Entrepreneurship program at Rutgers Business School launches speaker series

Four entrepreneurs, all of whom have started companies of their own, helped to launch the Rutgers Entrepreneurship GPS Speaker Series on Jan. 28 at the Rutgers Business School building on the Livingston Campus.

The inaugural segment of the GPS Series – so-named because the hope is that the experience and wisdom of real businesspeople will help students navigate to their desire entrepreneurial destination – featured Tim Erven, the 24-year-old founder of Genius Mods and Denise Blasevick, CEO and founding partner of S3 Agency as well as Phil Patrick, founder and former CEO of Pharmastrat and JB Blanchard, owner of Roof Deck Solutions.

A crowd of 30 students, most of them undergraduates, turned out for a networking session and a presentation by the speakers, who spoke about everything from the importance of entrepreneurs differentiating themselves to the necessity of making mistakes. The speakers also answered questions posed by the audience.

The speaker series is one of the products of a new relationship between Rutgers Business School’s undergraduate entrepreneurship program and the Entrepreneurs’ Organization of New Jersey. The series enhances a program that offers Rutgers students an option of earning a minor or pursuing a concentrationof studies in entrepreneurship.

Alfred Blake, assistant director of undergraduate entrepreneurship programs at RBS, said hearing the experience of entrepreneurs supplements and enhances theory that students learn in the classroom.

"For students, it’s an opportunity to gain insight from real-life entrepreneurs while they’re gaining knowledge in the classroom,” Blake said. “The students were excited and the entrepreneur ambassadors were excited as well.”