This month, the Texas A&M University – Mays Business School is celebrating the 10th year of the Entrepreneurship Bootcamp for Veterans, this year with a new partner and funding with Reynolds and Reynolds.
The Entrepreneurship Bootcamp for Veterans (EBV), founded in 2007, invites aspiring veteran entrepreneurs to a week of training in small business management. Although the program was founded at the Institute for Veterans and Military Families at Syracuse University, it has since expanded to include ten universities, among them the Mays Business School. The program, which provides veterans with the skills needed to launch and maintain a successful business, is cost-free for participants through funding from the U.S. Small Business Administration and other donors.
This year the program at Mays has been renamed in honor of a $2 million endowment on behalf of the Reynolds and Reynolds company. The gift was given as part of Texas A&M’s 2016 funding campaign, “Lead by Example,” which celebrates ten successful years of the EBV.
This is not the first time Reynolds and Reynolds has partnered with the Mays Business School. The company, which provides automotive retailing solutions for car dealers, has recruited from the school for many years and serves as a founding partner of the Mays Professional Selling Initiative.
The EBV is a program in three-phases, the first of which includes a three-week instructor led course that participants can take online. The course helps the budding entrepreneurs to begin shaping business plans and developing an understanding of business language. The second phase involves an eight-day intensive taking place at the university, which covers the basics of business ownership from professional entrepreneurs. Finally, EBV graduates will receive access to a year’s worth of support and mentor ship from EBV Technical Assistance after the residency.