Look under the bridge for opportunities
Submitted by: John Warner on May 07, 2007 at 12:26 am
Tagged with: Featured Articles, Miscellany
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I have just finished teaching a course about start-ups in the Clemson MBA program. At the end of the course students had to complete a feasibility analysis of a start-up opportunity. The best ones were where the student's analysis was based on his or her actual experience. One student picked an automotive repair opportunity based on a student internship she had done, for example, and another real estate student explored creating a completely new type of green housing. Good stuff.
This week I was honored to speak at a Gaston, NC Chamber of Commerce meeting honoring small business in Gastonia. Along with awards for outstanding small businesses, a number of high school students were recognized who had won a business plan competition. The winners were based on the students' experiences. Two young men wanted to start a better skate board park, and a young lady had a better idea for a wedding shop. More good stuff.
I was asked to speak about how vision and courage had helped create Greenville's incredible downtown. I talked about how important it is for the community to identify and support champions who leverage their experiences and resources to drive initiatives that lead to progress for the entire community .
J E Sirrine around 1900 grew his engineering business helping to recruit textile mills to Greenville that he then built. At mid-century, Charlie Daniel and Buck Mickel, both CEOs of Daniel Construction, helped diversify the industrial base to build new branch plants. Virginia Uldrick is a school teacher who pursued her vision of creating the best arts high school in the country and perhaps the world, which led to the SC Governor's School for the Arts and Humanities. Max Heller, a holocaust survivor who arrived in America with little in his pocket, built a fortune founding a successful apparel company, and then as Greenville's mayor created a public/private partnership to recruit the Hyatt Hotel as the first anchor of a rejuvenated downtown Greenville.
The greatest success of the state's industrial recruitment strategy is BMW Manufacturing, who Carrol Campbell relentlessly pursued. Leaders like Tom Barton created the technical college system to train a skilled workforce to recruit manufacturers like BMW. Chris Przirembel has been the champion of the Clemson University International Center for Automotive Research to produce top engineering students to recruit the BMW Information Technology Research Center.
Greenville was founded by the trader Richard Pearis near a waterfall on the Reedy River. A century ago, families had picnics by the waterfall. By 1950, Greenville had become the textile capital of the world, but the river was used as a sewer and abandoned. When I got to Greenville 25 years ago, many people drove over the bridge every day, but you had to get out of your car and climb under the bridge to see that a waterfall was there. The EPA forced the river's clean up, and by the 1970s, Anna Kate Hipp and other ladies from the Greenville Woman's Garden Club began to ask why we had a bridge over a wonderful waterfall. Finally a few years ago the concrete bridge was removed and replaced with a spectacular pedestrian bridge that is the focal point of River Falls Park in downtown Greenville. Once again families have picnics by the waterfall.
During the question and answer after my speech, I was asked what asset Gastonia could build on. I confessed that I did not know enough about Gastonia, but I encouraged them to look under the bridge.
Often the best opportunities are right in front of us, and we just haven't recognized them yet. Under the bridge is a great place to look for them.