The University of Baltimore sees an area in transition, and its business school is pursuing ways to aid the change

UB going entrepreneurial

Baltimore is undergoing a transformation.

At least that's what Anne M. McCarthy says. And as dean of the University of Baltimore's Merrick School of Business, McCarthy plans to see the school transform with the city.

"Business in Baltimore is changing, from Sparrows Point to Locust Point, from old, larger corporate firms to young, smaller entrepreneurial firms, and that's the future of building business in Baltimore," McCarthy said.

And so the business school is expanding its entrepreneurial focus: Its Web site will help local entrepreneurs who want to open businesses. It is pursuing partnerships with other organizations that help entrepreneurs. Guest lecturers will visit the campus each semester to speak about entrepreneurism.

The university is considering opening an entrepreneur clinic, where local entrepreneurs could come for advice and problem solving, and University of Baltimore students would help them. The benefit, school executives say, is twofold: Students get real-world experience while helping Baltimore's business community.

McCarthy, who created Colorado State University's entrepreneurship center before coming to the University of Baltimore in 2002, is hoping the school becomes the "go-to place for entrepreneurship" in Baltimore.

"What we see is becoming a clearinghouse, a place for everyone to come together," she said.

The school is among several local institutions with programs focused on entrepreneurship. Loyola College's business school has the Center for Closely Held Firms, which runs workshops and seminars to help small and family businesses. And the University of Maryland's Robert H. Smith School of Business in College Park promotes its Dingman Center for Entrepreneurship.

Last month, Jim Kucher was hired as the University of Baltimore's executive director of the entrepreneurship program.

A 2001 graduate of the business school, Kucher has the entrepreneurial spirit in his blood. His grandfather opened an insurance agency in New Jersey, which his father eventually took over. And Kucher founded two Baltimore small businesses, an electronics company and a consulting firm.

The school has developed a social enterprise program, where teams of students work with nonprofits to help develop business plans to set up a for-profit arm of their organization. The program aims to help nonprofits increase income outside of grants and government support, said J.C. Weiss, who teaches finance and entrepreneurship at the University of Baltimore and founded the school's social enterprise program.

Students helped write a business plan for an upholstery business, for instance, for the Caroline Center, a Baltimore nonprofit job training program for women.

"The students like it a lot because it's a real-world experience," Weiss said. "They're dealing with a real business with all the vagaries that you have in a real world situation. It's also good for the university. It's a good role for us to play in the Baltimore area because we're working to strengthen the nonprofit community, which is a huge segment of our economy."

Michael Sontag, who graduated from the University of Baltimore last semester but plans to return for a graduate degree, took an entrepreneur course last fall and said he will continue those studies with a social enterprise course this semester. Having the chance to develop a business plan while still in school, Sontag said, will be invaluable.

"The more practice I get on the practice field, the better I'm going to be on the playing field," he said.

Experts agree that entrepreneurism is key for Baltimore's economy. Census data show that almost three-quarters of Maryland businesses had nine or fewer workers during the past decade. In 2003, for instance, 72 percent of the Maryland's 133,304 businesses had nine or fewer workers.

That number doesn't include the state's 363,000 nonemployer businesses or companies that didn't have workers, such as a mom-and-pop shop, in 2003. That compares with about 303,000 such businesses five years earlier, census data show.

While Baltimore is often not regarded as a "headquarters town," it does have a strong educational infrastructure and a pool of wealth and talent, said Michael Conte, chief executive officer of Baltimore software and content development firm RegionalOneSource Inc. He is the former head of RESI, Towson University's economic think tank.

Plus, the city is known for keeping its people local - those who go to school in Baltimore tend to stay in Baltimore, he said. Anything that can be done to give more tools to that talent base will improve existing businesses or help build new ones, Conte said.

Hunt Lambert, associate vice president for economic development for Colorado State University and a former director for its Center for Entrepreneurship, agreed: "I think that entrepreneurship is one of the most powerful modes of outreach that a university can do."

But Conte warned that any organization assisting entrepreneurs also should look at the long-term viability of the companies it helps. And he said he hopes that the University of Baltimore will help companies to both enter the business world and think beyond the first few years, as well as deter those who should not be entering.

"The issue here and the question that I think is incumbent on an organization like the University of Baltimore to answer is, what percent of these ideas are really viable in a competitive market context," Conte said.

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