mar-keting and creating a positive online expe-rience for potential clients. “If you don’t set a vision that is far-reaching yet attainable and have business goals and strategies that can be executed with the available resources, it will im-pede your growth and ability to be a sus-tainable business,” she said. Stuma plans to operate her own start-up after graduation, a social search Web sitewherecollegeentrepreneurscanfindresources, information and people to build their businesses.

ADDRESSING ‘BACk BURNER’ PROjECTSTrevor Chan and Peter Asiello helped in very dif-ferent ways at Har-rick Plasma, a local Ithaca, NY technol-

ogy company, during the summer of 2008.Chan, an ORIE major who will graduate in December ’08, worked on an open-ended project that had been on the back burner for awhile, but needed to be addressed: ex-ploring possible technologies for the next generation of lower cost, higher power products. Asiello ’08, who earned a degree in bio-logical engineering, carried out an exhaus-tive literature search to update the com-pany’s database of independent technical references and citations, which provides a comprehensive resource of the various applications in which the company’s prod-ucts are employed. “The company’s benchtop plasma gener-ation devices are used by both universities and industry for surface cleaning, prepa-ration andmodification in such fields asmaterials science, microfluidics, optics,photonics, microscopy and biomaterials,” said Peter Samsel MS ’93, PhD ’96, MBA ’03, company CEO. For Samsel, projects like these two are often troublesome. His full-time employ-ees don’t have sufficient time to tacklethem, but they’re not large enough to jus-tify another hire. “Being able to bring in-terns on was a great way to handle that problem,” he said.

MOVING FROM INTERN TO CEOJason Springs isn’t a typical summer intern. The MBA student plans to make his sum-mer internship

full-timeafterhefinisheshisMBAinthespring of ’09. Springs is now CEO of GeneWeave Bio-

sciences, a company founded by Cornell PhD students Diego Rey and Leo Teixeira. The company’s key products offer quick ways to test for the presence of certain bac-teria, like MRSA or eColi, using a method similar to a home pregnancy test. “I worked for Lockheed Martin for four years and saw real scientists working with real technology,” Springs said. “I knew I wanted to be involved in venture capital or with a technology start-up.” Cornell’s entrepreneurial resources, in general, have been a boon for the com-pany, Rey said, from legal advice through BR Legal to mentoring from the Johnson School’s Entrepreneur-in-Residence to entrepreneurship courses they all have taken.

MAkING A DIFFERENCE FOR YOUTHThe Village at Ithaca is a non-profit focused onensuring that youth in the Ithaca City School Dis-

trict — particularly Black, Latino, and low-income students — consistently meet or exceed district and state standards of achievement. While the organization, founded in 2002, had a marketing plan and lots of input from adults, it lacked a database of ideas and opinions from youth. Enter Makda Habtegabir ’08, an undergraduate business major who had been involved in a mentoring program in Ithaca schools. Her summer internship with The Village focused on creating a new marketing plan focused on youth. To gain some knowledge of their needs, she held a series of focus groups and offered print and online sur-veys. “The marketing plan that Makda de-veloped will inform our future strategic choices,” said Cal Walker, Village execu-tive director, explaining that the survey results will help The Village identify po-tential gaps in services.

17

LEARNING by DOING

+ To find out more about hosting a summer intern, visit www.eship.cornell.edu/intern-ships or contact Debra Moesch-Shelley at [email protected] or 607-254-2802.

