Straight from the Hearth: 'Year in Review and Giving Thanks'

Straight from the Hearth: ‘Year in Review and Giving Thanks’

With the number of working days left in the year approaching single digits, I’m reprising the Straight From The Hearth column to reflect on the  extraordinary things that FORGE has accomplished this year.  I’d like to give thanks and credit to many of the people and organizations that have supported FORGE’s mission and helped us to expand.  

FORGE (Finding Opportunities and Resources to Grow Entrepreneurs) has literally and figuratively opened up new doors to entrepreneurs this year, helping to increase and advance the entrepreneurial ecosystem: We are grateful for the support we receive in that work. At FORGE we are always asking “What can we do to better support entrepreneurs and how can we promote their efforts? Not just startups, but how do we embrace the idea of entrepreneurial mindset and develop the critical thinking and problem solving skills to build the next generation?”  Our work this year helps answer those questions and we have had a very busy, very successful year!  

Among other things, our work has opened up new avenues in Biomedical Entrepreneurship, created additional programs for student entrepreneurial mindset development, increased community resources, expanded entrepreneurial capacity in Native American communities and so much more. We still have a few events coming up in December.  I hope you’ll come join us and take a look at what we’re doing.  We look forward to seeing you.

January

We sprinted out of 2022, helping plan and host the ‘Emerging Bioeconomies: Ecosystems and Society’ workshop in partnership with Kim Patten, AVP of Research Development Services at the University, the National Science Foundation, and Mike Brizek of UIDP. This meeting brought together researchers and industry representatives, and formed the seed for the FORGE Biomedical Entrepreneur program. We began regular office hours at our Resilience FORGE location in the ENR2 building. January’s FORGE Fireside featured a conversation with Tucson-based Hamilton Distillers, maker of Whiskey del Bac, CEO Kent Cheeseman.

February

With thanks to Ashley Lomery at the UA Foundation, we hosted a FORGE Fireside and lunch with alums Scott Cohen and Blake Johnson, founders of unicorn company Byte. The UA Foundation love continued with Giving Day, where FORGE received donations from over 50 donors. With the help of Liz Pocock, CEO of Startup Tucson,  FORGE program coordinator Aleshia Howell and I began the process of reopening our downtown Tucson flagship location- FORGE at Roy Place.   FORGE at Roy Place has quickly become an important community and UArizona destination for supporting events and critical conversations.  In addition to providing meeting and workspace for resident entrepreneurs, university and community groups, FORGE at Roy Place has hosted over 50 events this year.

March

The FORGE at Roy Place opening came just in time to support an urgent request by the Navajo Nation to host hundreds of their members for the Certificate of Indian Blood and ARPA Hardship Census. This launched the FORGE partnership with Levi Esquerra, UA Senior Vice President of Native American Advancement and Tribal Engagement, that ultimately led to an exciting new program. Following that we were guests of the Singleton Foundation, kicking off the planning for a Venture Valley gaming tournament for students, and developing of the Venturing 101 Financial Literacy module. With the theme of returning to the office fresh in everyone’s minds, I hosted human dynamics and workspace expert Ben Waber for FORGE Fireside. March saw the Southern Arizona Coalition, which includes FORGE, submit its $47 million BBBRC proposal to the EDA. Aleshia delivered the Computer Science Career Services [CS]² program, engaging community members interested in tech careers, for Startup Tucson and the City of Tucson. I also gave guest lectures on entrepreneurial mindset for Professor Julie Ledford in CTS/CMM 500 Fundamentals of Clinical Translational Science, furthering the Biomedical Entrepreneur Program concept.

April

Building on the initial success of Student Venture Pathways, FORGE was allocated a portion of TRIF dollars to hire staff, expand programming, and reach more students. Responding to a call for EDA University Center proposals, Levi and I began work on Native FORGE, a novel program combining FORGE’s education, mentoring, and entrepreneur support with the Native Peoples Technical Assistance Office data collection and Claudia Nelson’s 30-plus years working with Arizona’s Native communities. FORGE kept the community theme going on FORGE Fireside with Zach Yentzer, executive director of Tucson Young Professionals and host of daily talk show "Tipping Point." I also traveled to Boston with Tech Launch Arizona and UACI to attend training on MIT’s Venture Mentoring System, which gives us all a common approach to mentoring across the UA ecosystem.

May

As part of the BBBRC proposal evaluation, I wrote a script about Arizona’s water and agriculture opportunities that Davis de Dios Media masterfully set to video. This was presented as part of the EDA’s virtual site visit led by City of Tucson’s Barbra Coffee. Along with Eric Smith, UACI’s Executive Director, we presented on building an entrepreneurial ecosystem at the wonderful ‘Growing Our Own’ symposium organized by Tanya Hodges in Yuma. This was a sneak peek for my trip at the end of the month to kick off planning for another new FORGE location at Yuma Academic Center (YAC).

