The 11th Annual Spirit of the Entrepreneur Awards, Continues to Encourage Business Growth
San Bernardino, CA (PRWEB) October 16, 2013 -- Dr. Mike Stull the director of the Inland Empire Center for Entrepreneurship (IECE) at Cal State San Bernardino. The center currently serves 250 students on campus and a variety of businesses throughout the community. IECE has received recognition from the Princeton Review and Entrepreneur Magazine as one of the top programs in the country. The center was created in 1999 with the intent of supporting entrepreneur activities. For student, the program offers academic classes at the undergraduate and graduate level.
“The most unique feature of the center,” said Dr. Stull during his SoCal SEO interview, “is its availability to individuals and businesses within the community. Many individuals can’t get a degree, but still want to start business, have a business and or want to improve their business. The center offers business consulting and training programs, workshops and seminars, and mentoring programs to help them start a business or take their business to the next level.”
When Dr. Stull wanted to know who community members and students looked to as role models for business success. It quickly became apparent that they were unaware of successful local business owner’s because most people listed individuals like Bill Gates and Steve Jobs as entrepreneurs they hoped to be like. Dr. Stull wanted them to realize that in their own community there were many extremely successful businesses that were great role models succeeding every day that could also be business model mentors.
In 2002, the first annual Spirit of the Entrepreneur occurred. The purpose of the awards show was to recognize emerging business and entrepreneurs and create local role models for others to look to. “One example of an award winner that sticks out in my mind,” said Dr. Stull, “is that of Hangar 24 of Redlands. They won the Emerging Entrepreneur award because they exceeded their expectations for first year profits. The company started with four-five employees and now employs one hundred twenty-five, distributing to California, Nevada, and Arizona.”
The 11th Annual Spirit of the Entrepreneur theme is “The Art of Entrepreneurship,” and be be held on November 19th with award ceremony beginning at 7:00 PM at the Ontario Convention Center.
In addition to being a premier honor for those chosen to receive an award, the event offers participants a chance to network with the best of the best in business. It is a target rich environment for those hoping to meet more entrepreneurs and business people that already have command of multimillion dollar sales companies.
Companies also have the opportunity to support the event through sponsorships. IECE relies on businesses to partner with the vision of the center and the awards show to not only showcase excellent examples of entrepreneurship in the community, but also to develop more entrepreneurs in the future.
Those wanting to register for the event can go to http://www.InlandSpiritAwards.com. To sponsor the event, contact Dr. Stull at 909-537-3708 or mstull(at)csusb(dot)edu.
Dwight Cromie, Altek Media Group, http://altekmedia.com/, 951-781-8624, [email protected]
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