18 eship magazine

founder and chairman of coursehero.com. That Web site, an online study network, connects students from col-leges across the country to share outlines, solutions, study guides, ex-ams, presentations, notes and formulas. After two years of operation, coursehero.com has users from 140 schools. Near the end of the spring semester of 2008, the site had 320,000 users in a single month. “We were students and we saw what we needed,” said Armand Her-showitz ’09, the company’s vice president of marketing. “For me, an-other motivating factor is that people who don’t go to college can take part in the classes.” Thepartnershaveraised$500,000infinancing,attractedDavidKim,one of the founders of ecandy.com, as their new CEO and maintain of-ficesatthePlugandPlayTechCenterinSiliconValley,Calif. Two of Matt Dacey’s startup businesses combined the virtual world with the physical. One-Click Video and One-Click Grocery — video and grocery delivery services — found niches among students wanting im-mediate entertainment options and small retailer grocers searching for something to differentiate themselves from giant supermarkets. Both businesses, started in Syracuse while Dacey was a student there, are in the process of being sold, but Dacey and his partners also run a separate business (customgrocery.com) selling the software de-veloped for the grocery business to other small groceries. And Dacey is working on another business plan based on ad sales on these small retail sites. “People have less time than ever and they’re more comfortable with the Web,” Dacey said of the growth of online grocery shopping. “People are placing more of a value on convenience.”

ORGANIzING AROUND ENTREPRENEURSHIP Some students, like Jessi Prue ’09, choose to use their entrepreneur-ialskillstobenefitothers. Prue realized that even though she’s still in college, her skills could make a world of difference for people across the globe trying to start their own small businesses.

An undergraduate business major, Prue was turned on to interna-tional business and development as a teenager, when she taught Eng-lish in Cuba as part of a church trip. The people she met were so ap-preciative of her work they gave her a doll they could hardly afford. “It changed my perspective a bit,” she said with a smile. Since then, she’s been interested in ways she could combine her skills inmarketing,finance,economics,managementandSpanishwithherdesire to help people make a better life for themselves. She came to Cor-nell as a nutritional science major, then switched to policy analysis and management before choosing applied economics and management. During the spring 2008 semester, Prue studied international and sustainable development in Argentina. As part of her work, she visited artisans, farms and other small sustainable businesses in the region. She was particularly impressed by the women of Tekojoja Kuna Rembi-apope (TKR) in Paraguay, who create beautiful leather bags, clothing, tableclothsandotherhandworks.TKRneededtofindnewinternation-al markets for their goods. “These people are passionate about their cause, but they don’t have the business background or entrepreneurial skills they need,” she said. After returning to Ithaca in the spring, Prue put together a team of students (now called the Social Business Consulting Group) who re-searched the fair trade movement for TKR. They designed a Web site, produced a catalog and price sheet, conducted market surveys in the U.S., examined international distribution channels, prepared a finalreport for TKR and initiated contacts with retailers and importers to get the process started. “I realized that there are so many non-governmental organizations and international agencies that would love to be connected to business students,” she said. This year’s projects include Pellital, a microfinance institution inSenegal;TWGPartners,amicrofinanceinvestmentfundinMichiganthat makes loans to entrepreneurs around the world, and Brightstart, an educational and mentoring institution in Ghana that helps prepare high school students for admission into selective universities. Project leaders for these include: Brightstart — Jenna Walker ’10, engineering and Suleman Iddrissu ’10, applied economics and manage-

Left: Jessi Prue’s Social Business

Consulting Group works with groups

that provide microfinance loans to

small business owners, like these women

in Bangladesh who Prue visited.

Right: Lance Polivy ’08 and Dana

Lampert ’08, founders of wiggio.com.


For more information about student engagement in entrepreneurship at Cornell, see the following Web sites:

STUDENT CLUBS AND ORGANIzATIONSSocial Business Consulting Group:

www.rso.cornell.edu/sbc/Welcome.htmlundergraduate Cornell Startup and Venture Capital Club:

www.rso.cornell.edu/usvc/aboutUs.phpBr Ventures: www.johnson.cornell.edu/brv/Entrepreneurship, Venture Capital & Startup Club, Johnson

School: www.forum.johnson.cornell.edu/students/orgs/evcc/

STUDENT BUSINESSESwww.wiggio.comwww.coursehero.comwww.weplace.netwww.customgrocery.com

