I have been an entrepreneur for over twenty-five years. Friends ask whether entrepreneurship can actually be taught.  My answer is: absolutely.  You see, too many times, we tend to worry about the wrong thing.  With entrepreneurship, too much worry is about the 'fire in the belly' thing.  I can give example after example where a 'fire in the belly' was not responsible for an entrepreneurial failure.  The root cause of failure was more likely something like complicated banking relations or inappropriate financing, unattended human resource problems or the incorrect pricing of goods and services.

Here at the University of Dayton, we firmly believe in teaching the fundamentals of entrepreneurship, using unique ways of investigating existing business disciplines. Our nationally ranked School of Business entrepreneurship program gives our students the opportunity to examine, understand and implement most elements of entrepreneurial success. In fact, each of our undergraduate entrepreneurship majors have actually planned, started and harvested a for-profit company. I promise our distinctive entrepreneurship graduates will have the irreplaceable combination of judgment, enthusiasm, and skills necessary to create a new venture, from idea generation through launch and sustained growth, whether it be within the boundaries of a large corporation or the four walls of a rented garage.

This first decade of the new millennium presents significant business opportunities. Small businesses, growing into larger entities, will continually fuel our economy. For some, attaining skills for the pursuit of entrepreneurship is a notable step for a life of excitement, fulfillment and financial reward.