Published in the Independence Daily Reporter August 2019

Jim Correll, director Fab Lab ICC at Independence Community College, Independence Kansas

We’ve all seen society’s picture of a successful entrepreneur. Swashbuckling, dragon- slaying, fearless. We are led to believe by popular narrative that these people have conquered their fears. I don’t believe I know any billionaire entrepreneurs, but I know several millionaire entrepreneurs and they all still have fears. In an interview on “60 Minutes,” Paul McCartney, one of the most successful billionaires, entrepreneurs and musicians of all times, admits he still has fears. I think we can also safely assume the other swashbuckling, dragon-slaying and fearless billionaire entrepreneurs are not really fearless, we just don’t hear much about their fears.

If even the most successful people have fears, what does that say to the rest of us? No matter how much we accomplish, how much we help other people or how much money we make, we’ll always have fears. Conquering fear doesn’t mean it will go away. One definition I found for “conquer” is; to successfully overcome (a problem or weakness). Overcome does not mean to make it go away.

If you pay attention, messages about fear and fear of fear are pervasive in our society. If you listen to popular religious music, nearly every song has a theme around overcoming fear. Most of the modern religions of the world seek to help people overcome their fear and live a life of fulfillment and peace.

But we live in a scary world. I could make a long list of political, environmental, economic and personal safety concerns. Most of the problems in our modern world come about because the individuals in it are fearful. Some are so fearful, they have no hope for a better future and this leads them to make all kinds of bad choices.

Conquering fear is a matter of choice.

 

Jim Correll is the director of Fab Lab ICC at the Center for Innovation and Entrepreneurship on the campus of Independence Community College. He can be reached at (620) 252-5349, by email at jcorrell@indycc.edu or Twitter @jimcorrellks. Archive columns and podcasts at jimcorrell.com.

 

Published in the Independence Daily Reporter August 2019

Jim Correll, director Fab Lab ICC at Independence Community College, Independence Kansas

Serial Entrepreneur; an entrepreneur who continuously comes up with new ideas and starts new businesses.

Those of you that love entrepreneur stories will love this one. It is an example of the fact that the vast majority of new businesses are started without millions of dollars in venture capital by people who don’t have business degrees. Curtis Lavine needs no introduction to business leaders in Southeast Kansas; indeed, many in the aviation industry. Many times, when I speak of starting a business, retirement-age people talk about being too old. I tell them the story of Curtis Lavine.

An important side note. In spring of 2014 when we spoke about starting a Fab Lab, Curtis was one of the first to understand how a maker space would benefit people’s thinking. He became a primary benefactor providing matching funds to the Kauffman Foundation grant. Curtis’ vision made it possible to open Fab Lab ICC in the fall of 2014. Without his gift, we would have likely been delayed one to two years.

Curtis started his first company after retiring from the Teledyne Corporation at age 59. He is a great example of a grass roots serial entrepreneur. I got to know him beginning in about 2010 when I joined a local group in creating a non-profit to help entrepreneurs. The others in the group told me that if I could get Curtis to be on the board, he would be a great asset. It was good advice.

He chose to serve in the Air Force because he had an intense interest and curiosity about jet engines. His time in the service included work on the Thunderbirds aircraft. After his service, he eventually became the general manager of the Teledyne Corporation office in Missouri. The Independence Kansas office was having some difficulty, so they asked him to move to Independence. He jokes about how his wife had about 30 minutes to decide she’d be ok with moving.

Along about age 58 or 59 Curtis says something inside of him became sick of the four walls of the corporate office and that he was tired of his corporate bosses “breathing down his neck.” So, he retired to start something of his own.

From his experience working around jet engines, he perceived an opportunity in the area of jet engine overhaul. Engine overhauls are required periodically throughout the life of an airplane. In the early 1990’s the entire engine went to one of several very large service centers around the country.

Overhaul is required not only of the major engine components but also smaller, but just as important accessories such as fuel controls. Curtis recognized that the big service centers were mostly interested in the high revenue potential of the major components. He even said they looked at the revenue from overhauling fuel controls as “chicken feed.” Overhauls take a while. At that time, the engine overhaul could take 45 – 60 days. Smaller components, like the fuel controls had the same lead time even though only a few hours were required to complete the smaller overhaul.

