Andrew Scibelli will tell you that about 90 percent of the nearly 1,200 community colleges in America have no entrepreneurship education or facilities, neither courses, nor business incubators, nor community business development centers - nada.
Then he will cite research that says 70 percent of high school seniors want to own their own business, and 86 percent want to know more about entrepreneurship. Then he will turn around and tell you entrepreneurship education will rival all other emerging fields over the next decade as the most attractive and popular subject a community college can offer.
Scibelli can comfortably make such a claim, because he already knows how to do it. Over the past 21 years as president of Springfield Technical Community College (STCC), he transformed that institution from dog house to dream house, primarily through the education of entrepreneurs, and the encouragement and support of community entrepreneurial enterprise.
"His work is remarkable not only for the breadth of interests he represents but for the effectiveness of his work over the years," observes John Lombardi, the former University of Florida president who is now chancellor at Amherst. "The reputation and reach of STCC is truly remarkable and, while of course students and faculty make the place successful, it is the first rank leadership of Andy Scibelli that provided the opportunity for their success."
To build a fire
Scibelli's particular genius has been in developing, attracting and nurturing the faculty, facilities, funding, educational tools, relationships with corporate partners, research contacts and community involvement to make STCC's entrepreneurial ventures a success. Most importantly, he was responsible for creating the vision for STCC to provide fledgling businessmen and their companies a base to start up their dreams.
In that role he has become, quite literally, the entrepreneur's entrepreneur. Yet he will deny that he is an entrepreneur, and deems himself no expert in building a business. But if you count turning a less-than-desirable community college into an educational dynamo in the state of Massachusetts and the nation, then Scibelli easily qualifies for the title.
Scibelli, just retired from the STCC presidency in July, now has turned to equipping others with the entrepreneurial message that he has honed over the years. In his new role as consultant (www.scibelliconsults.com), he has embarked on a crusade to help other community colleges realize and develop their own entrepreneurial education visions.
"He's like John the Baptist," remarks Larry Humes of Collegis, an acquaintance. Catch one of Scibelli's fervent presentations at a community college, an education conference, or just buttonhole him in the hall, and you'll be warmed by the same fire that a decade ago gave STCC a new identity and put it on the community college map as an entrepreneurial hothouse.
The entrepreneurial message
"I do feel like an evangelist, in many respects," admits the 61-year-old president emeritus of STCC, just retired in July. "This is made for community colleges. It is written into our reason for being. No segment of education is better equipped to do this than community colleges."
Scibelli's career makes his point. He was named STCC's president in 1983, when the school was viewed as a place where students went who could not get into any other school. He held the college together during years of severe state budget cuts in the late 1980s and early 1990s, no small feat in itself.
But the most significant mark he made was as an apostle striving to lead a change in the culture through developing a new vision for STCC, centered on excellence in technical education and entrepreneurship. That change helped create an environment out of which grew a new atmosphere, a jewel among the 15-school community college system in Massachusetts that students today want to attend.
The vision also fostered new ideas - like developing a four-year engineering technology degree - and new opportunities - like being chosen by the National Science Foundation to create a national curriculum for teaching telecommunications technology. The new STCC, under Scibelli's leadership, also was able to establish relationships with corporate partners like Bell Atlantic, Ford and Microsoft.
The college gained national attention in 1996 for the development of the STCC Technology Park, built on the site of an old Digital Equipment Corp. facility, which has received numerous awards for its boldness and its impact on economic development. STCC in 1999 created the Entrepreneurial Institute - since renamed the Scibelli Institute - as a small business incubator and full-service center that nurtures both adult and student businesses. STCC since has been providing a continuum in entrepreneurship and student business incubation education, from elementary school through an associates degree program and beyond.
Following the way
For all of that and more, Scibelli was named Top Entrepreneur of 1999 by regional Business West magazine. But his background, oddly enough, includes not a breath of business education. He started his professional career as an academic, first as a biology teacher and athletic coach in K-12 and high school. He moved to STCC in 1969 as a teacher, a year after it was established, and later moved into administration.
