Published February 2005

Entrepreneurship 101
With new programs, EdCC aims to develop
next generation of business owners

By Kimberly Hilden
SCBJ Assistant Editor

Eighty percent of businesses in Snohomish County are small businesses, organizations started by people with passion and vision. Now, Edmonds Community College is focused on developing the next generation of these entrepreneurs.

Snohomish County Business Journal/ KIMBERLY HILDEN Ann Paulson, business management instructor (from left); Susan Loreen, dean of the business division; and Linda Russell, a faculty travel counselor; are leading the way for entrepreneurship at Edmonds Community College.

“Entrepreneurship education is (in part) developing those risk-taking skills and realizing that there are many ways to get resources to help you launch a small business,” said Susan Loreen, dean of the school’s business division.

For years, EdCC’s business division has been teaching its business management students the skills of management and finance, but Loreen realized that students in other areas of study, such as horticulture and culinary arts, were just as likely to venture into the realm of self-employment and business ownership.

So EdCC joined a growing national trend of educational institutions that are putting a new emphasis on the importance of entrepreneurship.

According to a 2001 report prepared by the Kauffman Center for Entrepreneurial Leadership Staff, more than 1,500 colleges and universities offer some form of entrepreneurship training, up from 400 institutions in 1995 and a base of 16 in 1970.

“Also, new entrepreneurship curriculum is being created in business and nonbusiness schools, as offerings expand to include marketing, finance, competitive analysis, new product development and technology, in business schools and in nonbusiness areas of study,” notes the report, “The Growth and Advancement of Entrepreneurship in Higher Education: An Environmental Scan of College Initiatives.”

In the past two years, EdCC has received more than $40,000 in combined grants from the U.S. Department of Education and the Washington state Board of Community and Technical Colleges to create studies for entrepreneurs, Loreen said.

Working with four other community colleges across the country, including Shoreline Community College, EdCC has been developing entrepreneurship modules, with coursework initially focused on the hospitality industry.

“Our (focus) is hospitality in travel and tourism; another college is working on hospitality in restaurants; another is working on hospitality in customer service,” said Loreen, noting that a recent report by the Snohomish County Workforce Development Council points to hospitality as an industry with major growth potential.

According to “Snohomish County 2010: A Blueprint for Education, Workforce and Economic Development,” the hospitality industry has seen significant employment growth in the past decade, with “the greatest growth occurring in eating and drinking and recreational establishments.”

In 2001, the report states, total county tourism employment topped 10,000 jobs. And with the 2003 opening of the Everett Events Center and the upcoming openings of the Lynnwood Convention Center and the Edmonds Center for the Arts, the need for hospitality-related professionals, from event planners to caterers, is expected to grow, Loreen said.

“Many of our students want to start a business because they have a passion for travel or a talent in culinary arts; we want them to have the business skills they need, too,” Loreen said in September, when the school announced EdCC’s push to develop its entrepreneurship education.

Working with the Consortium for Entrepreneurship Education, a national membership organization that advocates for entrepreneurship education, as well as advisory groups of local restaurateurs, hotel professionals and small-business owners, EdCC’s business division has been outlining skills standards for specific entrepreneurship courses, Loreen said. Six EdCC faculty members are responsible for developing the entrepreneurship modules.

The results thus far have been the introduction and development of a number of degree and certificate programs, including:

• An entrepreneurship/small-business certificate, which was introduced during the summer 2004 quarter and covers such topics as business planning and business financials, Loreen said.
• A two-year travel/entrepreneurship degree program, which will be formalized during the upcoming summer quarter.
• An event planning certificate, which will make its debut during the spring quarter and be formalized during the summer quarter. Coursework will cover contract law, facilities and conventions, conference and meeting planning as well as negotiating, decision-making and problem-solving skills.
• A catering certificate, which currently is under development and is expected to be offered either in the fall 2005 quarter or the winter 2006 quarter. “This is kind of a cottage industry in some aspects. The good thing about it is we have two restaurants and a cafeteria on campus, so our students would get practical experience, Loreen said.

EdCC also plans to include “The Virtual Enterprise,” a business simulation class currently used to much success by entrepreneurship collaborators Shoreline Community College and Kingsborough Community College in Brooklyn, New York, to augment its entrepreneurship offerings in event planning and restaurant operations, Loreen said.

While the college has been concentrating its entrepreneurship efforts primarily on hospitality-based programs, other college programs have been getting a dose of business development, Loreen said.

“We realized our horticulture students are (more likely) to go out and start their own businesses. Now we’re offering an entrepreneurship class specifically for horticulture, which began in the fall 2004 quarter,” she said. “‘Entrepreneurship in Horticulture’ has been extremely popular.”

Also, a business management faculty member has begun teaching a program for students working toward their high school diplomas or GEDs, Loreen said. “She’s teaching entrepreneurship skills in the basic-skills development course, asking students to think, ‘What kind of business would you form? What do you need to know (to do that)?’”

Loreen and the business faculty have been looking outside their division as well for ways to spread entrepreneurship across the campus. “We’re also really interested in ... a whole creative entrepreneurship cluster for entrepreneurial artists,” she said. “My division fits in there because we want to marry the creative side with the business side. ... Another degree would combine the arts degree with the business degree. Those are areas we’re looking at.”

Still another initiative is a full-fledged Entrepreneurship Institute, now under development, that would further the development of entrepreneurs.

“We’re spreading this entrepreneurship idea out into other areas,” Loreen said, smiling.

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