Fuel controls require overhaul more often than entire engines, yet the big companies could not get the smaller orders fulfilled in less than 45 – 60 days. Curtis thought this was the real opportunity. In 1992, Curtis and a partner started Kanas Aviation with four employees and one product. They obtained the necessary certifications from the Federal Aviation Administration (FAA). Their turn-around time for fuel control overhaul: 7 – 10 days as opposed to the then industry standard 45 – 60 days. The company grew and in 2014 was awarded the Kansas exporter of the year award doing business with companies from small to huge around the globe. You can see more of the Kansas Aviation story at kansasaviation.com.

Curtis sold his interest in Kansas Aviation several years later. After all, he was 58 when he started. But did he retire? No. He went on to start and/or acquire seven other businesses most of which are still in operation and at 83 years old, Curtis still signs most of the checks and has regular weekly meetings with the managers to keep his fingers on the pulse of each business.

Brian Hight of Magnolia Scents by Design, a serial entrepreneur in his own right, interviewed Curtis in 2013 as part of an assignment for the Entrepreneurial Mindset class. The concepts Curtis discusses are timeless. You can hear that interview on my podcast. Google “The Correll Files” and you’ll see the episode.

 

Jim Correll is the director of Fab Lab ICC at the Center for Innovation and Entrepreneurship on the campus of Independence Community College. He can be reached at (620) 252-5349, by email at jcorrell@indycc.edu or Twitter @jimcorrellks. Podcasts and archive columns at jimcorrell.com.

Published in the Independence Daily Reporter August 2019

Jim Correll, director Fab Lab ICC at Independence Community College, Independence Kansas

This title really should be the Fallacy of the Market Studies, Business Recruiters and Related Consultants in Rural Communities.

Those of a certain age will most certainly remember the western TV series of the late 1950’s and 1960’s; “Bonanza.” Every week, we’d don our cowboy and cowgirl hats and cap pistols to watch the latest episode about the widower Ben Cartwright and his sons as they managed a huge cattle ranch in the American southwest.

I am reminded of a particular “Bonanza” episode every time one of our rural communities engages a consultant to do a market study, retail business recruitment, community branding or otherwise tell us what we can do and what retailers they can recruit to make our communities grow.

In the episode, there’s been a great and long drought.  All the plants and crops are drying up and even cattle are starting to die.  Everyone is suffering and desperate for rain.  Along comes a “rainmaker”, driving into town with his fancy wagon and signage promising to “make it rain”.  The town’s people pool their money to pay the rainmaker a substantial sum to make it rain.  Of course, he can’t really make it rain, whether he’s well-intentioned or not.  The Cartwrights seem to be the only people who are against paying him the money.  After there is no rain and he is run out of town (with the money, I think), rain finally comes naturally, and everyone is happy and ready for the next episode.

Small cities and towns in rural America struggle to meet the challenges of declining populations and dwindling local businesses.  Now, these towns face not only the “box store” competition that has been with us for decades, but also an ever-increasing presence of competition on the Internet.

Consultants come to town and in the results of their expensive market studies, they tell us that our way-finding signs—i.e. signs directing to attractions and districts—are not good. They tell us about “leakage”, that is, how much money is being spent out of town because we don’t have the right kind of restaurants or retail stores. They tell us our retailers need to spruce up their store fronts and put planters on the sidewalks. They tell us we need blade signs under our awnings. (Blade signs are perpendicular to vehicle and pedestrian traffic, more easily read by passersby. Blade signs also violate city ordinance in most of our towns.) Do we really need to pay someone thousands of dollars to tell us those things? If we had community meetings couldn’t we come up with this list of improvements on our own? Yes, we could come up with the list ourselves, yet in our region, we have paid thousands of dollars to consultants to tell us those very things.

Some consultants are retail recruiters and promise to bring great retailers and franchises to our towns. But, our greatest retail stores and stories do not come as a result of expensive retail recruiters. Rather, they come for grass roots efforts by locals who are passionate about their communities and passionate about offering a positive shopping experience.

The best solution for increased retail activity in our communities is to inspire entrepreneurial thinkers that have been shown how to uncover problems in the local marketplace and work toward solutions that people want.  There’s really no way outside consultants can do that regardless of how much they are paid.  We have local talent that can figure out how to improve our way-finding signs, spruce up our towns, help our existing businesses, start new ones and in some cases even recruit retailers from outside the area.