BUSINESS IDEA/PLAN COMPETITIONSCornell Venture Challenge:

www.johnson.cornell.edu/brv/undergraduate Big Idea Competition:

www.eship.cornell.edu/BigIdea/Bottled water competition: www.hotelschool.cornell.edu/industry/centers/ihe/spotlights/article.html

ment. Pellital — Isys Johnson ’11, applied economics and management and Prue. TWG

Partners — Rahkeem Morris ’10, applied eco-nomics and management and Prue. “I definitely feel like I’m running a smallbusiness,”shesaid.“Franklyanon-profitbusi-ness isn’t all that different than any other small business.” Prue said her business classes have given her the tools and resources she needs, and pro-fessors and mentors on campus have helped her connect to people who can help. While Prue organized students interested in social entrepreneurship, Joe Strandberg ’10 and others came up with a club offering under-grad entrepreneurs a chance to meet, network, share ideas and locate venture capital for their businesses. The Undergraduate Startup and Venture Capital Club meets twice a month. The club is aimed at helping three kinds of students – those who already have a business and are looking for partners, those with an idea who want to get started, and those who are up and running but looking for some ven-ture capital to move their business along. “There’s a gap on campus between the op-portunities to learn about entrepreneurship and actually being an entrepreneur,” Strand-berg said. “We want to make the campus more supportive to students who are running their own businesses.” From lobbying for policy changes that allow students to sell products or operate businesses in their dorm rooms to sponsoring networking events and alumni speakers, Strandberg said the club can offer various support for student

entrepreneurs. Strandberg is also an entrepreneur, with his Web business weplace.net, which offers prod-uct placement on YouTube. Although the busi-ness is still in its initial stages, Strandberg sees great potential because of the growing self-publishing market on the Web. “I like jumping in early on something,” he said. “I like creating things and seeing them grow.” At the Johnson School, Dacey is also inti-mately involved in clubs that focus on entre-preneurship – he’s president of the Johnson School’s Entrepreneurship and Venture Capi-talClub(EVC)andtheChiefOperatingOffi-cer of BR Ventures, the student-run venture capital fund at the school. The EVC Club traditionally hosts a spring symposium, but this year the club is expanding its reach by also offering numerous seminars, networking events and workshops for students to learn about creating a business and access-ing Cornell resources. “We’ve just built a brand new Web site (cor-nellevc.com), which includes a social network-ing component for campus entrepreneurs,” Dacey said. And these three aren’t the only clubs on campus for entrepreneurial students – others include Cornell Entrepreneur Organization, Hotelie Entrepreneurs, the Technology Entre-preneurs and the Healthcare and Biotechnol-ogy Club.

+ WINNING ideas For students with business ideas that aren’t developed yet, Cornell of-fers a set of people, resources and sup-port to help them grow. From the undergraduate Big Idea Competition to the Johnson School’s Cornell Venture Challenge, students are encouraged to develop their ideas into workable plans. The Big Idea encourages undergrad-uates to form teams based on an origi-nal idea and put together a short ap-plication, which doesn’t need to be fully developed into a plan. The top 25 ideas receive mentoring from an alumni en-trepreneur, with the top 10 presenting to a panel of alumni judges during the Entrepreneurship@Cornell Celebra-tion in April. The Cornell Venture Challenge is open to all entrepreneurs, even outside Cornell. These plans need to be well-developed and compete for a $10,000 grand prize. A new competition put together this year by the School of Hotel Administra-tion, the Bottled Water Competition, encourages students to come up with a solution to the problem of environmen-tal waste created by bottled water. “This problem is at the forefront for leaders in the hospitality industry,” said James Quest ’56, Entrepreneur-in-Residence at the School of Hotel Administration, who came up with the contest.

+

The winners of the 2008 Big Idea

Competition pose with organizers.

