I
Tuesday, May 3, 1983/The Battalion/Page 5
■
Indent makes $10,000 on trees, lawns
Aggies go into business for themselves
by Stephanie M. Ross
Battalion Staff
Youpon” John Hoelzel made
i.OOO last summer mowing
and selling youpon holly
[on Word has earned $4,000
a dipboard that he de
led in an engineering and
graphics class.
[ark Brown collaborated
Hoelzel to sell roses for
^andifl weekends. They made
irded-00".
ardjJThese three Texas A&M stu
nts know that anyone can suc-
iceitfl 011 their own, and that
, ire and more students are
j, a p; r .ing that. Entrepreneurship is
frsijffining a favorable alterna-
f:to working for someone
e.lHoelzel, Word and Brown
, u- Jiroof that students can be
a [. ccessful.
don’t know what the aver-
■ollege student makes but I
Rild have to say I’m at the
Hoelzel, a senior horticul-
^ ■ major from McKinney,
says.
Hoelzel, who has mowed
lawns since he was a sophomore
in high school, and his brother,
began what has grown into a
profitable business — John’s
Lawncare Service. With the
money he has made each sum
mer he has put himself through
college.
His business grew from mow
ing a few lawns a week to doing
50 to 60 last summer, when he
hired two people to help him
with the work.
In addition to the lawn
mowing service, Hoelzel digs
youpon holly trees just outside
of College Station and trans-
K orts them to Dallas, where he
ires someone to sell them on
street corners.
Hoelzel began selling the hol
ly trees after he came to Texas
A&M, and then added a small
landscaping business to his list of
ventures.
A clipboard designed for a
class project is only half of the
success story of Jon Word, a
sophomore industrial distribu
tion major from Lubbock.
“While I was a student pilot, I
needed something to keep my
maps on,” Word says. He de-
Because financing is the
major problem students
face with starting their
own business after gra
duation, Van Fleet re
commends that anyone
interested in working
for himself first work
fora company and learn
the necessary skills at
someone else’s expense.
veloped ;
for easy
flying.
clipboard designed
ise by pilots when
llore dogs needed
or military defense
Word made one for himself
and after he began teaching
flying lessons was making so
many of them for his students
and friends that he decided to
do something with his idea.
With the help of his parents,
he built 2,000 clipboards and
advertised them in two flying
magazines. He also sold some
wholesale to flying schools. That
was in March 1982.
By August of the same year he
had earned enough money to
make the down payment on his
own airplane. With his airplane,
he has taught flying lessons, and
since last August has made
$10,000.
Now Word has two people
teaching lessons in his plane for
him.
Last fall, Mark Brown, a
senior management major from
Richardson, and Hoelzel,
formed The Dixie Rose Co.
Hoelzel originally had the idea
to sell roses, but needed some
one to help him market the idea.
“He (Hoelzel) had a good
friend in the rose business, and I
started thinking of a way to get
the word out — that’s how it all
came about,” Brown says.
They sold almost 1,000 dozen
roses and earned $4,000 for
their efforts.
With the successes, there also
have been some failures.
At the end of one spring
semester. Word bought as much
old carpet cut for dormitory
rooms as he could find to resell it
at a profit the following fall.
What he ended up with was “a
bunch of smelly carpet” and
very few sales, he says.
Hoelzel once bought a load of
railroad ties to resell, and when
he got to the bottom of the load,
found many of the ties were
rotted.
Brown hasn’t experienced
any real failure, but says that he
isn’t afraid of failure.
“I’m not really concerned if I
fall flat on my face because I
know it can happen very easily,
but you just pick up the pieces,
start from rock-bottom and
build up again. That’s where
you start from anyway, so it
doesn’t really matter.”
Dr. Ella Van Fleet, a manage
ment professor who teaches an
entrepreneurship course herd,
says it’s important that people
know that it’s all right to fail.
It also is important not to quit
after a failure, but rather to
learn from it, she says. The most
successful businesses run by en
trepreneurs usually are not the
entrepreneurs’ first ventures,
she adds.
