Flying into erupting volcanoes, chasing polar bears, crouching within inches of tigers or taking calls from the International Space Station are all just another ordinary day at work for James Neihouse.

“Hours of sheer boredom followed by seconds of absolute terror — that’s pretty much the way my life runs.”

Neihouse’s preeminent cinematography career spans some 40 years and has won many awards. He worked on the first IMAX underwater film called “Ocean.” He was credited as director of photography for the IMAX film, “The Eruption of Mount St. Helens,” which was nominated for an Academy Award for Best Documentary (Short Subject).

In recent years, Neihouse joined the Academy of Motion Picture Arts and Sciences, the organization best known for hosting the annual Academy Awards — The Oscars.

He also became a member of the prestigious American Society of Cinematographers, recognized with “ASC” after the names of the some of the world’s greatest cinematographers. Membership is by invitation only and includes multiple levels of approval before joining.

Before becoming an acclaimed cinematographer, Neihouse grew up in Paris, Arkansas. His father, Joseph, died when he was seven. His mother, Pauline, worked as a teacher in Logan County.

“By any stretch of the imagination, we were not well off,” he said. “But we never wanted for anything. She worked her butt off.”

As a child of the ’60s, he dreamed of one day becoming an astronaut. By the time he graduated high school in 1973, the space program had slowed its growth, and Neihouse began to consider an alternate career.

His mother had introduced him to visual communication when she served as a high school yearbook sponsor.

“In my 7th grade year, I was assistant photographer,” he said. “And my 8th grade year, I got promoted to chief photographer for the yearbook. I did that through the rest of my time in high school.”

After high school, Neihouse spent the summer and fall of 1973 at State College of Arkansas (SCA), now the University of Central Arkansas. His mother attended SCA to earn her master’s in 1969, so he was familiar with the campus.

While his time at SCA was brief, he worked on the University yearbook, “The Scroll,” and the radio station, then called KSCA.

In January 1974, he packed up his “little gold Camaro” to head to Brooks Institute of Photography in California, now the Brooks Institute, but he immediately met an obstacle.

“I didn’t get but about 10 miles out of town before it broke down, and [I] had to hop out,” he said. “Fixed it. Went on. Never turned back.”

He double majored in industrial scientific photography and color technology. His plan was to get a solid film education but also a technical understanding of photography. He took one additional leap, this time in very deep waters, to further his education.

“As a minor, I went into underwater photography and learned how to scuba dive and shoot pictures underwater,” Neihouse said, adding that he also became a dive instructor to earn extra money.

Immediately after graduation, he took a position with a company that specialized in marine photography. It was there that he began to see his dreams unfold.

“Graeme Ferguson, who is the co-founder of IMAX, came to the production company and said, ‘I want to shoot underwater with this IMAX camera that we have. It’s never been done before. Can you help me?'” he said.

“I was able to get involved with the first underwater IMAX film there and because I was dive instructor, and Graeme didn’t know how to dive, I gave him scuba lessons.”

Neihouse and Ferguson became, and remain, good friends. “He was the one who brought me into the space program with IMAX,” Neihouse said.

In the IMAX Space Technology Inc., Neihouse trains astronauts how to use IMAX cameras in space. In roughly 30 years, he has trained more than 125 astronauts on 23 shuttle flights and several space station expeditions in the operation of the IMAX camera systems.

“I ended up where I wanted to be in a round-about sort of method,” Neihouse said.

He can recall many instances working with the space program and astronauts, but one memory stands out more than others. Neihouse was working from home and walked away from his phone for a few minutes.

“I got this missed call from the International Space Station. And so I look at [my phone], and its got this voice message,” he said with a hearty chuckle. “I listen to the voice message. It goes, ‘Hi James. It’s Terry Virts [crew commander, Space Station’s Expedition 43] on the Space Station calling to ask you a question.'”

Working with the space program allowed Neihouse to meet his wife, Leslie, who worked at NASA at the time they met. The couple has two sons, Joseph Graeme, 22, and Jacob Bernard, 18. Neihouse credits his family for much of his success, as they allowed him to travel the world to pursue his passion.

As he continues to jaunt from one country and project to the next, he has begun to think about retirement, but not in the way most people would.

“I have no retirement plans. The future holds more of the same for me, just to keep working,” he said. “It’s my passion. I love what I do.”

“Jurassic World” and “Star Wars: The Force Awakens” are two of the most successful films of all time, and they have something more local in common: both films have University of Central Arkansas graduates listed in their credits.

Magnolia native Kyla McFalls ’11 worked as an art assistant on “Jurassic World” and Little Rock native John Hockaday ’14 worked in post production on “Star Wars: The Force Awakens.”

