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Cultivating Entrepreneurship
from SLUH Magazine
by SLUH
CULTIVATING
ENTREPRENEURSHIP
BY DR. KEVIN FOY ASSISTANT PRINCIPAL FOR ACADEMICS, MODERATOR OF IGNATIAN BUSINESS LEADERS
In 2012, after recognizing the many students interested in learning about entrepreneurship, markets and investing, Austin Smith ‘13 started the Ignatian Business Leaders (IBL) at St. Louis U. High. Over the years, the club focus has shifted to respond to the interests of student leaders.
One of the important and consistent club threads includes helping students start and run businesses. IBL has participated in pitch competitions at Saint Louis University and University of Missouri-Kansas City. Collaborating with alumni mentors, we facilitated a yearlong smallbusiness accelerator for six student groups. This process culminated with a SharkTank-style presentation to a panel of alumni business leaders. The first big success featured Skydration Systems by Jimmy Reddy ‘16 and Daniel Wagner ‘17, a project that took first place and delivered drinking water solutions to small villages in Kenya. Fast Forward to Sam Zychinski ‘22, our current Director of Entrepreneurship, and find his startup, Gateway Tea, which steeps fresh flavor into an old commodity.
Tying all of this together is a thriving club that has brought in dozens of speakers, organized field trips, created investment simulations, hosted Q&As and given Jr. Bills opportunities to research and present to classmates on everything from the options market in the airline industry (Jack Rosenstengel ‘21) to the GameStop craze (Cam Glynn ‘19).
Stop by our weekly meetings and you’ll see students from all four years working together, listening and learning from one another, and having a good time figuring out how getting the right people, with the right Ignatian values, can make the world a little bit better. To do this, it takes courage and creativity – things that our students are more than willing to supply.