Photo: Jon Reis Photograhy and Design

20 eship magazine

Steve Benjamin, Jim Quest, Dan Cohen and

Cliff Lardin are at Cornell for a common

reason – to share their experiences as

entrepreneurs with students who have

entrepreneurial aspirations of their own.

Through meetings with students, class

lectures, business plan discussions and

mentoring opportunities, these success-

ful business owners and operators — now

Entrepreneurs-in-Residence at Cornell —

are sharing insights about their business

struggles and successes.

Resident ExpertsEntrepreneurs-In-Residence Share their Insights with Students

By Kathy Hovis

Above: Steve Benjamin ’80, MEN ’81, MBA ’82 speaks to students

about his experiences as an entrepreneur.

Photos: Jon Reis Photography and Design

Far Right, Top to Bottom: Dan Cohen, eLab Entrepreneur-in-Resi-

dence; Jim Quest, School of Hotel Administration Entrepreneur-in-

Residence and Cliff Lardin, Johnson School Venture Capitalist-in-

Residence.


REmEmbERIng his CoRnEll mEntoRS “I think I give students a person who doesn’t grade them or evaluate them, but someone who is genuinely interested in their well-being,” said Benjamin, ’80 MEN ’81, MBA ’82, who is the Entrepreneur-in-Res-idence (EIR) at The Johnson School. “I’m doing this because I wish an entrepreneur had done it for me.” Benjamin is currently a partner in Stromiga, a real estate develop-ment and ownership business he runs with his three brothers. From 1982-88, he worked as vice president for strategic planning for Emery Air Freight and Burlington Air Express. In 1988, he and wife, Sheri, founded The Benjamin Group, Inc., a public relations agency working with high technology companies in Silicon Valley. The company even-tuallyopenedadditionalofficesinSanFranciscoandOrangeCounty,Calif. and Portland, Ore. In 1999, the Benjamins sold the business, which by then employed 115 people. During that same time, in 1992, Benjamin built a strategic consult-ingbusinessinpartnershipwithamarketresearchfirm. In 2002, Benjamin decided to focus on real estate and spend more time with his children, who were 12 and 14 at the time. BenjaminremembershistimeasanMBAstudentandtheinfluenceof Stanford Smith ’31, a former senior vice president of General Electric and chairman and CEO of International Paper who was Executive-in-Residence at the Johnson School in 1981 and 1982. “He loved Cornell,” Benjamin said of Smith, who always wore a red jacket in honor of his alma mater. “He said that one of the most important skills you can have as a successful businessperson is empathy.” And, Benjamin remembers, he talked a lot about his family, which had a strong impact on Benjamin, who has made his family a priority even while running and owning his own businesses. Benjamin, who lives in Saratoga, Calif., will spend six weeks of the semesterinIthaca.Bythefirstmonthofclasses,he’dalreadymetwithabout 40 students with varied interests. He’ll lecture at the Johnson School, the Undergraduate Business Program, the Program in Real Es-tate and the School of Hotel Administration, among others. “Students seem very interested in the story of a guy who has two engineering degrees and an MBA and ended up working for a large corporation,foundingabusinesswithhiswifeinherfieldofspecialty,building a consulting business and then getting into real estate,” he said. “They can see it’s not just 40 years and a gold watch,” he said. “That it’s good to have a lot of interests and that not everyone knows exactly what they want to do while they’re still in school.” Benjamin said he’s been energized by student business ideas and plans,whetherthestudentshaveafull-fledgedbusinessplanor justa spark of an idea.

