Russ: This is the BuisnessMakers show heard here and online at theBuisnessMakers.com and now it's time for the Aflax BuisnessMakers flash back brought to you by Aflax. Ask about it at work. This morning we're going to share highlights from leaders of three of the most recognized academic based entrepreneurship programs in the country. First up back in October of 2006 I was on the campus of the University of Southern California where I sat down with Thomas J. O'Malia, the director of the Lloyd Greif Center for Entrepreneurship at the Marshal school of business at the University of Southern California. I started off by asking Tom to tell us about the Lloyd Greif Center for Entrepreneurship.

Thomas: We in Southern California have been very fortunate to always be at the fore front, the bleeding edge, of Entrepreneurial change and way back in the middle 60s the University of Southern California's business schools offered courses in what today would be called Entrepreneurship. A group of graduates of the program came back to the dean in the late 60s and said ""We've wasted 10 years going from your classical education to being able to become entrepreneurs and presidents of our own companies and we think you ought to be able to put something in your curriculum to deal with this."" So in 1971, six years before Apple, eight years before Microsoft and eleven years before the IBM PC the University of Southern California Business School had an Entrepreneurial program.

Russ: Next I wanted to know just how Tom got involved with the initiative.

Thomas: I go back to, as most Entrepreneurs do, a moment of chance that made sense to both parties. I actually met the director of the Entrepreneur Program way back in 1981 when I was doing speeches across the country on a new thing called Venture Capital which was unheard of at that time but had already been part of my background and he convinced me that he had room for a street urchin in his program and the faculty wouldn't pick on me on me and I joined in 1981 and with the exception of a five year period one of the companies I got involved with needed to be grown for sale and I've been here ever since.

Russ: The Lloyd Greif Center is very proud of their success stories and check out this exchange where Tom and I talk briefly about two of them. Christophe started a little company called MySpace.com and he came through the program, correct?

Thomas: He actually came through the program and has been a big contributor to the knowledge of the younger students coming up because the medium has changed where now only internet world.

Russ: And then Marc Benioff SalesForce.com

Thomas: SalesForce.com as a cap value today at 3.6 Billion dollars. Marc came through the program in the late 80s, paid his dues inside of the Oracle Organization and found a nitch that was inefficient and unfilled and started SalesForce.com and the rest is history and Marc is among the greater philanthropists in the country today as well as being one of the more successful people.

Russ: And lastly we were talking about future potential successes stories that Tom might face every day in class and here's what he said.

Thomas: It's really the people who are willing to avoid the event and start the journey and by that I mean I probably meet a thousand people every year that have one great idea and their gonna take it and their gonna be billionaires by Tuesday and we never hear from em past Wednesday. The real people that have gone in the background of Duaf and Benny Off and Avia and many many more are these are people that started the journey and as opportunities came up they were able to take advantage of it, most of them it's their second or third venture and it's one of the hallmarks of what a successful entrepreneurs about. They will take 2.3 ventures to be successful.

Russ: Next up we move to Babson College in Wesley Massachusetts. The school that is considered to be the first to so keenly focus on Entrepreneurship and the school that is most often recognized as being the leader in the space. I visited the campus this past October and sat down with Doctor Leonard Schlesinger, the newly-inaugurated president of Babson College and I started off by asking him what is it about Babson that sets it apart.

Leonard: Well I mean at the end of the day this is the school that's all about entrepreneurial thought and action and the history of dealing with those kinds of issues not only is related to our founder Roger Babson, who is obsessed about these kinds of ideas but a clear strategic positioning for this school that was chosen in 1978 with the first courses in entrepreneurship, the creation of the Academy of Distinguished Entrepreneurs and a number of other activities where we were absolutely first in the world of business education to be able to stimulate the business plan competition etc. So now we find ourselves 30 years later having been evaluated by most of our peer institutions as #1 for Entrepreneurship in the world.

Russ: Right.

Leonard: And we have the opportunity to think about what's next and so we celebrate what is but the question is given the state of the economy and the issues that we have in the broader universe, how do we really kind of reposition this institution on a go forward basis?

Russ: So there is no question there's an effort to reposition it?

