Founder and presenter of the Spirit of the Entrepreneur

In 2003, the Inland Empire Center for Entrepreneurship (IECE) at California State University San Bernardino, founded the annual Spirit of the Entrepreneur Awards Program in the Inland Empire. Now in its 22nd year, the awards reflect our passionate belief that the Inland Empire community should honor and reward the entrepreneurial men and women who innovate, take risks, and build businesses that contribute significantly to our local economy.

As a recognized global leader in entrepreneurship education (recognized as one of top 50 graduate programs in 2022, 2023 & 2024 and one of the Top 35 entrepreneurship centers globally in 2017 by AACSB), the mission of the Cal State entrepreneurship program is to inspire, develop, and nurture the next generation of Inland Empire entrepreneurs. We facilitate student learning by immersing them in the entrepreneurial process. Students start and run businesses during their time in the program. They interact with entrepreneurs, investors and business leaders from our community to learn from their success and failure. They are mentored and guided by our entrepreneurial faculty. They work on developing unique business models, assessing the commercial potential of emerging technologies from our technology transfer office, and provide consulting services to local entrepreneurs. During the process, they discover their strengths, weaknesses, motivations and goals. Most importantly, they discover their entrepreneurial potential not by simply learning theories, but by experiencing the entrepreneurial process first hand.