 

Jim Correll can be reached at (620) 252-5349, by email at jcorrell@indycc.edu or Twitter @jimcorrellks. The views and opinions expressed in this column are those of the author and do not necessarily reflect the policy or position of Fab Lab ICC or Independence Community College. Archive columns and podcasts at jimcorrell.com.

 

Published in the Independence Daily Reporter July 2019

Jim Correll, director Fab Lab ICC at Independence Community College, Independence Kansas

A coworker, about my age, once said to me “When we grew up in the 1960’s and 1970’s, we wanted to change the world. We don’t challenge these students today to change the world.”  It’s time we challenge today’s students to change the world. They’re up for the challenge. A few years ago, we invited 250 area high school students to town for what we called the ICC College Planning Conference. I believe about 180 came. I was privileged to be asked to provide the welcome on behalf of ICC and speak a bit about Fab Lab ICC.  I challenged these young students to change the world.

“The future is scary. I’m sure many of you have wondered just what the world will be like when you finish school and go about the business of making a life for yourself. You are not alone. Nearly every generation has faced a scary future. Those living during the Civil War, then World War I, then the stock market crash of 1928 and the Great Depression of the 1930’s; all of them wondered what the future would hold. Add to that list World War II and the Korean War. I assure you I wasn’t alive during any of those times, but I do remember the Viet Nam war. I barely missed being drafted but I remember the tragedy and anxiety it caused at home. Then, there was the Cold War for nearly three decades until the late 1980’s, a situation where, all through school, we worried about two super-powers blowing up the whole world with nuclear weapons. Today we have terrorism and conflict around the globe, especially in the Middle East and increasingly at home. Most recently, the specter of a Cold War of nuclear weapons has resurrected itself.

“Yes, the future has always been scary, but there’s one difference between all those previous generations and you young people right now. Everyone in this room has the opportunity to change the world and solve the problems that are sure to plague our future. In the past, the individual didn’t have much opportunity to really change the world, so we have relied on governments to solve the problems of our social condition.  You may not have noticed, but governments are not very good at solving problems. The real solutions are going to come from people like you. Technology and the Internet have leveled the playing field so that anyone anywhere can change the world.

“So, what does it take to change the world?  It takes a mindset. At ICC, we call it an Entrepreneurial Mindset. Entrepreneurs have a special way of looking at problems as challenges that need to be solved. They are very good at coming up with creative solutions. Whether you go into business for yourself or choose a career working for others, you’ll need an Entrepreneurial Mindset in order to be the best problem solver. Easton LaChappelle has an Entrepreneurial Mindset. Easton grew up in tiny Mancos, Colorado and in about 2010 when Easton was just fifteen years old, he decided there should be a better, less expensive prosthetic hand. With no experience and starting in his bedroom, over the next five years, Easton developed a robotic hand that can be controlled by thought emanating from a $100 head band available at Amazon.com. In January 2015, he released his design to “open source” so others could build on it. That changes the world.

“No matter what you do with your life, it should be about solving problems for others. With the right mindset, you can build a life of helping others while doing something you really like and are really good at. This is true whether you have been labeled a gifted student or a troublemaker. The world needs you to solve problems.

“We built Fab Lab ICC to help develop an Entrepreneurial Mindset and what David Kelley at Stanford University calls Creative Confidence. If you spend a couple of years with us at ICC before you continue your journey into the world, we’ll help you develop the type of thinking and confidence you will need to be successful no matter what your interest; business, the arts, science, medicine, public service, or even the ministry. You study the disciplines you like while we also help you develop the mindset and confidence you need to change the world.

“You won’t find anywhere else in the world where you can attend a school like ICC with small classes and personal attention and yet have access to a world-class Fab Lab. It’s available to all of our students regardless of their area of study.

“Like Easton LaChappelle, you don’t have to wait until you get out of school to think about ways you can change the world. Come to ICC and we’ll help you start to change the world before you’ve even finished your two years with us.

 

Jim Correll is the director of Fab Lab ICC at the Center for Innovation and Entrepreneurship on the campus of Independence Community College. He can be reached at (620) 252-5349, by email at jcorrell@indycc.edu or Twitter @jimcorrellks. Archive columns at jimcorrell.com.