{"id":5389,"date":"2012-06-05T16:26:25","date_gmt":"2012-06-05T20:26:25","guid":{"rendered":"http:\/\/www.tcnjmagazine.com\/?p=5389"},"modified":"2014-01-25T18:10:11","modified_gmt":"2014-01-25T23:10:11","slug":"engineering-alumni-and-faculty-share-keys-to-successful-entrepreneurship","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/www.tcnjmagazine.com\/?p=5389","title":{"rendered":"Engineering alumni and faculty share keys to successful entrepreneurship"},"content":{"rendered":"

Be persistent; strive for continual self-improvement; never let the fear of failure get in the way. That was the \u2028message a group of businessmen with ties to the School of Engineering delivered to aspiring student entrepreneurs.<\/p>\n

Professor Allen Katz a<\/strong>nd Paul Andrews \u201984<\/strong>, Thomas Krol \u201902<\/strong>, William Parkhill \u201903<\/strong>, Matthew \u2028Robinson \u201902<\/strong>, and Craig M. Wentzel \u201976<\/strong> discussed their paths to success and the lessons they learned along the way during a \u201cPursuit of Entrepreneurship\u201d panel discussion. The event was sponsored by the Engineering Alumni Mentoring Program<\/a>, which partners engineering graduates with current junior and senior engineering majors who are looking to solidify their resumes, find jobs, or gain entrance to graduate school.<\/p>\n

\"\"
Seated (l\u2013r): William Parkhill \u201903 and Professor Allen Katz. Standing (l\u2013r): Matthew Robinson \u201902, Paul Andrews \u201984, Thomas Krol \u201902, and Craig M. Wentzel \u201976.<\/figcaption><\/figure>\n

Krol, who is president of IMET Corporation, talked about his experience trying to bring a voice-activated phone for disabled people to market early in his career. He eventually abandoned the venture because the product was too \u2028cumbersome and voice-activation technology was not advanced enough. The lesson learned?<\/p>\n

\u201cIt\u2019s OK to fail,\u201d Krol told the audience. \u201cYou just have to figure out a better way to do things.\u201d<\/p>\n

Katz, who in addition to his faculty position is president of Linearizer Technology Inc., echoed that advice when responding to an audience member\u2019s question about Steve Jobs.<\/p>\n

\u201cJobs had lots of failures, but he kept going,\u201d said Katz, adding, \u201cDon\u2019t give up. You need to get over your un-successes.\u201d<\/p>\n

The panelists also said successful entrepreneurs must seek to continually improve themselves. \u201cNever be complacent,\u201d advised Robinson, who along with Parkhill co-founded MidAtlantic Engineering Partners LLC. \u201cAlways try to add value and keep improving.\u201d<\/p>\n

Wentzel, president of C&J Engineering Technical Services LLC concurred, adding, \u201cThe best advice I can give a young entrepreneur is, never stop educating yourself or looking at where the opportunities are.\u201d<\/p>\n

\u201cAs an entrepreneur, you have to look for opportunities,\u201d said Robinson. To illustrate his point, he explained how MidAtlantic takes advantage of New Jersey\u2019s often confusing regulatory system\u2014a potential pitfall for many engineering projects\u2014by guiding developers through the red tape. \u201cOne person\u2019s problem is another\u2019s advantage,\u201d Robinson said.<\/p>\n

Katz said that the first step to creating a successful high-tech startup is to come \u2028up with an idea.<\/p>\n

\u201cA good idea is something to value,\u201d added Andrews, senior vice president of sales and marketing at TelVue \u2028Corporation. \u201cYou should be thinking about ideas from your freshman year onwards.\u201d The importance of having good ideas carries over into job interviewing, he said. \u201cYou should know about the \u2028company, and have ideas to help them make money. Their eyes will just light up.\u201d<\/p>\n

The panelists also focused on the importance of people in any business venture. \u201cThe \u2018people factor\u2019 is the most important factor to any successful project or venture,\u201d said Wentzel.<\/p>\n

Of course, a key to running a successful business is keeping customers happy, and Krol highlighted the importance of having the right attitude toward customers.<\/p>\n

\u201cAs competitors got bigger, they started to neglect their customers,\u201d he said. \u201cI was right there to pick them up.\u201d<\/p>\n

Melisa Easaw \u201913 contributed to this report.<\/em><\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"

Professor Allen Katz, Paul Andrews \u201984, Thomas Krol \u201902, William Parkhill \u201903, Matthew \u2028Robinson \u201902, and Craig M. Wentzel \u201976 discussed their paths to success and the lessons they learned along the way during a \u201cPursuit of Entrepreneurship\u201d panel discussion.<\/p>\n","protected":false},"author":11,"featured_media":5391,"comment_status":"open","ping_status":"closed","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"footnotes":""},"categories":[53,9],"tags":[],"class_list":["post-5389","post","type-post","status-publish","format-standard","has-post-thumbnail","hentry","category-june-2012","category-on-campus"],"acf":[],"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.tcnjmagazine.com\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/posts\/5389","targetHints":{"allow":["GET"]}}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.tcnjmagazine.com\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.tcnjmagazine.com\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.tcnjmagazine.com\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/users\/11"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.tcnjmagazine.com\/index.php?rest_route=%2Fwp%2Fv2%2Fcomments&post=5389"}],"version-history":[{"count":0,"href":"https:\/\/www.tcnjmagazine.com\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/posts\/5389\/revisions"}],"wp:featuredmedia":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.tcnjmagazine.com\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/media\/5391"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.tcnjmagazine.com\/index.php?rest_route=%2Fwp%2Fv2%2Fmedia&parent=5389"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.tcnjmagazine.com\/index.php?rest_route=%2Fwp%2Fv2%2Fcategories&post=5389"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.tcnjmagazine.com\/index.php?rest_route=%2Fwp%2Fv2%2Ftags&post=5389"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}