Mentor Night, Kaitlyn Pongracz & Phil Fogatry

 

Current Events 

Earlier this week, the Hiram College Mentorship Program had their third annual meeting on Zoom. The program is designed for students to be matched with successful entrepreneurs where the students can develop a working relationship and learn from their mentor. 

Additionally, the Entrepreneurship Education Consortium (ECC) has an upcoming event on October 22nd from 4:30-6:30pm at SmartShape Design. This is a great opportunity for any entrepreneurship student to network and meet people who are working on entrepreneurial projects. If interested, please contact David Strukel at StrukelDM@hiram.edu. 

Student Spotlight - Kaitlyn Pongracz

Kaitlyn is a Hiram College senior studying Marketing and Entrepreneurship and set to graduate in December of 2021. Over the summer, Kaitlyn was a marketing intern for Environmental Design Group located in Akron, Ohio. During the internship, Kaitlyn was responsible for the planning and designing of an open house. Additionally, Kaitlyn did client work, PowerPoint presentations, social media analytics, and logo design. Once the internship ended, Kaitlyn was offered a part-time position with the company and plans to become full-time after graduation. 


Kaitlyn had a good experience with the entrepreneurship minor and really enjoyed the group work and collaboration. She believes that the minor helped improve her public speaking skills and recommends all freshman to take at least one course. 


Mentor Spotlight - Phil Fogatry

Phil is an entrepreneur who has been in the lawn care industry for his whole career. He started his career by purchasing a small lawn care business, which he then grew and developed into a much bigger operation. Eventually, the business was sold to Scott's Lawn Service (now TruGreen), where he worked at the corporate level. Scott eventually decided to leave his corporate job and join a Canadian lawn care company, Weed Man, who was trying to expand into the United Sates. Phil is now the franchisor for Weed Man in the Ohio, Pennsylvania, and New York markets. Phil has found great success with Weed Man and helped develop the company to 250 million dollars nationwide. 

Phil recommends for students and aspiring entrepreneurs to get involved and get to a point where you have equity in whatever you are doing. By doing so, you will be getting paid in three different ways and will have control of your own destiny. 




Comments

Post a Comment

Popular posts from this blog

Whoa Dough, Bob James, and Sustainability

Image
Whoa Dough & Camdyn Miller Camdyn is a Hiram senior from Creston, Ohio and is set to graduate in December of 2022. She is majoring in Accounting and Financial Management with a minor in Entrepreneurship. She is a member of multiple clubs and leadership positions including Accounting Club, Hiram Women's Soccer, and the Alumni Calling Program.  Last semester, Camdyn was apart of the student ran venture class (ENTR 30600) where she and her group worked with a healthy snack bar company, Whoa Dough .  Although the class ended last semester, Camdyn decided to continue working with Whoa Dough because she had a vision of bringing the snack bar onto Hiram College. The snack bar comes in six different flavors and are sold at $2.50 per bar. She plans to sell the bars to students and get clubs and sport teams to purchase the bars in bulk for fundraisers. Camdyn is also in the process of creating a social media platform in hopes to gain customer attraction.  The plan of selli...
Read more

Student Venture Update & Microgrants

Image
  Student Venture Update As discussed in a previous blog , three groups of Hiram entrepreneurship students are currently running their own business on campus. The three businesses include Mad Batter, Hiram Tees, and Tribe Clothing Brand. With the semester coming to an end, these businesses are looking to end strong! Mad Batter is a baked goods business that is focused on selling to students on Hiram campus. They have totaled an estimated 300+ sales in a short span of two months. The team plans to continue following their business plan and grow their sales.  Hiram Tees is a T-shirt business that is focused on making unique shirts with funny slogans. The team slightly changed their business plan and decided to accept custom orders. To make the custom orders, the team purchased a printing press so they could create the shirt in-house and decrease the turnaround time on the order. The team is still working towards increasing their sale...
Read more

CIAP, Declan Ange & Trevor Capiccioni

Image
  Current Events       On October 7th, Hiram students had the opportunity to attend the first Entrepreneurship speaker series and listen to guest speaker, Carlton Dean III. We thank Carlton for sharing his entrepreneurial story and sharing great advice with those who attended. Additionally, be sure to check out  The Commons Innovation Accelerator Program . The program is for students of all majors and can be used to supplement Hiram's programming, coursework, and even provide micro-internship opportunities all at no cost to students. The program starts October 29th, so be sure to register as soon as possible if interested.  CIAP Flyer Student Spotlight - Declan Ange      Declan Ange is a Hiram senior studying Sports Management and  Entrepreneurship. Declan is currently a member of the men's baseball team, Entrepreneurship Club, and the head of intramural sports. He is also an intern for  Dinon & Associates ...
Read more