With a Knights of the Round Table Conference of Champions theme, the annual three-day Brigham Young University Hawaii Willes Center for International Entrepreneurship (CIE) business conference convened on campus March 4, included a variety of keynote addresses and workshops, and concluded with the business plan competition finals that this year included $50,000 in donated prizes for the student "champions."
CIE Director James Ritchie [pictured at upper right, standing] kicked off the conference with a special "round table" banquet and presentation on Wednesday evening in the McKay Foyer for approximately 50 successful Latter-day Saint entrepreneurs — some of them members of the BYU-Hawaii/Polynesian Cultural Center Presidents' Leadership Council (PLC) — who subsequently shared their expertise with students and other attendees in workshops and informal meetings. They also mentored the business plan finalists and some served as judges for the semifinal and final presentations.
In his remarks, Ritchie introduced a number of international students, who told the attendees what their BYUH education has meant to them so far, and then he outlined a new approach to helping them and similar students:
"What we've normally done in the past is try to find ways to finance business plans to help students get their start in life," he said. "We believe the right approach is to identify 'franchise players' who have all the entrepreneurial training we can give them...and then help them" by setting up a separate donation fund to create join ventures. "We want to jump-start their careers by five years. We want to get them to where they're starting to be successful Latter-day Saint business people...and returning leadership to the Church."
Ritchie also encouraged the attendees to mingle with the students, "be willing to engage yourselves for the next five years...and really touch lives."
The following morning at the breakfast session, Dan McCormick — an "enormously successful Nu Skin distributor," motivational speaker and author — told the many students in attendance that "the economy can be a tremendous friend to you, even today."
"There's great creativity going on in the world. We speak to you as entrepreneurs and people who will be in business as leaders in your communities, Church and countries, that it's very important to have the attitude: If it's going to happen, it's going to be up to me."
"I tell groups that I speak to that there should be a moratorium on watching the news. They don't say good things about our economy, but I know there are people in this room who can do great things and make great contributions."
McCormick said his business partner uses these eight words in "setting and achieving goals and designing a life through very specific means: What, why, who, how, obstacles, solutions, when and rewards. In other words, know what you want. Be clear and specific. Know why you want it. That must be solidly etched in your vision. Who will be your guides? Who will be your counselors? If the why is big enough, the how will always work itself out. You will never know all the hows before you begin. Obstacles: You need to know what they are. Focus on solutions: the quality of your life will be based on the quality of the questions you ask. Number seven, when do you want it to happen? Be specific. And number eight, what are you going to reward yourself with? What are you going to contribute?"
Ryan Ockey, a Canadian real estate developer, told the students in the Friday morning breakfast session that his company was "in the middle of some pretty serious financial struggles" when he and his wife decided to join the Presidents' Leadership Council. "I really didn't want to," he recalled, but after being immersed in the aloha spirit in Laie and hosting the Polynesian Cultural Center Promo Team in Canada, he now said, "Being associated with BYU-Hawaii and the PCC has literally changed our family's lives. We've built relationships and friendships with many wonderful people... This is the culture where love is the primary language."
"When I look back and reflect on the past eight years, I'm filled with a sense of hope and optimism," he said. "I think often of a scripture in the Book of Mormon that says, Now you may suppose that this is foolishness in me, but behold I say unto you, by small and simple things are great things brought to pass... [Alma 37:6]. I've seen the influence of this university of this university in the huge nation of China, from Urumqi in the far west to Xi'an and Beijing. We traveled with the Concert Choir [in 2007], and we saw thousands of people touched by the wonderful performances. After, people wouldn't leave. Many of them would come up on the stage to greet and hug our students. "
Ockey also quoted the late John Gardner, former president of the Carnegie Foundation, who when asked the "one factor that would be most instrumental in creating a better world for the future, thought for a second and said, 'The most important thing we can do is to bet on good people doing good things.' You students are those good people. The faculty are those good people."
In his Thursday luncheon address BYU-Hawaii President Steven C. Wheelwright likened the inauguration charge President Henry B. Eyring of the First Presidency gave him almost two years ago to a business plan to achieve the objectives of educating leaders of character and integrity for eternity. President Wheelwright said he translated this into the imperatives of improving the quality of education at BYUH, and lowering the costs while serving more students.
In the inaugural charge, President Eyring said success in carrying out the plan would be "realized as young people gain greater power to make the world better for others. Success won't be in accolades to the president or the teachers, it won't be in recognition for the university. It won't be in new or better buildings and equipment. It won't be in more efficiency... Success will be in the increase in the power of the students to improve families, communities, and the world."
"That's what our direction is. That's what we've been doing," President Wheelwright said. "I can tell you that the Lord is in charge. This is His university, and we never do anything without making it a matter of careful thought, prayer, and discussion with our Board [of Trustees]."
"We look for great things in your lives," he told the students. "The time any professor and people connected with the university get most excited is to see you all to go out and do the things that the Lord would have you do in making a real difference in the world and your own homes, families, communities and professions."
The Thursday keynote address featured Carlos Martins, a "poor" BYU Provo graduate originally from Brazil who now owns the world's largest private system of language schools that includes 1,200 locations in seven countries, 15,000 employees and 500,000 students. He told the amazing story of how he followed his own rule — "goal setting is essential for success" — at the start of 2008 to hand out 365 Church "pass-along" cards, at the rate of one a day.
"After 30 days I had passed out 100 cards; I thought maybe my goal was too little," he said, bumping the annual number to 1,000 cards. However, by the end of February he had given out 300 cards, sometimes along with copies of the Book of Mormon or Church videos.
Pondering what the real goal should be, Martins realized his company web site receives 200,000 hits a month: "Why don't I include an icon on our web site offering a prize of a book for the family, a Book of Mormon," he continued. In addition, Martins also decided to insert a pass-along card into each of the 500,000 books his students get each year. Martins said several of his school directors questioned him about the practice, but at the end of a 30-day trial only one person had called to complain.
"As a result of this initiative, we got an exclusive [toll-free] 800 number from the Church in Brazil so that we could measure the number of people who called asking for Church literature. The final result is that, on a regular monthly basis, the Church receives approximately 1,000 phone calls just from this initiative."
"God is the source of all truth, light and wisdom in helping us achieve the goals and objectives that we have in our professional careers, business, enterprises, and in our personal progress," Martins said.
"If you want to achieve success in life, first believe in God, believe in yourself, believe in your dream and your divine potential and your personal ability to overcome and achieve."
— Photo by Mike Foley