"The Acton MBA helped me find my 'calling' and taught me that someone with integrity and drive can change the world." - Carter Higley '04
Startup Finds Its Mark by Adhering to the Acton Way
09/19/2007 - Austin American-Statesman
Austin, Texas (September
19, 2007) – One would be hard-pressed these days to find an MBA professor who would be willing to help a student start a business after that student
graduated.
But then again, few MBA professors have actually started a business before in the first place.
At the Acton School of Business
(www.actonmba.org), where starting or running a business is a prerequisite for teaching entrepreneurship classes at the school, teachers like Greg Fitzgerald embrace
the idea of mentoring Acton graduates.
In fact, Fitzgerald’s role in helping Acton graduate Brandon Willard (2006) create DisplayPoints, Inc. was chronicled on
Sept. 19 in the Austin American-Statesman.
The journalist highlights the research that went on while Willard was a student of Fitzgerald’s, and how the teacher
helped Willard create a business plan that could secure funding. Today, DisplayPoints (www.displaypoints.com), with its digital display boxes that reside on restaurant
tables, has multiple customers in Austin and has plans to expand to the rest of Texas.
“We’re extremely proud of Brandon and the fact that he relied heavily on
the principles that he learned while attending the Acton School of Business,” said Georgia Spaeth, Executive Director of the school. “Many other Acton graduates are in
various stages of creating their own businesses or have purchased an existing one. In almost every case, one of our teachers has been there to assist them.”