gREat buSInESSES fix pRoblEmS Jim Quest ’56, Entrepreneur-in-Residence at the Leland C. and Mary M. Pillsbury Institute for Hospitality Entrepreneurship, spends much of his time listening to and reading about business ideas from his stu-dents. And they run the gamut, from a service to aggregate hotel laun-dry to a Disney World for dogs. And sometimes the most unusual ones turn out to have the most potential. “I’ve never had so much fun in all my life,” said Quest, of his EIR po-

sition. Quest is a School of Hotel Administration graduate who worked as a brand manager for Procter & Gamble before founding his own ad-vertisingbusinessandbusinesswritingconsultingfirm. Quest is in his third year as EIR and now teaches two classes, “Intro-duction to Hospitality Entrepreneurship” and “Getting your Business Plan Ready for Investors.” The introduction course requires students to form teams and develop a hospitality business plan. The second course helps students move that plan into an operational document. In each course, students focus on research, presenta-tion skills and business writing. At the end of the class, they present their plans to a panel of venture capital-ists and entrepreneurs, often Cornell alumni. “Thepanelistsalwaysfindone or two ideaswherethey say ‘I think you’re on to something,’ ” Quest said. Known as a tough critic, Quest said most students aren’t fazed by the presentation. “By that time, they’ve been on their feet presenting for seven weeks,” he said. “Plus they all say, ‘ The panelists are a piece of cake after dealing with Professor Quest.’ ” During officehours,Quest coaches teams fromhisclasses, but also advises students from across the cam-pus who have business ideas related to hospitality or packaged goods. “Most great business ideas come from someone who sees that something is wrong and comes up with a way tofixit,”Questsaid. Other campus Entrepreneurs-in-Residence include Dan Cohen, the director of Student Agencies eLab (see page 5 for an eLab update) and a faculty member in the School of Industrial and Labor Relations. Cohen was cofounder and president of his own business for 15 years, while earning MBA and doctor of management degrees. He taught business strategy and entrepre-neurship and also assisted with the student business incubator at the University of Iowa before coming to Cornell last fall. Cliff Lardin ’06 MBA ’07, who was the EIR at the Johnson School during the 07-08 year, continues this year as Venture Capitalist-in-Residence at the school. Lardin is a principal at Cayuga Venture Fund, an early-stage technology fund based in Ithaca. His man-agement experience includes serving as CEO of Cyan Data Systems, LLC; founder and VP of Systems at MiniGram.com; founder of Bright Island, LLC; and director of PC Programming at Flowers Industries, Inc. In addition, Lardin has worked as a senior software developer for ChemSW, Inc., and as a senior engineer at Var-ian Semiconductor Equipment Associates, Inc.

+ For more information on the Entrepreneurs-in-Residence,

see the following sites:

Steve Benjamin www.johnson.cornell.edu/news/EIRBenjamin.html

Jim Quest www.hotelschool.cornell.edu/research/facultybios/faculty.html?id=197

Cliff Lardin www.johnson.cornell.edu/faculty/profiles/Lardin

Dan Cohen www.elabstartup.com/info.php?page=elabeir

22 eship magazine

W eill Hall’s planned life sciences business incubator has a new name and new momentum, thanks to a

$7.5 million gift from Kevin M. McGovern ’70, his wife, Lisa, and their two children, Jarrett ’03 and Ashley ’08. In recognition of the gift, the former IDEA Center is now the Kevin M. McGovern Family Center for Venture Devel-opment in the Life Sciences. McGovern, named Cornell’s Entrepreneur of the Year in 2007, is a trustee and member of several Cornell organizations related to life sciences, including the Life Sciences Advisory Board and the Cornell University Technol-ogy Transfer Advisory Committee. He is also chair of the Entrepreneurship@Cornell Ad-visoryCouncil.Hisfirm,McGovernCapital,owns a number of companies that bring bio-technology- and nanotechnology-based prod-ucts to consumers. “Kevin is very sharp,” said Stephen Kreso-vich, vice provost for the life sciences. “He really sees the value of research and how it couldbenefitpeopleandeconomies.” McGovern’s entrepreneurial experience is something he hopes will help the center. “We wanted to contribute to something that we could be part of,” he said. “We wanted to bring some of the knowl-edge we’ve gained and apply that for Cornell. We very much value theoretical science,” he

