Professor & Founder
Derby Entrepreneurship Center at Tufts
As a Tufts professor at Tufts in the Derby Entrepreneurship Center, my objective is to foster a thriving culture of innovation throughout the entire university.
As a teacher and an entrepreneur, my focus is to provide both content and experience in the science and the art of entrepreneurship that will allow our students to succeed not just in the classroom, but also extend directly to their lives and careers after Tufts.
What excites me are notes such as this one from Wade Houser, an alum from 12 years ago, who emailed me this out the blue earlier this year.
“First, I wanted to say thank you. Ahead of my Sr. year you advised me to take a summer internship at Oracle instead of some boring finance firm. Turned out to be great advice - it was the foundation for me getting hired at Dropbox, then a startup Quip (acquired by Salesforce), then at Salesforce for 5 years, now back at a startup (Loom). Been selling or managing sellers the whole time! Not sure I'd be here without that advice” Wade Hauser, Sales at Oracle, Salesforce, Dropbox, and Loom
-My father with a high school education, formed an eight-person jazz band on the vaudeville circuit before going to work for his father.
-His father, My grandfather, left rural Vermont at the age of 22 to come to Davis Square in Somerville and Harvard Square in Cambridge, Massachusetts to open the two Derby Jeweler stores. Life and work for my Mom and Dad plus me and my two brothers revolved around the Somerville store. True entrepreneurship at the street level!
-My great grandfather, Horace, left that same small rural Vermont town at the age of 17 to join the 1st Volunteer Regiment of the newly minted state of California before returning four years later to Poultney, Vermont to start the first dry goods store in town with his brother. Horace continued to live in the same town moving on to be the railroad stationmaster in the bustling intersection of trains in Vermont...thereby, I like to imagine, sealing my love of trains through my entire life.
Interestingly enough, even with me and my brothers working in “the stores”, we never used the word “entrepreneur”. In fact, it was not until after graduating from BC, and then returning from two years in the Peace Corps teaching in northern Tanzania and after working at my first real job at Becton Dickinson, that I began to study and understand what entrepreneurship really meant.
That education developed over years of volunteer committee and board work becoming chairman work at The MIT Enterprise Forum, where I studied, experimented, listened, debated and met hundreds and hundreds of real entrepreneurs, venture capitalists, and educators in the art and science of entrepreneurship. Even though the Forum was a side gig where i became chairman, while working my full-time job at BD, that process and those connections changed my life forever.
The MIT Enterprise Forum also provided me the opportunity to teach my first university level classes through Jung Hoon Chun, a gifted MIT professor of Mechanical Engineering. Years later, I still teach every fall at MIT where Dr. Chun and his professors teach the science of ME, and I provide our students with an understanding of business planning and marketing. It was because of my teaching at MIT, that the Tufts opportunity came to me 20 years ago.
At this time in my Tufts life, with every semester, and in fact, with every individual class, I continue to regard it as a privilege to be a professor working with my students, my fellow professors and the administration at this very unique university.
For me, Tufts is one of the best things that I do since it represents the perfect intersection between my teaching, my life as an entrepreneur and my work as a management consultant. In fact, in my courses, those three intersections of management consulting, teaching and starting companies are frequently co-mingled providing academic content, real-life marketing and sales projects and jobs for my students.
