The Entrepreneurial Spirit
Duff Goldman ’97 is the founder and owner of Charm City Cakes. Linnyette Richardson-Hall ’84 is the creative director and principal consultant of Premiere Event Management. Bill LaCourse is chair of UMBC’s Department of Chemistry and Biochemistry and co-founder and CEO of Aurora Analytics.
What do these three have in common? They are all entrepreneurs.
“There are many different types of entrepreneurship,” said Vivian Armor, director of the Alex. Brown Center for Entrepreneurship. “There are a variety of things a person can do. Most people have no clue until they discover the entrepreneur in themselves.”
Finding their inner entrepreneurship skills proved successful for Goldman, Richardson-Hall and LaCourse. But they didn’t all start out thinking they’d someday operate their own businesses.
Goldman admitted he was a graffiti artist until a high school teacher encouraged him to use his art in a more productive way. After graduating from UMBC, he worked at a restaurant in Fell’s Point in Baltimore where he discovered baking as his true calling. He went on to graduate from the Culinary Institute of America in Napa Valley, California, and then worked as an apprentice at several restaurants afterward. He returned to Baltimore in 2000 and founded Charm City Cakes, a custom cake bakery. Charm City Cakes has grown in popularity with not only a two-year waiting list for cakes but also a weekly program on the Food Network, “Ace of Cakes.”
Richardson-Hall found her inner entrepreneurship skills not through her profession in financial services but through something more personal – her wedding.
“I had a good job, but it wasn’t fulfilling,” she said.
What was fulfilling was planning her wedding in 1993. That and the “entrepreneurial spirit” she said she always had deep down. Following her interests and enthusiasm led Richardson-Hall down a path of achievement. She is now one of thirteen wedding planners featured on the Style Network’s weekly program, “Whose Wedding Is It Anyway?” and has appeared on numerous television and radio shows as well as in print publications.
For Bill LaCourse, it’s about playing two different roles.
“I like being an educator, and I like running a business. I get to live two lives,” he said.
Upon joining the chemistry and biochemistry faculty at UMBC, LaCourse pursued his research interests in pulsed electrochemical detection (PED) and its applications to bioanalytical problems in the areas of pharmacy, toxicology, forensics, and environmental and life sciences. Motivated by his desire to apply his research and work with industry, he co-founded Aurora Analytics in 2004, headquarted at bwtech@UMBC’s Incubator and Accelerator. Aurora develops and manufactures consumer and research diagnostic products. The company also assists other incubators as “helpful, good neighbors.”
“I love to tinker, discover and invent for something good. We all need a purpose for what we do. I think, for most entrepreneurs, there is a bit of altruism underneath the surface,” LaCourse said.
Goldman, LaCourse and several other entrepreneurs will be featured speakers for events at Global Entrepreneurship Week, an event hosted by the Alex. Brown Center for Entrepreneurship. This week includes a variety of workshops and discussions held from Monday, November 17, to Friday, November 21. Events throughout the week promise to be insightful, engaging and filled with interested entrepreneurs. An Evening With Duff Goldman on Thursday, November 20, is already sold out.
“We’re hoping to touch different audiences and help people of all backgrounds to discover the entrepreneur in themselves,” said Armor.
This year marks the first Global Entrepreneurship Week. Last year, it was held on a national level.
For more information on Global Entrepreneurship Week, go to http://www.umbc.edu/entrepreneurship/pdf/EntrepreneurshipWeekFlier2008.pdf.
To read complete profiles of the entrepreneurs above and learn more about the Alex. Brown Center for Entrepreneurship, go to http://www.umbc.edu/entrepreneurship/.
(11/10/08)
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