Van Fleet explains the recent
rise in interest in entrepreneur-
ship as part of a business cycle.
Before the depression in the
1930s, small businesses were
widespread, but most failed with
the stock market crash in 1929.
After the depression, people
flocked to big corporations for
jobs, because of the security and
benefits they provided.
Today, people are seeing big
corporations like Braniff and
Chrysler in trouble, Van Fleet
says, and they are looking to
places other than big corpora
tions for future jobs.
Brown already has begun
plans to start several different
businesses when he graduates a
year from now.
“I think diversification is im
portant,” Brown says. “I just
can’t see setting all of your eggs
in one basket.”
NOW AT BOTH
■SUnited Press International
If < SAN ANTONIO — In an era
■ht money and hard looks at
urtoiBederal budget, one of the
e faise Department’s oldest
thf ’apons systems is expanding as
111,1 it as it can.
eoneiBhe only problem is finding
1 ihffjnkh dogs to keep up.
hatliimve go to two cities a month
la vll )kii ’ at dogs,” said Master
eheWBrhomas Hawkinson, chief
rs aiKsthi Department of Defense
■ Center at Lackland Air
Kfiase. “Last year we looked
3C00 dogs and we bought
I for*
d Mtfthis fiscal year the DOD has
s for 1,000 dogs and we’ve
|ht 600 so far.”
he doubling of demand is
illy because of an increas-
[leed for dogs’ talents and
illy for economic reasons.
|the proper arena, one dog
do the work of 10 soldiers at
:h smaller cost, Hawkinson
thedT
lorw[Suitable dogs — usually Ger-
[hoiinj Shepherds or Rottweilers
primMe bought from their owners
is talipbout $250 each and trans-
SCHIlrted back to Lackland.
SfffifSix weeks and about $8,000
the dogs will be able to go
lard duty at military bases,
out explosives or narcotics,
hd contraband in the most
n places.
this week Hawkinson’s team
be at the Dallas Naval Air
n in Grand Prairie and
ell Air Force Base in Fort
h trying to find dogs suit
able for training.
“We expect to buy about 50
dogs while in the Dallas and Fort
Worth area,” Hawkinson said.
“And about 90 percent of those
will pass the training program.”
Hawkinson’s team travels the
nation constantly in search of
dogs that fit exacting physical
and psychological profiles. The
team will only look at dogs be
tween 1 and 4 years old, they
must be at least 23 inches tall at
the shoulder and weigh 50
pounds or more.
“We can judge a dog’s
psychological profile by the way
it holds its ears, mouth, and tail,”
he said.
Hawkinson said dogs were
purchased from the public be
cause it was too expensive for
the Defense Department to
breed dogs and because home-
raised dogs behave better than
dogs raised in kennels.
“Kennel dogs are much less
socialized,” he said. “They aren’t
used to hearing the car door
slam or the refrigerator click on.
They run from everything.”
Dogs that do not make it
through the training program
are either returned to their own
ers or put up for adoption in the
San Antonio area.
One of the biggest problems
Hawkinson runs into is people
trying to sell him dogs he doesn’t
want.
“We get calls all the time from
people who want to sell us
Rhodesian Ridgebacks, telling
us they fight lions. They do fight
lions, but we don’t have many
lions threatening our bases.”
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F ENGINEERING/SCIENCES
CONSIDER
THE ADVANTAGES OF
WORKING FOR YOUR
UNCLE.
The Army is looking for 1983 graduates in
Engineering and Science disciplines to serve as
commissioned officers. For those who qualify, this
program could be an important step toward a
rewarding career — in or out of the Army.
You’ve worked long and hard to earn your
Bachelor of Science degree. A commission in the
Army is a good way to use your technical exper
tise while gaining valuable supervisory
experience. And the opportunity is available now!
Captain Mark McAvoy will be on campus May 4th
between SAM and 4PM in the University Placement
Office (10th Floor Rudder Tower). Stop by, no appoint
ment necessary. If you can’t make it on the 4th, call 775-
2199 and arrange an appointment.
ARMYOFFICER.
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