June

At the invitation of Professor Katie Maxwell, I spoke on the importance of an entrepreneurial mindset to two groups of high school students from underrepresented backgrounds. I still get teary-eyed thinking about it and the thank-you notes I received from those students. Adding to two existing EDA submissions, we put together another $750,000 Build to Scale proposal for FORGE at Phoenix Bioscience Core (PBC).  

July

Newly energized and with the help of Mentors in Residence (MiRs) Pat Hager and Bill Waynick, we added new residents PackDash, Metfora, and GRAV to the FORGE Ahead accelerator. We learned from the EDA that we were awarded the University Center grant for Native FORGE. Just in time to help in sharing all the good news, we completed the hiring of Erika Mitnik as FORGE’s Marketing and Communications Manager.

August

Ahead of the Fall semester and expected surge in program participants, FORGE quadrupled its team of MiRs (Mentors in Residence). Paul Valdez, Program Manager for the Student Venture Pathways program, hired Julie Barbier Bularzik as Coordinator for Venture Development Education and Kelly King as Coordinator for Entrepreneurial Mindset Development. These two have been phenomenal additions to the FORGE family and are leading activities and learning with hundreds of students across campus.  New SVP programs launched this year have included the CrEATe Café series, inspiring students through real world examples, Playshops building resiliency and teaching how entrepreneurial thinking can support individuals in defining what success is for themselves, and an online entrepreneurial mindset assessment tool.  The team has also spurred record enrollment in the Venturing 101 platform.

September

I kicked off the new season of FORGE Fireside with Shelley Miles, CEO of the Singleton Foundation, to talk about her entrepreneurial journey and discuss our collaboration. At the invitation of CAST (College of Applied Science and Technology) Dean Gary Packard, I joined a luncheon in Sierra Vista with business leaders, educators, and economic development to talk about building an entrepreneurial ecosystem there. Then we closed out the month with Singleton and its exciting Venture Valley Tournament offering thousands of dollars in cash prizes.

October

Building on the gift of alum Harry Wilcox, special partner at Flagship Pioneering, FORGE announced a Biomedical Entrepreneur program. Three undergraduate students will be awarded scholarships to be mentored over the summer on their biomedical startup idea and then intern with FORGE as student Entrepreneur in Residence in the Fall and Spring. I attended the University Economic Development Association (UEDA) Summit in San Antonio and met with many of my fellow University Center awardees. At that month’s FORGE Fireside with Rafael Tapia, following an open application process, Native FORGE announced the selection of the San Carlos Apache Tribe as the first year’s participants. FORGE at Roy Place welcomed Holly McAnally as Events & Community Assistant just ahead of a busy month. At the end of the month, Paul, Julie, and Kelly attended the Global Consortium of Entrepreneurship Centers along with the McGuire Center for Entrepreneurship in Las Vegas.

November

We kicked off November with the Native FORGE Conference, welcoming 20 entrepreneurs and economic development professionals from four of the state’s tribes as well as PackDash CEO Dave DiCosola and numerous business experts from the region. For Global Entrepreneurship Week, we hosted the Southern Arizona Economic Impact Summit (SEIS), keynoted by Jim Rounds and featuring partners Ian Rourke (Pima Community College), Liz Pocock (Startup Tucson), Barbra Coffee (City of Tucson), Danny Knee (Community Investment Corporation), Heath Vescovi-Chiordi (Pima County), and Eric Smith (UACI). The next day we celebrated STEAM FORGE’s grand opening in the ECE building with College of Engineering Dean David Hahn. The day after that I hosted FORGE Fireside with Allie Burns, CEO of Village Capital and recent appointee to the National Advisory Council on Innovation and Entrepreneurship (NACIE), where we had a wide-ranging conversation on ecosystem building and resources.

At the end of the month, we’ll host the L(a)unch at PBC with Jennifer Barton, BIO5 Director, and Doug Hockstad, Associate VP of Tech Launch Arizona and introduce some of the resources available through our FORGE location in Phoenix. As a part of that, the Biomedical Entrepreneur Scholarship & Residency awardees will be announced.

December

In December, join us downtown for our last Campus Spotlight Event of the year where the UA E-sports teams will provide opportunities to experience virtual reality as FORGE continues to explore how 21^st Century learning takes place in new spaces.  For the final FORGE Fireside of 2022, I will host a special conversation with the original supply chain entrepreneur, Santa.  See you there!