Alum establishes fund to give students seed money for businesses
By Angela Jones
In the past, only prestigious schools such as MIT, Columbia and UCLA have had the opportunity to help students with their entrepreneurial dreams. But now, thanks to the establishment of the Rudd Family Entrepreneurial Fund, students at Wichita State University can earn seed capital up to $250,000 to begin new ventures.
Beginning this summer, the fund will accept business proposals for all types of enterprises, including start-ups and acquisitions. Any WSU student, regardless of their major, may participate.
Business plans will be given consideration based on a set of criteria, including probability of success, student commitment and projected contributions to the Kansas economy.
The Center for Entrepreneurship will serve as WSU’s main contact for the program. Terry Noel, an assistant professor of marketing and entrepreneurship, will advise students regarding their business plans.
"The Rudd Foundation venture fund represents a private and public partnership that allows Wichita State students to move to the next level," said Don Hackett, director of the center. "The opportunity for a student to attain new venture funding upon the development of a viable business plan is an opportunity available only to a handful of students at select universities throughout the world. We are thrilled to be associated with an initiative such as this. It truly represents the ideals of entrepreneurship at its best."
Entrepreneur Leslie Rudd, a WSU alumnus and Kansas native, started the fund to support students who have viable business ideas but lack capital for start-up costs.
The University of Kansas and Kansas State University are also participating in the program. The foundation office is located in Wichita.
An entrepreneur himself, Rudd is the owner and CEO of LRIco, a privately held investment company based in St. Helena, Calif. He is also CEO and principle owner of three operating companies: Dean & DeLuca, a retail gourmet food chain headquartered in New York; Rudd Estate Winery in Napa Valley, Calif.; and Standard Beverage Corp., the largest wholesale liquor distributorship in Kansas and headquartered in Wichita.
He started the Rudd Foundation, a public nonprofit organization, in 1998.