McFalls, a Schedler Honors College alumna, was originally a journalism major who became a digital filmmaking major by happy accident. Her sophomore year, she unintentionally signed up for the Intro to Film class and learned that it was for those majoring in film, a major she didn’t know existed. When she spoke to teacher Chris Churchill about it, he encouraged her to stick with the class.

“I was like, ‘Maybe this is just something that’s telling me that I need to do this,’ so I declared my major the next day in film and the rest is [history],” said McFalls.

The BTÌìÌÃfilm program offers classes in many areas of filmmaking, including screenwriting, editing, cinema history and classes that require students to make their own films. McFalls said it’s important to gain practical experience by working on sets, but she credits her passion for film to studying the subject in the classroom.

“If you want to write or you want to direct, you need to know cinema history, theory and all this kind of stuff,” said McFalls. “I wouldn’t keep going to work every day if it didn’t fill this passion for it that I got from UCA. I feel like passion is the thing that I learned in college more than any technical skill that somebody can just teach you later on.”

This passion certainly helped her in Baton Rouge, Louisiana, where she lived on couches so she could work on films like “Pitch Perfect,” her first feature film as an intern. McFalls then moved to her current city, New Orleans, where she has worked on projects like “The
Maze Runner” and “Left Behind,” for which she got approval to use UCA’s athletic logo on the lead actress’s jacket. Her biggest film credit to date is “Jurassic World.”

“Working on the film was an absolute delight,” said McFalls. “The art department [was] mostly based out of Los Angeles, but they were my favorite crew so far. We were based at the NASA facility here in New Orleans, [as well as] the abandoned Six Flags,” said McFalls.

McFalls’ current job is in research, which is in the art department and requires her to work with every department on set.

“I become the expert on whatever the movie is about. I’ve decided that if I do this for years and years, I’ll be great at ‘Jeopardy’ because of all this random knowledge,” said McFalls.

Along with a friend she met on the film “Deepwater Horizon,” McFalls started a production company, Page Turn Inc. With the company, McFalls hopes to continue doing research and also write and produce films.

“[I thought], ‘Why not? At least try it.’ If it doesn’t work, it doesn’t work,” said McFalls. “But if it does, how awesome?”

In New Orleans, McFalls helped out fellow alumnus Hockaday by recommending him for “Deepwater Horizon” and “10 Cloverfield Lane.” Hockaday relocated to Los Angeles after working for about a year in New Orleans.

“[Kyla] was my way in. I owe it all to her,” Hockaday said. “It’s also worth mentioning that her final film at UCA, ‘Danger Jones,’ is freaking fantastic. I still watch it from time to time. Definitely an inspiring film for my own final film.”

That film, “Stuck,” earned Hockaday awards for Best Production Design and Best Picture at the 2014 BTÌìÌÃFilm Festival and Best Director (Made in Arkansas) at the 2014 Little Rock Film Festival.

Hockaday said that the film program’s focus on storytelling was a factor in him choosing UCA. “Learning to tell stories is the pillar of filmmaking. Once you have that, building the technical skills is next, which they also provide,” Hockaday said.

Hockaday and McFalls aren’t the only BTÌìÌÃgraduates making strides in the film and television field — others are spread out from coast to coast, filming anything from reality television to videos for the Salvation Army.

Kim Risi ’12 worked in the art department on a Hispanic celebrity game show and the Comedy Central show “Drunk History.” Codi Bogard ’13 and Hunter Moore ’12 keep busy in New Orleans by working on shows and films like “Pit Bulls and Parolees” and “Daddy’s Home.” Travis Mosler ’13 produces, writes, directs, shoots and edits the hunting show “Spartan Outdoors” for the Sportsman Channel.

BTÌìÌÃis the only university in Arkansas that offers a bachelor’s and master’s in digital filmmaking. Dr. Bruce Hutchinson, director of Graduate Studies of Digital Filmmaking, believes classroom education is just as important for film students as working in the field.

“It’s just good to be an educated person who [knows] how things work and the classroom experience is part of getting that. I definitely think learning some history, learning theory, learning some story structure, all of those are just about making you a more thoughtful, more critical thinking, more well-rounded person,” said Hutchinson.

Data from the Association of Business Schools suggest that more college-aged entrepreneurs are starting companies. In 2011, approximately 16 percent of college graduates went on to start companies, compared with five percent in the early 1990s. As a result, more and more institutions of higher education are increasing their focus on entrepreneurship and innovation. The University of Central Arkansas is one such institution. In the fall of 2012, UCA’s College of Business officially launched the Innovation and Entrepreneurship (I&E) major and in the fall of 2014 launched the I&E minor.

