By Jessica Bledsoe
This fall, innovative Utah Valley State College business students with the next big idea have one more “entrepreneur in residence” to spin ideas off of as the entrepreneur program celebrates its second birthday.
Professor J. Kent Millington is the newest member of UVSC”s entrepreneur program, which is earning recognition as an essential element of the business school.
Millington said it was an easy decision to return to the classroom after 30 years of entrepreneurial business experience; he previously taught at Idaho State University and Cornell College. UVSC was also the natural choice for his career change.
“UVSC is the fastest growing institution of higher learning in the state,” Millington said. “In another five years, this will be the largest institution in the state. I wanted to be part of that.”
Rick Farr, a resident entrepreneur who has spearheaded UVSC”s entrepreneur program, said this fast growth rate is beneficial for the school.
“I think that in our society today there is nothing but change,” Farr said. “And when something is stable, it is hard to make changes. So the changes at UVSC have helped our program a great deal. We”re changing the image, the brand of UVSC. We want to brand this as an entrepreneur school.”
UVSC is moving away from their vocational roots into a more traditional university role, but the accessibility of the school to a variety of students is what Farr said is the key to the program”s success.
“It”s harder to get into BYU than UVSC, and our students, many of them, aren”t as strong academically, but they have a greater propensity to start their own businesses because of that,” Farr said. “C students tend not to color within the lines to satisfy teachers for a grade. They tend to be more independent – one of the characteristics that leads them into their own business.”
Farr said the growth of small business is in large part due to the Internet”s ability to act as a marketing tool and catalyst for growth.
The growth of these businesses is part of the larger trend in the job market of the United States throughout the past few decades. Workers are changing jobs every five to seven years, according to the United States Chamber of Commerce”s Web site, causing the extinction of the stable, corporate career. Even large corporations are downsizing as they find it more economical to outsource work.
“There are somewhere around 20 million business in the U.S. and a small, small fraction employ over 500 employees,” Farr said. “The great majority of businesses are one-man businesses.”
Millington also pointed out that many people have also warmed to the idea and the freedom of working for themselves or a small group.
He said the latest buzzword in the business world is “mompreneurs,” a surge of home-based business run by mothers. These are typically career women who have decided to stay home with their children and use the convenience of the Internet.
“A lot of people just don”t like working in large corporations,” Millington said.
At UVSC, Millington is preparing to teach his students how they can work for themselves. His freshly painted office down a remote wing of the business building is furnished with empty pine shelves, a couple of orange chairs and a bare desk standing ready for fresh ideas.
Millington said he is already impressed with the entrepreneurial program and his colleagues.
Farr said he is not surprised. The business school faculty is chock-full of “real world” business experience, and Millington will add to the impressive credentials.
“Kent”s got an incredibly variety of experiences,” Farr said. “He has gone from a one-man band, to a manager, to a top player in a large company. Kent is a great asset to our program and will be a great asset to the students.”
Millington will teach business formation, where students must start their own business by the end of the semester, and lead the entrepreneur lecture series this fall.
