Jerde targets new markets for CU?s Deming Center

BOULDER ? Entrepreneur Paul Jerde has a knack for identifying new market opportunities, and he intends to apply that skill to the Deming Center for Entrepreneurship.

Jerde became executive director of the Robert H. and Beverly A. Deming Center at the Leeds School of Business at the University of Colorado-Boulder in December, following a long history with the center. He has served on its board of advisers since the center was established in 1996.

He later joined the Business Advisory Council at the Leeds School in 2002. Jerde replaces Kathy Simon, who resigned as executive director in August to pursue her own business ventures.

?This position has the best of both worlds,? he says. ?I?m actively and constantly involved in the business community, talking with CEOs, and I?m counseling, mentoring, advising and talking with students about their decisions and about their careers.?

Prior to becoming executive director, Jerde co-founded Corboy and Jerde, an investment banking firm, in 1999. Co-partner Jim Corboy and Jerde launched the firm based on what they saw as an underserved need in the area to raise capital for emerging-growth companies. Together, they raised $10 million for OmegaTech Inc. in 2000, marking the biotech firm?s first institutional funding round.

Today, Corboy and Jerde is still an active firm; however, Jerde says they are not currently working on any deals. Now, Corboy is serving as chief executive officer of Scientific Cylinder International, a Castle Rock-based provider of ultrasonic inspection equipment and one of the investment firm?s projects. While Jerde handles his responsibilities as executive director, he expects his continued role with the firm will be as owner and adviser.

Before Corboy and Jerde, Jerde served in a number of senior management positions with private and public companies, including chief executive officer of Requisite Technology Inc., an electronic commerce information services business in Westminster, and chief executive officer of Cortech Inc., a biotechnology research firm based in Denver.

Stephen Lawrence, interim dean of the Leeds School of Business, says, ?(Jerde) has seen the entrepreneurial world from both sides. He understands it from all various angles, and he is able to communicate that to students. He also relates well with the entrepreneurial community. He talks their language.?

Juan Rodriguez, chairman and chief technologist at Boulder-based Exabyte Corp., a provider of tape storage solutions, adds that Jerde brings a strong combination of first-hand entrepreneurial knowledge and passion for the center?s initiatives. Rodriguez was one of the center?s original founders; he helped establish the center while serving on the university?s engineering faculty during the 1990s.

Jerde describes his key responsibility at the center as facilitating educational opportunities for students in the program. He views his role as helping to make connections between students and the wealth of entrepreneurs along the Front Range. Jerde received his master?s of business administration from the University of Colorado-Boulder in 1974, but he admits that it has been an eye-opener to witness how students are taught through the center to creatively apply a variety of business skills.

?When I went to school, it was all about specialization in specific areas such as finance, marketing and accounting,? he says. Today, students in the entrepreneurship program learn a broader array of skill sets, ranging from people management to marketing to accounting, because all of these are required to run a business, he adds.

To help students learn how to apply their comprehensive business knowledge, Jerde says the center has students develop business plans, where they form teams to conduct feasibility studies, establish strategies for marketing and sales, and develop financial projections. To provide guidance to students as they prepare these plans, senior management from local startup companies often serve as mentors and advisers.

?One thing that has made the center successful is it provides a path for students to interact with people in the industry,? Rodriguez says. As Jerde works on initiatives for 2005, Rodriguez says the center needs to remain focused on engaging the local business community, and ?the more, the better.?

To involve a broader range of companies with the program, Jerde says he will seek to include lesser-known companies that have been financed through bootstrapping or grown organically, instead of primarily focusing on venture capital-backed companies.

As entrepreneurship has become a widely accepted academic pursuit, almost every business school has adopted curriculum related to the subject. In light of the increased competition, the trick for Jerde will be to find ways to differentiate the center?s offerings and to tap new markets.

In 2004, Lawrence says, the center was ranked sixth in the nation by Entrepreneur magazine. ?Going forward, we need to look at how to maintain that excellence,? he adds.

So far, one initiative under consideration is an expansion of the center?s focus on sustainable venturing, which shows entrepreneurs how to develop and invest in new businesses that address increasing energy costs. Additionally, Jerde says the center is looking at opportunities to export its entrepreneurial programs overseas to developing countries such as China.

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