Entrepreneurial Management at Wisconsin

The Wisconsin School of Business offers students the opportunity to develop a broad range of skills crucial for success in the field of entrepreneurship both today and in the future.  Our graduates start new ventures, join professional firms providing services or funding to emerging ventures, and assume leadership roles in small businesses or entrepreneurial divisions of large enterprises.

In order to meet a growing campus-wide demand for entrepreneurship courses, a formal certificate in Entrepreneurship is being developed.  The MBA specialization will be replaced by this broader entrepreneurship mission and include MBAs from all specializations and graduate students from the rest of campus.  The specific requirements for the certificate are in development stage and will be available in the future.

Center of Expertise

Award Winning Weinert Center for Entrepreneurship

Weinert Center Wins National Award for Model MBA Entrepreneurship Program The USASBE named the Center the 2009 "National Model MBA Entrepreneurship Program."  For more details, please read the full story  here: http://www.bus.wisc.edu/news/0291.asp

Weinert Center Ranked #11 by Entrepreneur Magazine and Princeton Review Entrepreneur Magazine/Princeton Review recently ranked Wisconsin's Entrepreneurship program as #5 among Public US Universities.  Results can be viewed here: http://www.bus.wisc.edu/pressroom/rankings/wisconsin-given-nod-for-top-entrepreneurship-programs/

The hub of entrepreneurial activity at the University of Wisconsin-Madison School of Business is the Weinert Center for Entrepreneurship. The Center was established in 1986 and endowed in 1999 by James Weinert, MBA 1969, then chairman of Tri Pro of Minneapolis.

The Center also works to bring students together with researchers at UW-Madison, one of the world’s leading research universities, to explore potential commercialization of technological opportunities. UW-Madison was recently awarded a prestigious $4 million Kauffman Foundation grant to further expand entrepreneurship on campus.

Our classes provide real-world focus on venture initiation, planning and management. The quality of the entrepreneurship training at Wisconsin is increasingly recognized. Our students, alumni, faculty, and program have earned national attention from publications including BusinessWeek, Inc. magazine, The Financial Times, Entrepreneur, and Forbes magazine.

Winning Ways

Our students have won awards in a variety of national MBA student competitions, including business plan and venture capital investment competitions. These competitions opened new horizons and provided additional entrepreneurial opportunities for students who participated.

At the 2009 Governor’s Business Plan Competition three Weinert Center alumni beat out more than 320 business plans to place first, second and third place, and won more than $15,000 in the prestigious competition.

Starting a New Business

The Weinert Applied Ventures in Entrepreneurship (WAVE) course is for second-year students and provides them with a year-long applied practicum in starting and growing entrepreneurial businesses. The practicum involves a weekly seminar, hands-on work with start-up businesses and interaction with local and national experts on a variety of topics important to the education of aspiring entrepreneurs. Students also use the WAVE program as a platform to launch their own ventures. Up to $100,000 can be invested in promising start-ups developed by students who have taken this course. Several successful student ventures supported by these funds or by raising their own capital have been launched from the program. A few recent companies include an on-line alternative fuel source, a biomedical device manufacturer, and an innovation market research firm.

Typical Job Titles of Our Recent Graduates

• Founder
• CEO
• General Manager
• Business Development
• Partner
• Consultant

The WAVE & Weinert Center Advisory Boards

The program is supported by outstanding advisory boards, consisting of venture capitalists, bankers, founders, legal professionals, scientists, consultants and others. These business leaders help give overall direction to the program and also provide extensive coaching and mentoring of students.

WAVE Advisory Board

• Joe Boucher – Neider & Boucher, S.C., Founder & Partner
• Scott Braucht – Scott Braucht Associates, Founder & President
• Laura Francis – Promega, VP and CFO
• John Komives – Lakeshore Group, Ltd., Founder
• Greg Lynch – Michael Best & Friedrich, LLP, Partner
• Mike Mathews – Ruedebusch Development & Construction
• Dan Neely – Networked Insights, Founder & CEO
• John Neis – Venture Investors of Wisconsin, Inc., Managing Director
• Bruce Neviaser – Continuum Investment L.P., General Partner & Founder; Great Wolf Resorts, Former CEO
• Dan Nichols – Anchor Bank, S.S.B., Exec. VP
• Chuck Oehler – Primorigen Biosciences LLC, Chairman and President
• Kay Plantes – Plantes Company, Founder
• Neil Peters-Michaud – Cascade Asset Management, Founder & CEO
• Paul Reckwerdt – TomoTherapy, Founder & Former President
• Terry Sivesind – Poseidon Probes LLC., President & Co-Founder
• Chad Sorenson - Sologear, President and Co-Founder
• Pete Zaballos – Frazier Technology Ventures, Vice President

Weinert Center Advisory Board

• Andy Albert – Svoboda Capital Partners, Managing Director & Operating Partner
• Laurie Benson – Inacom, Former CEO & Founder
• Chris Hornung – Next Testing, President; Pacific Cycle, Founder & Former CEO
• Steve Jacobson – Fairway Independent Mortgage Co., President
• Jack Lavin – Javlin, Founder; Arrow Financial Services, Former CEO & President
• Aaron Kennedy – Noodles & Company, Founder & Former Chair
• Tom Pyle – The Pyle Group, Chairman; Rayovac, Former CEO
• Toni Sikes - Gruppo, Levey & Co., Senior Advisor; The Guild, Founder & Former CEO
• Irwin Smith – Nakoma Capital Management L.L.C.
• Michael Smith – Avelle the former Bag Borrow or Steal, President & CEO; Classmates.com, Former CEO
• Neil Thall – Aldata Solution, Inc., Former CEO
• David Walsh – Foley & Lardner, Partner

Entrepreneurship Electives

• Entrepreneurial Management
• Entrepreneurial Growth Strategies
• Introduction to Strategic Management in the Life & Engineering Sciences
• Venture Creation
• Entrepreneurial Finance
• Technology Entrepreneurship
• Law and Entrepreneurship
• Weinert Applied Ventures in Entrepreneurship (WAVE) I & II

 

Alumni Success

While a student, Neil Peters-Michaud developed a business with seed money from the WAVE Fund. Cascade Asset Management has since grown into a company with multiple locations and is a nationally recognized leader in the safe disposal of electronics, such as computers and monitors. Neil and his wife, Jessica Peters-Michaud, co-own the Madison-based firm. They announced in 2005 that they would give $20,000 annually for five years to support a graduate student in the entrepreneurship program to express appreciation for the entrepreneurial program provided by the Wisconsin MBA.

“The Weinert program gave me the opportunity to develop a detailed business plan for my venture. My instructors, classmates, the Weinert Board and alumni all provided invaluable guidance and access.”

Neil Peters-Michaud, Founder and CEO, Cascade
Asset Management

Jessica Peters-Michaud and Neil Peters-Michaud, MBA 1999 Cascade
Asset Management, Madison, Wis.

Contact

Weinert Center for Entrepreneurship University of Wisconsin-Madison School of Business 4429 Grainger Hall 975 University Ave. Madison, WI 53706-1323 Dan Olszewski, Director Phone: 608/265-3959 Fax: 608/890-2492 Email: dolszewski@bus.wisc.edu