added,” but we feel it’s important to help sci-entists apply their research for the good of the community and the health of other human be-ings.” The McGovern Center will help life scien-tists make that leap via three related objec-tives: optimizing intellectual property and patent strategies, creating new businesses and venture capital investments, and gener-ating economic growth. Achieving those objectives requires inter-disciplinary expertise. “Our faculty have the science skills,” noted Kresovich, “but they don’t necessarily know how to write a busi-ness plan or make their ideas attractive to investors.” That’s where the McGovern Center comes in. Researchers whose startup proposals are selected will engage experienced innovators and alumni, utilize investor and management leads from the Cornell Center for Technology Enterprise and Commercialization (CCTEC), receive business and marketing guidance from Johnson School faculty and students, and get intellectual property and patent advice from the Cornell Law School. The center adds a criticalmissingpiece:thefirstlabfacilityatCornell dedicated to life science startups. As Alan Paau, CCTEC director and vice provost for technology transfer and econom-ic development, explained, the facility not

only offers top-notch labs, but also eases a startup’s cost. “In the life sciences, there are organic solvents, chemicals, radioactive iso-topes, biological samples. You need permits and specialized storage and lab equipment. Getting a new product off the ground can be prohibitively expensive for a researcher,” he said. TheWeillHall spacehaswet labs, officesand conference facilities for six to 10 compa-nies. Initial plans suggest that each company may need one to two years to prove its concept well enough to move out of the center and into an independent location. In that time, McGov-ern Center staff will help them with business investment and development. Assembling the staff is the next step. Rob-ert Buhrman, senior vice provost for research, said that Cornell, with the input of the advi-sory board, hopes to begin interviewing for a director and begin approving startup ven-tures for entry by the end of the academic year. “We’ll be looking for a director with ex-perience in technology transfer, ideally high-tech,” he said. “We need a go-getter who can interface well with the inventors as well as with the investors.”

Jennifer Campbell is a writer with Alumni Affairs and Devel-

opment. This story first appeared in the Cornell Chronicle.

Weill Hall business incubator gets new momentum with $7.5 million McGovern gift

Charles Phlegar, left, vice president for alumni affairs and development, with Lisa and

Kevin McGovern ’70. The McGovern family’s gift of $7.5 million will benefit the newly

named Kevin M. McGovern Family Center for Venture Development in the Life Sciences.

Jason Koski/University Photography

By Jennifer Campbell

+ For more information on this project, visit: www.campaign.cornell.edu/lifesciences/weill-hall-venture-center.cfm.


+ ADVISORY COUNCIL NEWS


v sCott BElsKY ’02Behance, a company founded by Scott Belsky, has a mission to organize the creative world. The company’s online platform (www.behance.net) for creative professionals is now the world’s leading creative network. The company is now launching ActionMethod, a radical approach to project management that will help boost productivity for small businesses and cre-ative teams across industries.

v ADAM FARREll ’06Silicon Solar, Inc., founded by Adam Farrell, is now one of the fastest growing companies within the solar energyindustry.SiliconSolarhasseentremendousinternalgrowth,launchingthreeNewYorkoffices–Ithaca,BainbridgeandWhitePlains.AfourthofficewasrecentlyopenedinDenver,CO.SiliconSolariscontinually looking forward, and plans to have created 200 new jobs in New York State through 2009. Sil-icon Solar is also looking forward to the launch of their Solar University Network (SUN) which will bring renewable and solar energy education and training to colleges and grade schools across the country.

v JAson GERlACh ’93After a rewarding legal career and the successful creation and launch of Allie’s Edibles (www.alliesedibles.com), Jason Ger-lachisthrilledtoannouncehisaffiliationwithSunriseCapitalPartnersofSolanaBeach,CA.Fornearly30years,Sunrisehas pursued innovative technical investment strategies that have yielded outstanding results for investors. Sunrise cur-rently manages over $1 billion and continues to perform at a high level even in today’s volatile economic climate. Jason looks forward to helping Sunrise remain on the cutting edge of investment strategy innovation for many years to come. Contact [email protected] to learn more about Sunrise.