Leonard: Absolutely no question that there's an effort to both extend the definitions of entrepreneurship to ensure that we can take entrepreneurial thought and action to not only address the issues of the fundamental restructuring of business models that are required today but also to be able to use those same logics to be able to address social ills across the world as well as address the issues of Global Warming. There's no question as Tom Friedman suggested in his book the opportunity for innovation in entrepreneurship to address the fundamental issues of climate change is basically the only significant solution that we have at our disposal.

Russ: Next I wanted him to tell us about the extended and I emphasis extended role that the faculty plays at Babson.

Leonard: One of the things I'm fond of saying about Babson, and it's real it is what makes this place incredibly special and differentiated from other schools and when the rating services call me for commentary on it I'm very kind of comfortable saying the following. There are lots of great schools that teach business and teach entrepreneurship . Babson's the only one I've ever seen that lives it. It's really in the water. Ok? And people have really drunk the Kool-Aid in this institution. We have people who live business start ups 24 hours a day that are living in co-located residential choice living here called E Tower. We have faculty that are actively involved as Angel Investors. We have 70 members of our faculty that are reflective practitioners who are here in addition their professional activities only because they derive an enormous amount of satisfaction from being engaged and helping to stimulate young people and kind of being able to play with ideas and make things happen. And so whether it's in the classroom, outside of the classroom, in the living environment, in the break rooms, in the seminars, in the activities.. and quiet honestly here in the first year the required course in the freshman program is called Foundations of Management and Entrepreneurship where every single student in this community is forced into a team. We stake them all three thousand dollars to start a business and the core learning of the first year of the program is to actually start a business and either succeed or fail and really reflect on the experience of that process.

Russ: And lastly we moved to the Wolff Center for Entrepreneurship at the University of Houston. The program that ranks #1 in years Princeton Review and Entrepreneur Magazine ranking and for this flashback we're going to roll back to when we had Bill Sherrill. The founder of the program on the show. We ended the discussion where I had just asked to Bill tell us about his business experiences.

Bill: The first one I can tell you about, the very first one business I ever started, was Tropicore. It was a business of importing a bamboo from Mexico to make decorative fencing. I'm pleased to report I lost my entire twenty thousand dollars! So it was a great way to learn entrepreneurship.

Russ: What year was it Bill?

Bill: That was 1958.

Russ: Ok, so where did we go from there?

Bill: Well.. to depression. Immediately, you know, thought I had a mental deficiency. I thought a character defect. I thought all those terrible things you think when you have your first failure.

Russ: Hey, but you were getting that experience!

Bill: I really was getting experience. It was being shoved in my ears, you know?

Russ: Bill went on to describe several other start ups. All of these happening back in the 1950s. So I pointed out that being a serial Entrepreneur was much more uncommon back then than it is today and so I was curious. What was it about Bill Sherrill that said, ""I'm gonna do my own thing."" ?

Bill: A lot of people say that you are born an entrepreneur and I find that not at all plausible. My father worked for the Western Union for fifty years and I went in the Marine Core when I was 15 and nothing was structured than that. I came out and went to school, was trained in the traditional business fashion, so there wasn't anything in all of that that would lead you to believe that entrepreneurship would be attractive to me but the first time I got a chance to be on my own I really enjoyed controlling my own fate.

Russ: Lastly I moved forward to this last week when the University of Houston celebrated the #1 ranking of the Wolff Center for Entrepreneurship by the Princeton Review. I caught up with Bill and listen to this exchange. Well I gotta ask you first. In the very beginning and I think the beginning of this was about 15 years ago?

Bill: Correct. 1993.

Russ: Ok. Did you ever envision this thing being ranked like this?

Bill: Not at all. Had big dreams but.. not this big.

Russ: Well, I mean, I know it's just a contest but boy you gotta be proud about it.

Bill: Really proud because you know there's so many people have worked so hard over this 15 years, to have it validated by a prestigious group like Princeton Review, is really fulfilling.

Russ: And that wraps up this morning's Aflax BuisnessMakers flashback. Stay tuned in for our featured guest interview with Dan Stethi. The director of the Wolff Center for Entrepreneurship. And now it's time for another advantage point. So let's welcome Katie Laired.

[Advantage Point]

Russ: You're listening to the BuisnessMakers show heard here and online at the BuisnessMakers.com.