Fred Kiesner, 03/16/07
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Young Entrepreneurs Succeed with Help from ‘Grandpa Fred’
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Professor Fred Kiesner recently led the LMU Business Venture Team to victory in the national Spirit of Enterprise competition.
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Fred Kiesner, professor of management and Conrad N. Hilton Chair in Entrepreneurship, prefers “Grandpa Fred” over any other title.
“Formalities never made me feel comfortable,” Kiesner said. “I treat all my students like they are my own children.”
It is estimated that this warm, inspirational professor has taught more than 15,000 students during his 38 years of teaching. Most recently, he led four of those students to win first place in the national Spirit of Enterprise competition for their product, the Asthma Sound Indicator (ASI). The competition was held in February at the University of Cincinnati.
The invention of the ASI began during the fall of 2006 in the New Product Design and Development graduate business course, co-taught by Kiesner and engineering Professor Dorota Shortell. The ASI records and keeps track of breathing measurements for people with asthma.
The team consisted of graduate students working collaboratively from both the Systems Engineering Learning and the Master in Business Administration programs: Allan Avelino, Tim Vermilion, Ben Waddle and Dwight Yorke. The students received a $10,000 prize for their product, and now want to build a business around the ASI.
The student team says Kiesner’s energy and excitement significantly contributed to their success. “Fred Kiesner is one of those unique people you encounter and you know you’re blessed to know him,” Vermilion says. “Without a doubt it is his inspiration that led us to our current success with ASI and the success we expect in our future.”
Future success is already promising. The ASI team has received a bid to compete in the Moot Corporation Business Plan Competition this May in Texas. Teams from all over the world participate in this highly competitive and prestigious competition. Also, the team has been invited to display the ASI at the National Collegiate Innovators and Inventors Alliance Convention in Florida in March.
“We are the little guys playing in the sandbox with the big boys like UCLA and USC, but we hold our own,” Kiesner says. “LMU proved that it truly is one of the big boys by winning this past competition.
“Seeing my students succeed is the best part of being a professor,” he adds.
While his students continue to succeed, so does his program. Kiesner has been a professor and director of the Entrepreneurship Program for the past 35 years and has fostered the program to become the best of its kind on the West Coast.
The program achieved the highest ranking of any school on the West Coast among undergraduate entrepreneurship programs ranked by the Princeton Review and Entrepreneur Magazine. LMU was one of the first schools in the nation to begin formally teaching entrepreneurship in 1972. Today LMU offers a concentration in entrepreneurship at both the graduate and undergraduate levels.
While the Entrepreneurship Program has evolved, Kiesner’s teaching style has not changed. He does not teach out of a textbook; he teaches from his heart.
“My job is to get the students to believe in themselves, to take the first step toward their business or business idea,” Kiesner says. “After that, I sit back and watch them take off and fly.”
Kiesner believes passionately that Vermilion and all his other students will experience continued success in their entrepreneurship pursuits. “Our graduates have the advantage to hit the ground running and they do so incorporating ethics and social responsibility in everything they do and every decision they make in the business world,” he says.
Kiesner respects LMU for many reasons but, most importantly, he says, because LMU puts the student first. “I love LMU because my job is to love the kids,” he says.