v stEPhEn GilFus ’97In August of 2008, Stephen Gilfus, an Agriculture and Life Sciences graduate and founder of D.C.-based Blackboard, Inc. (NASDAQ:BBBB), launched and became CEO of Event Innovation, Inc., a new company designed to revolutionize and enhance event experiences for attendees and venues. The company is reinventing the way sports, entertainment and performing arts venues interact and communicate with their customers. Event Innovation makes software products that increase a venue’s visibility into their customers’ ticket purchasing, event attendance and in-venue spending while providing attendees with online stored value and social ticketing technologies. Learn more about Event Innovation at www.eventinnovation.com and www.ovation.com. In addition, Stephen is an angel investor in Weddingwire.com and in late2007becameChairmanoftheBoardofwww.upsideover.com,aleadingproviderofhighqualityandhard-to-findoutdoor gear for kids and active families.

v shARon DAuK MBA ’89Sharon Dauk has launched Sharon Dauk Executive Coaching to provide executive coaching for business execu-tives, entrepreneurs and key managers. Sharon combines her 20 years of experience as an investor, board member, mentor and investment banker with advanced coaching credentials from Columbia University to bring highly focused, personalized programs to her clients. Sharon’s coaching process is designed to assist her clients in address-ing the opportunities and challenges of fast paced and rapidly changing business environments. To learn more, visit Sharon’s website at www.sharondauk.com.

v EJnAR KnuDsEn ’91 This summer, Knudsen and his partner, Raju Shah ’90, launched their second public hedge fund at Crayton Capital with the help of four Cornell student interns: Lynette Tsai ’10 created a sustainability white paper that was presented in Europe in August; Neil Jehle ’10 worked on researching competing funds; Ben Pu ’09 stopped in for a short visit to challenge the group on how to automate some of their portfolio monitoring procedures; and Oliver Sill ’11 helped research various portfolio companiesandfurtherrefinehisskillsinusingtheBloombergterminal.Allfourdidanexceptionaljob!

24

+ Advisor y CouncilE@C’s Advisory Council of entrepreneurs, business and organization leaders provides advice, support and financial resources. To learn more about

becoming a member of the E@C Advisory Council, contact John Jaquette at [email protected] or (607)255-1576.