"Part of our bonding back in the 1970s was that we were both entrepreneurial but did not know it," says. Michael Suzor, an entrepreneur with two successful businesses under his belt. Suzor, an STCC graduate, worked at the college from 1972 to 1977, replacing Scibelli as registrar in 1975 when Scibelli became assistant to the president. The two became friends, following each others' careers. Suzor went on to start up two successful software companies, returning to STCC in 2002 to work with then-president Scibelli as his assistant.
"For a guy who's always been an educator, Andy has a remarkable affinity toward the entrepreneurial spirit and for calculated risk-taking," Suzor adds. "I'd be hard pressed to come up with any shortcomings, although one of his challenges is patience," which Suzor sees as another entrepreneurial earmark that he shares. "Andy sees what he wants to get accomplished, and he wants to get it done in a hurry."
Made, not born
But how did the entrepreneurship bug bite a biology teacher?
"I think I'd have to go to an analyst to go figure that out," Scibelli jokes, with typical good humor. His own experience and his observations over the years has proven to him, at least, that entrepreneurs are made, not born.
"It's true, there are certain characteristics that you have to have to be an entrepreneur," Scibelli says. "But entrepreneurs usually are not good business-minded people. Assisting people can make them a success." Again, experience proves his point: The rate of success for business start-ups nationally is about one in five. Scibelli points out that the STCC enterprise center incubator enjoys a 90 percent success rate.
"The idea is to set up a series of support systems to help people where they are weak - that's what makes success," Scibelli declares. "But it's a new and different mission for most community colleges. If it's not a priority with the president, it's not going to happen.
Hatching the entrepreneurial egg
"I drove this at STCC, literally," he adds. "That made a difference. I was going to make sure it wouldn't fail for lack of support. But I had to have people with the same intensity of belief, and I was very fortunate to find people of that ilk who found others with the same dynamism, verve and high energy that people actually feel when the visit the center."
Aside from faculty and staff, the STCC model involves the community. A pro bono advisory board, made up of local lawyers, bankers, accountants, entrepreneurs and others with something to offer, provide assistance to the new businesses in the incubator.
Scibelli admits he had a lot of help in developing the school's entrepreneurship program. He had no particular knowledge of business incubators, for example, other than he liked the idea of developing one at STCC.
"I saw it as part of our business program, part of our duty as a community college to give to the community." So he got help. Incubator-building expertise came not from Scibelli but from an arm of the old Coopers & Lybrand consulting firm, which Scibelli hired to do a feasibility study. Scibelli followed their lead.
"It's was like planning a seedling and watching the trees grow," Scibelli recalls of the entire process. And what it grew into was a model for community college entrepreneurship programs. George Boggs, president of the American Association of Community Colleges, notes that Scibelli's contributions likewise have grown beyond STCC.
"He was the leader in the establishment of the National Association for Community College Entrepreneurship (NACCE) and is considered one of our most knowledgeable authorities in this area," Boggs says. Noting that Scibelli had just concluded a three-year term on AACC's board of directors, Boggs adds: "Andy brought to his board position a great sense of judgment and a wonderful sense of humor. He is one of our most creative and intelligent community college leaders, and I hope he continues his contributions in his retirement."
Moving on
There seems small hope that he won't. Aside from his consulting practice, Scibelli just began a short-term assignment at Massachusetts Bay Community College, about 80 miles away from Springfield.
His office at STCC, medanwhile, will remain a hub for matters entrepreneurial, and for encouraging interest in entrepreneurial education among community colleges. And he is optimistic, despite research that shows slow growth between 1970, when only 16 courses in entrepreneurship were offered by four year-business schools, and 1997, when 400 schools of all types offered at least one course in entrepreneurship, with 50 schools offering four or more courses.
"Unequivocally, 10-years from now, entrepreneurship education will be part of the fabric of most community colleges in the country," Scibelli predicts. "It won't be novel anymore." The current level of interest at various colleges is intense, he says, though he admits it's still early on in the process.
"STCC has put a face on it," Scibelli sums up. "It's not magic. It takes significant commitment, a willingness to take risk, and the ability to bear up under criticism, to overcome adversity and to solve problems." Qualities, Scibelli agrees, are much like those needed by entrepreneurs.