Entrepreneurship program on the rise

Lyles Center ranks high for enterprise initiatives, vourse offerings

By Ravneet Padda

After Entrepreneur magazine’s May issue ranked Fresno State as one of the top 100 entrepreneurial colleges in the United States out of more than 300, another step was taken by the college to solidify that ranking and boost enterpreneurship.

The university’s Lyles Center for Innovation and Enterpreneurship and Boston’s National Collegiate Inventors and Innovators Alliance hosted the Invention2Venture conference on campus Saturday, which taught participants how to develop an idea into a full-fledged business.

Jay Lorentzen, business development manager for Techknowledge Point Corp., the venture research firm that complied the Entrepreneur rankings said almost 70 criterion formed the basis for the rankings including:

• University enterprise development initiatives (i.e., conferences)

• The number and breadth of enterpreneurship programs and degrees offered

• Faculty opinion surveys

• Alumni opinion surveys

Lorentzen said 825 programs were contacted for the ranking but only the 300 that completed the forms and requirements were considered.

Timothy Stearns, director of the Lyles Center and a member of faculty that designed the entrepreneurship program in 1997, said the high ratings given by alumni, directors and faculty of institutes all over the United States played a major part in the ranking.

“ Now we have people around the country saying we have a good program,” Stearns said.

“ Entrepreneurship is the fastest growing program in the country and we have solidified ours since 1999.”

Stearns said there has been a 25 to 30 percent increase in the number of students that go through the program every year.

Jawad Essadki, a student majoring in entrepreneurship, said it is a great program for many reasons.

“ It enables students to learn and apply the process to a get business started that will allow them not only to be their own boss but also contribute to the growth of the community,” Essadki said.

Students like Essadki will also benefit from an ongoing project that involves the university.

Fresno State is a part of the Regional Jobs Initiative, an ambitious effort to create 30,000 good paying jobs in the Fresno area over the next five years. These jobs would be in addition to the 6,700 non-farm payroll jobs generated every year.

The university is a member of the innovation task force, a group of individuals and organizations striving to create new jobs at an average salary of $29,500 and have annual economic impact of more than $885 million to the region.

Participating organizations include:

• The County of Fresno

• California Employment Development Department

• Fresno Area non- profit council

• Fresno Business Council

• Economic Development Corporation

• Fresno County Economic Opportunities Commission

• Greater Fresno Area Chamber of Commerce

A new plan to attract business to Fresno was outlined in the task force’s quarterly meeting last Wednesday.

The force will award $100,000 to the winner of a national business plan competition, which will draw plans to start a business in Fresno from across the country.

The top 10 plans will be presented in Fresno and the winner will open a company in one of three sites selected in downtown Fresno.

The winner will be selected by fall 2005, Stearns said.

The seven industries targeted for growth are health care, agile manufacturing, information processing, construction, advanced logistics and distribution, tourism and water technology.

Stearn said there is a need in the industries to match human resources demand with training to meet the demand.

“ The community has gone a long time without synchronizing,” he said.

Stearn gave an example of the health care industry to prove his point.

He said 800 positions in health care, many of them entry level, go unfilled every year in Fresno, which has an unemployment rate of 15 percent.

He cited the construction industry as another example.

“ Why do we have to bring people from Los Angeles for entry level construction jobs,” he said. “A lot of programs we design give knowledge but they do not match up with the job requirements.

“ The right hand is not knowing what the left hand is doing,” Stearns said. “The system is training people to do things there is no market for.”

Stearns talked about Fresno State’s role in the Regional Jobs Initiative and how it would benefit the students.

“ There is no actual money (from the university) going into it but there is a lot of time spent on it,” he said.

“ Fresno State is not a training institute, that does not mean Fresno State cannot target areas that can be of value,” said Stearns, referring to making job oriented changes in the university’s curriculum as part of the initiative.

The innovation task force has started making efforts to introduce logistics into the school of businesses’ curriculum.

“ It will take time…universities move very slowly,” Stearns said.