ChAiR

Kevin McGovern, Class of ’70

ViCE ChAiR

Steve Benjamin, Class of ’80, MEN

’81, MBA ’82

PAst Co-ChAiRs

John Alexander, Class of ’74, MBA ’76

Jeffrey Parker, Class of ’65, MEN ’66,

MBA ’70

Joe Anderson, Class of ’07

John Balen, Class of ’82, MBA ’86

Scott Belsky, Class of ’02

Patrick Burke, Class of ’83

J. Thomas Clark, Class of ’63, MBA ’64

Nancy Clark, Class of ’62, MA ’64

MacLaren Cummings, Class of ’02

Sharon Dauk, MBA ’89

Felix Ejeckam, MEN ’94, PhD ’97

Robert Erlichman, Class of ’88

Adam Farrell, Class of ’06

James Farrell, Class of ’78, MEN ’80

Rich Farrell, Class of ’90

Robert Felton, Class of ’62

Burt Flickinger, III, Class of ’80

William Frey, Class of ’79

Steven Gal, Class of ’88

Alison Gerlach, Class of ’93

Jason Gerlach, Class of ’93

Stephen Gilfus, Class of ’98

Jonah Goodhart, Class of ’00

Noah Goodhart, Class of ’97

Allison Gulbrandsen, Class of ’84

Donald Gulbrandsen, Class of ’84

James Hauslein, Class of ’81, MBA ’84

Gary Hellinger, Class of ’62

Lara Jackle, MBA ’94

Carl Johnston, Jr., Class of ’64

Michael Karangelen, Class of ’90

Harvey Kinzelberg, Class of ’67

Jon Klein, Class of ’87

Ejnar Knudsen, Class of ’91

Michael Kubin, Class of ’71

Charles Lynch, Class of ’90, MBA ’95

Brian Magierski, Class of ’93

Rich Marin, Class of ’75, MBA ’76

Robert Maroney, Class of ’72

James McNair, MBA ’83

Angela Mwanza, MBA ’00

Don Peskin, Class of ’77, MEN ’78,

MBA ’79

Leland Pillsbury, Class of ’69

Dan Ramsden, Class of ’86

David Rickerby, Class of ’91

Ron Rigores, Class of ’99

Michael Rolband, Class of ’80, MEN ’81,

MBA ’82

Matthew Russo, Class of ’90

Rob Ryan, Class of ’69

Terry Ryan, Class of ’69

Samuel Seltzer, Class of ’48

Don Shaffer, Class of ’91

Danny Stein, Class of ’92

William Trenchard, Class of ’98

William Weidlein, Class of ’77

Christopher Wilkerson, Class of ’95

Eric Young, Class of ’78

David Zalaznick, Class of ’76

+ ADVISORY COUNCIL NEWS


FAll MEEtinG oF EntREPREnEuRshiP@CoRnEll’s ADVisoRY CounCil

MoRE than 25 members of the Entre-preneurship@Cornell Advisory Council met in New York City this fall to hear about activities on campus and strategize about ways to further expand Cornell’s entrepreneurial reach.

The October meeting also included a reception hosted by Lisa and Kevin McGovern ’70, Chairman and CEO of McGovern Capital and chairman of the Advisory Council, at their beautiful home overlooking Central Park.

Don Gulbrandsen ’83, Lisken Cordes and Lee Pillsbury ’69 enjoy

the reception.

Michael Johnson, dean of the School of Hotel

Administration and E@C Governing Board chair,

talks with host Lisa McGovern.

Professor Deborah Streeter talks

to Sam Seltzer ’48, one of the

founders of E@C.

ADVisoRY CounCil members in attendance were: John Alexander, Scott Belsky, Steve Benjamin, Sharon Dauk, Adam Farrell, Steve Gal, Steve Gilfus, Don Gul-brandsen, Michael Karangelen, Jon Klein, Ejnar Knudsen, Michael Kubin, Robert Maroney, Kevin McGovern, Angela Mwanza, Don Peskin, Lee Pillsbury, Ron Rigores, Matt Russo, Sam Seltzer, Bill Trenchard, Chris Wilkerson

pay it forwardI t ’ s y o u r t u r n t o l e n d a h a n d …

Imagine what a terrific summer you would have if your company could:3 Get over that last hurdle to marketing a new product3 Have an extra set of hands to conduct more experiments on a prototype3 Finish the research you need to do to sign that licensing agreement3 Add some fresh new ideas to your publications, marketing materials or Web site3 Complete that long-standing project that seems to keep reappearing on the “to do” list

It’s all possible with the help of an intern from the entrepreneurship@Cornell program! an intern can have a real impact this summer at your company and You can help to prepare the next generation of Cornell business leaders for the future!

To find out more about hosting a summer intern, visit www.eship.cornell.edu/internships or contact Debra Moesch-Shelley at [email protected] or 607-254-2802.


Cornell University, 51 Warren Hall

Ithaca, NY 14853


www.eship.cornell.edu.y

“Finding and fostering the entrepreneurial spirit in every Cornell participant in every college, every field and every stage of life.”

For the latest news, events, and all things entrepreneurial at Cornell visit us online at

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MINDING BUSINESS - ship and innovation.” FinDinG solutions to thE BottlED WAtER ContRoVERsY A Unique “Solution Plan” Competition for the Cornell Community v With an eye toward