Student Testimonials - Fitzgerald Institute

STUDENT TESTIMONIALS

Some quotes from students:

Susan Hirt MBA 2001

Suthep Tamrongwisawa MBA 2003

Prabhu Soundarrajan MS 2003

Nick Accordino MBA 2006

Tally Althefery MBA 2005

Tim Hirschy MBA 2006

Frank Colarik MBA 2006

Alan Koncal, Current Undergraduate Entrepreneurship Student

Susan Hirt MBA 2001,
Director, Patient Services for Planned Parenthood, Ohio
“I have been a registered nurse for over thirty years. I chose to obtain an MBA so that I could move from bed-side nursing to an administrative position. I achieved that goal with my current job – I am the Director of Patient Services for Planned Parenthood of Summit, Portage & Medina Counties. As such, I oversee the daily operations of four family planning ambulatory health clinics.

During my graduate studies at The University of Akron, I chose Entrepreneurship as an elective course. I anticipated that it would be an interesting diversion from the required management and finance courses. Interesting it was, but diversion is not the appropriate word to describe the extensive investigation, the collaboration with my classmates, and the rigorous training in public speaking that became parts of working on our business plan. By the end of the semester, we not only knew what a business plan was, but we also knew through experience how to present one to an international audience.

Recently, I was able to utilize the skills I learned from this class when I suggested to my Executive Director that we open a new family planning clinic site. Rather than use the traditional medical clinic model, I wanted to use an innovative “express clinic” model. This model, which enables clinic patients to be “in and out” in thirty minutes or less, has been employed by a few other Planned Parenthood affiliates, but is unique in this area. My Director’s response was to prepare a business plan to present to our Board of Directors.

I worked on the business plan for a few weeks and presented it at the October Board meeting. After asking several questions about the proposal, the Board gave approval to move forward on pursuing a lease for the new site.

The experience of presenting my business plan to the Board was not as intense as presenting one to a group of venture capitalists during a business competition. It was, however, much more rewarding. Instead of a trophy (which I still keep on my desk), I have a new clinic site that will provide needed medical services to hundreds of women and men.”

Suthep Tamrongwisawa MBA 2003
“If you are in search of a hand-on entrepreneur experience, not a typical MBA program, the Entrepreneur Program at the University of Akron may be the right place. The program is practical, useful, and proactive. All the students in our class experienced a new whole concept “how to start a real business.”

Sharing the real entrepreneur experiences from guest speakers or lecturers who live in today’s business world is one of the most valuable assets of the program. Listening to what these people tell you is far better than any book you read. In entrepreneurship at UA, you will learn every aspect of starting a business from scratch to harvest.

Personally, I was surprised by the way the program was designed. It is far ahead of many graduate schools in the U.S. I know from my experiences in the classes. Moreover, compared to the top 200 schools in the U.S., not many schools offer such an advanced entrepreneurship program like the University of Akron.

I am now back in my country, Thailand, and started my own company (100% of the company) named POSH Co., Ltd., located in Bangkok. My company is a sole distributor of metal cutting tools for PRAMET ( Czech Republic), CIRCLE (USA), and KFH ( Germany). My second business unit is a partnership with a company to make custom rubber, plastic, and machine parts. We mainly manufacture for domestic customers and are looking for an export channel.

I truly believe if you want to be an entrepreneur, the University of Akron is an excellent place to train yourself and I never regret being there. It was worth every dime I paid.”

Frank Colarik MBA 2006,
Entrepreneur
“After graduating from the University of Akron with a degree of Electrical Engineering, I worked as a consulting engineer and eventually worked my way into engineering management. In 1998, I started a part-time Internet based business that eventually became my full time occupation. I returned to the University of Akron to pursue my MBA and increase my business knowledge to help my business grow.

The experience I gained from the Entrepreneurship course and participation in the Annual Business Plan contest has added to my overall business knowledge. Specifically, the experience has helped me in obtaining skills that I have used to seek out new investors, acquire new businesses and present my business plans to debt financers. In the last year alone I have been able to take the knowledge I have gained from the Entrepreneurship program to help incorporate my business and purchase several new Internet businesses.

Most importantly, from my experience, the Entrepreneurship program gives students the unique opportunity to put classroom knowledge into practice.”

Prabhu Soundarrajan MS 2003,
Research Engineer, Applied Nanotech Inc. Austin, TX-78758
“I was in my second year graduate program in the Department of Polymer Engineering at The University of Akron, when I learned about the Entrepreneurship Program at The University of Akron. The course outline attracted my attention and I called Dr. Todd Finkle, the Director to talk about the course. I convinced myself that I was going to take the course, the moment I hung up the phone. The phone call was a welcome change, being used to a highly strict science environment in my graduate work. I enrolled in the course much against my scientifically oriented graduate advisor. When I look back, this decision was one of the best that I made in my life.

Dr. Todd Finkle had a great personality. I was able to relate to him more as a friend rather than an academic professor. We had three emerging companies present during the first day of class. The entire class had flourishing entrepreneurial spirit and we all came out winners at the end of the class. I participated in the 2nd Annual Business Plan Competition and won the second place.

The entrepreneurial skills that I acquired in the class helped me in my work over the past two years. I am involved in providing nanotechnology solutions for worldwide customers and provide a vehicle to move research ideas to market differentiating products. I have established a unique position for myself in the industry with diversified experience in nanotechnology product development, program management for both multinational firms and the U.S. government. I recommend UA’s Entrepreneurship Program for anyone who is inspired to create a difference in their profession and congratulate Dr. Todd Finkle on his great contribution to the field of entrepreneurship and leading a successful program.”

