Innovation and entrepreneurship – two elemental aspects of courses in the Business Administration Division at Baldwin-Wallace College – must become focal points for economic growth in Northeast Ohio.
For this region, sitting out the game is not an option. The future of Northeast Ohio will be largely defined by the ability of local business and non-profit leaders to lead with an entrepreneurial perspective.
Our survival and growth will depend, in large part, on successful commercialization of marketable ideas and products, on smaller-cap start-ups and new-business carve-out initiatives, and on integrating entrepreneurial thinking into every aspect of business in Northeast Ohio.
It may be easiest for the entrepreneurial perspective to manifest itself in small business; ironically, the need for it may be greatest in our larger corporations competing in the rapidly changing global economy.
As Peter Rea, Ph.D., chair of the Business Division, has observed, it is a misconception that our region has long been dependent on smokestack industries for employment.
“In fact, it has not been since the 1950s that half of the region’s workforce was employed in manufacturing,” he said. “Our employment base in law, finance, health care, higher education, chemicals, small business and other sectors has been steadily increasing since the 1950s. Manufacturing will continue to be important to this region – especially manufacturing by those companies that innovate products, processes, marketing and logistics. However, from an employment perspective, manufacturing is like farming: It takes fewer people to produce more products due to technology.”
At Baldwin-Wallace College, our Entrepreneurship program’s hands-on projects introduce students to the real world of business today. Our Business Division continues to integrate into all of its graduate and undergraduate programs substantial course work on small business and entrepreneurship.
B-W’s unique partnerships and alliances provide our students with a built-in network of seasoned local business leaders. This blend of academics and exposure to senior business leaders enables our graduates to hit the ground running, ready to be contributors to the Northeast Ohio economy.
We are educating the next generation of entrepreneurs by preparing our students to think innovatively and to carry the entrepreneurial spirit with them into the workplace through unique programs and partnerships such as:
This program links small business owners with B-W students, trained in business planning and research skills, and with consulting executive “coaches” who volunteer their time to help local entrepreneurs develop and/or hone their business plans.
Coleman Foundation Grant
B-W recently was awarded a $20,000 grant from the Illinois-based Coleman Foundation, which since 1981 has invested $25 million in promotion of, and education for, entrepreneurship in the Midwest. With this funding, Baldwin-Wallace College will involve both business and liberal arts faculty in addressing the question, “How can worthy people add worth?” B-W’s unique dual emphasis on the liberal arts and entrepreneurship enables us to forge initiatives to study and foster character and citizenship in business, as well as the entrepreneurial perspective. These initiatives will further integrate entrepreneurial experiences and partnerships into class work.
A new partnership with Glengary LLC, a locally based venture catalyst enterprise, provides B-W students an opportunity to attend operating partner meetings and see how venture investment works. Glengary focuses not just on investment capital, but also on human capital, seeking to benefit the community as well as the regional economy.
On Monday, October 4, we will welcome a distinguished panel to take us “Beyond the Quiet Crisis Through Growth and Innovation.”
B-W is the educational partner of this group of chief executives from African-American owned and operated businesses in Northeast Ohio. Founded in 1996, The President’s Council has as its mission supporting entrepreneurial and economic development in the African-American community and Northeast Ohio overall, and fostering strategic alliances with major Northeast Ohio companies.
Baldwin-Wallace College is the educational partner of In Counsel with Women (ICWW). This Northeast Ohio organization of top-ranking female executives provides a forum through which executive women can meet, grow, expand their spheres of influence and advance their careers.
The B-W Business Advisory Council brings into play active partnerships with prestigious local companies. Its members bring to Baldwin-Wallace alliances with some of the region’s most successful entrepreneurial companies.
Students in Free Enterprise (SIFE)
An active Students in Free Enterprise chapter has won regional competitions and participated in a national competition. When SIFE students traveled to Mexico last year, they took the entrepreneurial philosophy with them, helping the people in a remote village establish a candlemaking industry.
Through partnerships with area companies, B-W and its Executive Enrichment program regularly bring to Northeast Ohio some of the world’s top experts on issues facing business. Global business and leadership development have been recent seminar topics.
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