Kent State University faculty, students and administrators gathered Nov. 5 to witness the unveiling of the university’s newly expanded Center for Entrepreneurship and Business Innovation’s John S. Brinzo Entrepreneurship Laboratory in the College of Business Administration.
The laboratory, which opened in 2009, is a place for faculty, students and entrepreneurs to collaborate.
John S. Brinzo, who graduated from Kent State in 1964 with a bachelor’s degree in marketing, funded both the initial construction of the Entrepreneurship Laboratory and its recent expansion.
“Entrepreneurship students and faculty will benefit greatly from the generous support of John Brinzo,” says Deborah F. Spake, Ph.D., dean of Kent State’s College of Business Administration. “His initial gift established the John S. Brinzo Laboratory in the Center for Entrepreneurship and Business Innovation. As the program has grown, there was a need for additional space for student-faculty-entrepreneur interaction. The lab expansion will allow for dedicated space for this purpose, as well as access to data resources and a creative space for idea generation and business incubation.”
The Center for Entrepreneurship and Business Innovation’s mission is based on three pillars: student experiences and education, entrepreneurship research and outreach.
“The impact of research coming out of Kent State is undeniable,” says Sergey Anokhin, Ph.D., interim director of Kent State’s Center for Entrepreneurship and Business Innovation. “Its excellence advances the entrepreneurship agenda, propelling the College of Business Administration and the Center for Entrepreneurship and Business Innovation to the national and international arena. I am excited by the challenge to leverage the center’s research and outreach, and with the help of alumni like Mr. Brinzo, I am confident that we can advance the entrepreneurship agenda at Kent State University and beyond.”
Brinzo began his successful career in 1969 as a financial analyst with Cleveland-Cliffs Inc., the leading supplier of iron ore products in North America. Through the years, Brinzo worked his way up through Cleveland-Cliffs until he was named chairman in 2000, where he remained until he retired in 2006.
As he addressed the crowd at the ribbon-cutting event, Brinzo said entrepreneurship was what America was built on and that the only way to build on entrepreneurship was through brainpower. He says he was proud to support the Center for Entrepreneurship and Business Innovation at Kent State and watch it nurture and grow.
“I may have written the check, but this program succeeds because of the students, the faculty and the administrators,” Brinzo says.
For more information about the John S. Brinzo Entrepreneurship Laboratory and the College of Business Administration at Kent State, visit www.kent.edu/business.