|
|
|
Trine University Ketner School of Business Dean Scott Fergusson talks during the annual meeting of the Steuben County Economic Development Corp. Wednesday night at Witmer Clubhouse, Zollner Golf Course, on the Trine campus. | |
Mike Marturello, Herald Republican Editor
ANGOLA — Scott Fergusson wants students at Trine University’s Ketner School of Business to have hands-on experience when the leave the classroom with their degrees.
To that end, the dean of the school of business has developed what he calls the Trine Venture Fund that could eventually lead to the funding of ideas that could end up as new products or services.
Fergusson, an entrepreneur himself who joined the Trine administration in August, was the guest speaker at the annual dinner of the Steuben County Economic Development Corp. held Wednesday night at Witmer Clubhouse at Zollner Golf Course on the Trine campus.
“We’re out there trying to find ideas before anybody else does,” said Fergusson, a Noble County native who wants to see local development and business success in the community.
The project, which would be privately funded, would work with ideas that would go through an approval process. If an idea makes it past the business plan stage, it could get up to $5,000 in venture capital funding. Fergusson expects maybe three or four ideas to be funded each year. And that’s after upward of 250 ideas started at the beginning of the process.
Fergusson wants to encourage student ideas, but said the process would be open to ideas from local businesses. Even if the local ideas didn’t get funded, they would remain the intellectual property of the business.
If possible, Trine Venture Fund projects could end up being developed in local stores that are vacant.
“We’ve got all of these students here, if they’re building these businesses here, they’re likely to stay here,” he said.
Fergusson is a 1992 graduate of Tri-State University. He worked for a major brokerage firm then went into business himself, eventually developing a software program that would be used by financial planners to help present portfolios to clients. He sold his Fort Wayne business to a large New York-based firm and traveled to the firm’s headquarters to help out, which convinced him the best place to create and run a business was in the Midwest.
Fergusson is high on mentoring and problem solving and creating an environment at Trine that will grow future business leaders and entrepreneurs.
Through the university, Fergusson hopes to educate students and help the local economy.
“We’re trying to figure out how to grow business, the economy here,” he said.
While Trine Venture Fund is not up and running, Fergusson is working with students on projects that would be similar to what the fund would capitalize.
One is Thunder 2 Go, which would put a convenience store on campus. It would not only sell pop and chips to students, but employ technologies used by major retailers to trace the buying habits of their customers. Currently there are three projects in the works and it has developed excitement among the students, Fergusson said.
He has even put his students to work at developing a business plan for the Fergusson family farm. There, in Noble County, an 18-acre vineyard is being developed. So far, the vineyard is being developed to produce grapes for other vineyards that actually make the wine.
|