Nick Accordino MBA 2006
“Growing up everyone in my life always seemed to preach the same message – “Get the best education possible so that you can climb the corporate ladder quickly.” As I continued my education, I began to have another idea in mind – “Why climb the corporate ladder when I can own the corporate ladder?”

Entrepreneurship at The University of Akron of Akron has reinforced this idea in my mind. By choosing to take Entrepreneurship as an elective course at The University of Akron, I have put myself in a better position to achieve my goal of creating and owning my own business in the future. The entrepreneurship program at The University of Akron is second to none and has left me with the skill set necessary to not only think like an entrepreneur, but to also collate my thoughts and ideas into a concise and strategic action plan. My graduate course in entrepreneurship was unlike any other course taken during my graduate or undergraduate programs because of the real life experience it presented to me. My team and I worked directly with an entrepreneur who envisioned a product, but lacked the much needed business skills and guidance to bring the product to market. Our team worked diligently to create a comprehensive business plan for our inventor that will allow him to take his product from dream to reality. Entrepreneurship forces students to learn outside the box. In creating a business plan, students must use skills from every area of their undergraduate and graduate studies and incorporate their real-world experiences. Entrepreneurship also helps students prepare for their futures by constantly improving their team skills and public speaking skills.

Entrepreneurship is a real-world course and throughout the semester our class was visited by accredited business owners and investors who shared their experiences with us as well as critiqued and gave feedback on the plans we were creating. Entrepreneurship is a course that leaves you with a feeling of success and I will take that feeling with me into my business career and use the skills I have learning to achieve my dream – owning the corporate ladder.”

Tim Hirschy MBA 2006
“I came to the University of Akron for my MBA after working two years for a large health insurance company. One of the things that I noticed during my time there is the lack of a drive for creativity and innovation in the business environment. I went back to get my MBA to not only increase my finance knowledge and better my decision making skills, but also to discover more of the creative aspect of business that drives the free enterprise market.

While at Akron I chose to take Entrepreneurship. Many of my classmates had taken it and indicated that it was there favorite and most applicable class they had taken. Also, it is a long-term goal of mine to create my own business someday and be able to run it successfully.

Entrepreneurship opened my eyes to the large task of starting a new business. Being able to work with an actual product and writing a business plan allowed us to see all of the details that are necessary to consider. This also allowed us to tie all of our other classes together (management, marketing, finance, accounting, operations) into a large, full-scale, real life business plan that would be reviewed and critiqued by actual venture capitalists.

Entrepreneurship is a class every business major should take, even if your goal isn’t to create your own business. All successful businesses depend on an entrepreneurial spirit and knowledge to grow and achieve their maximum potential. This applies to every employee within every organization. The entrepreneurship class puts those ideas and concepts at the forefront and allows students to practically develop skills in those necessary areas. Now I feel that I not only have the motivation, but also the knowledge to be able to successfully run my own business.

Looking back I can say that Entrepreneurship was the most important class I’ve taken. It opened my eyes to the world of creativity and innovation within the business environment. I fully recommend this to any student, regardless of major, who want to be successful in their field.”

Alan Koncal, Current Undergraduate Entrepreneurship Student
"Although I have yet to put my business knowledge to full use, the Entrepreneurship Program has no doubt changed who I am and who I will become. Before I started my Entrepreneurship Minor, I was a typical college student, not sure what I wanted to do or where I wanted to go with my career. Typical degrees offered nothing that I was really passionate about.

Entrepreneurship showed me how to take total control of my own career by building a business in absolutely anything I wanted. Most of all, Dr. Finkle and Mr. Lehere showed me how owning my own business and creating my own destiny were entirely possible through researching interesting opportunities and writing business plans.

Now, rather than trying to establish which specific field I want to build a career in, I've found my goal is to find any of the limitless opportunities in the world and build businesses that will tap into them.

Thanks to Dr. Finkle and Mr. Lehere for taking their highly valuable knowledge of the field and helping students achieve their own entrepreneurial dreams."

Tally Althefery MBA 2005
"I started my graduate career with the intention to pursue a MBA in Finance. However, during the last semester of my graduate career, I learned about this wonderful program headed by Dr. Todd Finkle. Dr. Finkle was the head of the Entrepreneurship Department. I have always believed in my heart that I will always be the CEO of my own business. I wanted to better prepare myself to the real world challenges of starting a business, so I enrolled in his course simply called Entrepreneurship. During the course, I learned many new techniques that helped me understand exactly on how to go about starting a business. Most of us think it just requires the capital, labor and equipment, but I found out that it is much more than just those three basic elements. It requires a person with a risk taking type of personality. One who always has belief in their ability and judgment. During his teachings, Dr. Finkle insisted and demanded us to think outside the box. Unlike my other courses which dealt with number crunching, this course actually incorporated the number crunching with real world issues and cases. As a result this enabled me to follow my dream and start my own business upon graduation. I am currently the proud owner of 2 restaurants ans I am looking to open up my third really soon. This course has also enabled my partner and I to participate in the annual business plan competition. The competition was an unforgettable event. We actually took the time to prepare a real world business plan and had the opportunity to present it to potential investors. Even though we came in second place, the experience was well worth our time and effort. I highly encourage any MBA student to look into this course as part of their graduate career. It will definitely prepare you for the real world."