By Robert Eyler
Over the past two decades, higher education business programs have significantly increased their focus on entrepreneurship courses and majors. This shift, largely influenced by decades of evolving research and theory in entrepreneurship, has played a pivotal role in fostering a new wave of businesses. These businesses, often starting from humble beginnings in garages, laboratories and bedrooms, have used business-school tools to build new corporate giants. The use of laptops and cellular phones as primary marketing tools for products and services is a testament to the innovative approach fostered by higher education.
At its core, entrepreneurship is about ideas. Those ideas need to become salable products or services to be seen as entrepreneurship, but the foment of ideas and the creation of a space and medium upon which ideas can be generated and financed are critical. As local universities and community colleges enter another academic year, it is an excellent time to consider examples of where we can see more activity among higher education regionally, and the entrepreneurship and economic development that follows. So much of higher education’s role in local economic development is providing new energy to the region through graduates of a university’s programs.
Over the last four decades, the North Bay has seen four key industries change based on entrepreneurship:
* wineries and related visitor experiences
* telecommunications
* medical devices
* life sciences or biotechnology
Each has been important at different times to North Bay counties (primarily Marin, Napa and Sonoma, but also Lake, Mendocino and Solano counties in fits and starts). Creating a niche carved out for your salable idea adds to a region’s economic strength and history as a place to do business. Marin County has a strong life-sciences cluster driven by firms located here because of what this area provides residents. Sonoma and Napa have been places where the wine industry and wine tourism experiences flourish. All these counties have had engineering in life sciences, medical devices, aerospace, thin films and telecommunications to develop some niche. These industries helped define these counties in terms of what they offer that is different than other places.
Higher education plays a crucial role in providing both ideas and labor to regional entrepreneurs. While our regional community colleges offer a wide array of degree options and vocational training, Sonoma State University and Dominican University of California stand out for their role in linking students to entrepreneurial opportunities and regional businesses. Their programs in engineering, business and biology have been instrumental in creating a generation of industry leaders and providing a skilled workforce to the region.
Sonoma State University (SSU) has a program in engineering and has been moving toward expanding programs. SSU’s business school has a long-standing connection to entrepreneurship in our region, as do SSU’s biology programs. Links to life sciences and medical device businesses continue as our science graduates find careers throughout the area, especially in Marin County, as rare disease research and products to fight those maladies continue at BioMarin and Ultragenyx. SSU’s Wine Business programs have created a generation of wine-industry leaders from our undergraduate major to our executive MBA programs in wine. Wine-related businesses in Napa, Sonoma, Solano, Marin, Lake, Mendocino, the Central Valley and outside California have considered Sonoma State’s programs a personnel generator.
The real juice is creating new businesses. One of the key aspects is financing. Organizations such as Marin-Sonoma Impact Ventures (MSIV) and the North Bay Angels have been easy-to-see groups that want to provide equity financing. Dominican University of California also has a footprint in providing entrepreneurship training and has a long history as a regional partner with equity financing groups, including MSIV, and being a place of new business incubation (Venture Greenhouse, for those who remember, was a fantastic idea that lacked deep financial support both for its programs, but also for its new businesses).
Entrepreneurship training and opportunities coupled with links to partners, workers and finance create a magnetic force for graduates and graduate students to come and stay in this region. Population change in these counties (especially Sonoma, Marin and Napa counties) points toward an older population with fewer children. When students come from all over the world to learn here, we must provide entrepreneurial and career opportunities as a long-term attractant to staying in this region.
That is a community effort beyond our universities and community colleges, but those institutions are essential partners in such efforts to keep these regions young and commercially vibrant. We need to support regional entrepreneurs, those organizations that finance those initially risky ventures, and our students who are to become the business leaders of tomorrow. Visiting a campus this fall and seeing what is happening is an excellent reminder of the power of those relationships as channeling through regional higher-education campuses.
Dr. Robert Eyler is professor of economics at Sonoma State University and president of Economic Forensics and Analytics in Sonoma County.
