Skip West teaches a course at George Mason University called Geeks to Gazillionaires. It’s catchy, right?
And while you don’t have to consider yourself a geek to sign up, and there’s no guarantee the class will turn you into a gazillionaire, West said the course lays a good foundational for any would-be business owner.
“It’s focused on entrepreneurship,” said the adjunct professor in the School of Business and Volgenau School of Engineering. “How do you take an idea and develop it into a company?”
West has done that twice. His current endeavor, Maxsa Innovations of Fairfax Station, Va., which produces solar, battery and LED lightning products and automotive accessories, has been in business since 2003.
West also was named 2016’s small business executive of the year by the Consumer Technology Association.
“Skip deserves the recognition,” said David J. Miller, executive director of Mason’s Center for Innovation & Entrepreneurship. “Skip’s track record of innovation and success in an intensely competitive global industry fills his teaching and mentoring activities with cases and skills based on success. He exemplifies the experiential, connected program full of opportunities we are building at the School of Business and Mason as a whole.”
“It’s just a great feeling to get recognized and for people to appreciate the fact we do really good things,” West said. “We invent great products.”
West’s classroom reflects one he experienced during his graduate work at Stanford, where while studying business administration he became friends with an engineering student. The pair in 1985 formed Design Tech, which produced automotive electronics and has since been sold.
“So part of what we want to do with this class is bring people different people from different disciplines together for a synergy of ideas,” West said of Geeks to Gazillionaires.
West, who has taught at George Mason since 2006, said the class has helped create about a dozen businesses.
“The students are always coming up with innovative products,” West said. “It’s great to see them, hear them and help them.”