Dr. Michael Hargis, dean of the College of Business said, “Our I&E program is focused on building creativity, the ultimate business weapon. Creativity is the fuel for a country’s and a company’s growth engine. It is one of the most valuable and marketable business skills today. Creativity in business, however, doesn’t just involve dreaming, it involves doing. Thus, the intent of our program is to create ‘dreamers’ and ‘doers.'”

The I&E program was launched to meet the economic development and job growth needs for our region. A high percentage of future jobs created in Arkansas, and ultimately economic growth, will come as a result of new business ventures. Moreover, it is becoming increasingly important for students to be able to think and act like innovative entrepreneurs within existing business ventures. The program is designed to hone an aspiring entrepreneur’s ability to identify problems and opportunities, develop innovative solutions that have a significant positive impact on products, services or processes and launch those solutions.

“I have learned how to view even the small things in life from a more creative perspective.”

Keiondre Johnson

Students in this program take courses such as Innovation and Creative Thinking, New Product Development, Small Business Management, Human Resource Management, New Venture Creation, Finance and Taxation for Entrepreneurs.

Recently, the College of Business and Cadron Creek Capital, a Conway venture fund, have begun exploring opportunities to work closely together.

“A major goal of our program is to give our students a firm theoretical foundation balanced with real-world experience,” said Hargis. “And experience can be no more real than actually collaborating with a venture fund as they assess, evaluate and invest real money in a real start-up company.”

While faculty from multiple disciplines within the College of Business support the program, it is anchored by two faculty members who have significant real-world experience: Dr. Dan Fisher and Dr. Ron Duggins.

Duggins, assistant professor of Management and Entrepreneurship, joined BTÌìÌÃfrom the Meridian Technology Center in Stillwater, Oklahoma, where he served as director. He also taught in the Master of Business Administration program from Oklahoma Christian University. Duggins is very active as a professional business coach and has trained and consulted entrepreneurs from Pakistan to Vietnam and Brazil. He described the I&E program at BTÌìÌÃas “a program that creates builders – builders of companies, products, processes and economies.”

“Innovation means bringing new ideas to the table and changing the world around us. Push the boundaries.”

Graham Brown

Fisher is an associate professor in Marketing and Entrepreneurship. He is an expert in using human-centered approaches to discover consumer insights and design compelling user experiences. In addition, he is the co-founder of a design, innovation and branding agency that helps clients develop and market products and services. This agency has also developed and launched several new ventures.

While the chances of hitting it big on ABC’s hit show “Shark Tank” are limited, the chances of getting a start-up off the ground and funded in Central Arkansas have never been better. The Innovation and Entrepreneurship program at BTÌìÌÃis improving those chances.

The I&E program prepares students 
for the real world by:

• teaching students creativity and innovation skills, the most important skills for adding value and driving growth for all businesses
• providing a comprehensive program in which students will learn and practice conceiving, developing, launching and operating a business
• developing students’ abilities to think in a creative, innovative and entrepreneurial manner and to assess and manage risk
• providing experiential learning opportunities through real-world business projects, as students help businesses solve problems and develop 
 innovative solutions to grow client businesses
• preparing students to write effective and persuasive 
 business plans to compete in regional and national 
 business plan competitions and to secure venture 
 capital through a number of sources
• teaching students to collaborate and work 
 effectively in project teams to 
 maximize performance

About Jeff Standridge
Dr. Jeff Standridge ’90 served as a professor at University of Arkansas for Medical Sciences for a number of years prior to joining Acxiom Corporation, where he has served as vice president for the past 18 years. During his tenure, Standridge held various senior leadership posts around the world – from Europe, to China, Saudi Arabia and Brazil. He is a co-founder of Cadron Creek Capital and can be reached at Jeff.Standridge@acxiom.com.

Dr. Rick Scott, dean of the Schedler Honors College, has been involved with the program for more than 30 years, directing it the last 16 years following the retirement of founder Dr. Norbert Schedler.

The overall goal of the Schedler Honors College has been to develop students as “citizen-scholars,” according to Scott. “We not only want them to develop skill sets about how to research important issues and how to understand a topic and come to a reasonable conclusion about it, but then to be able to take what they know in the public square and engage the broader community in some way to make a difference.”

Students develop leadership skills that never go out of date. “Whatever you learn as content in a particular field of study could well be changed in five or 10 years. In the sciences, knowledge doesn’t last very long because there is so much research. It’s constantly changing,” he said. “These skill sets don’t really go out of style. That’s the importance of a Schedler Honors College education.”

The Schedler Honors College has grown throughout the last 30 years, from 120 students to 300 and from two faculty members to seven. “We have a really extraordinary core faculty,” Scott said. “They are all accomplished professors.”

Still, the curriculum has remained consistent. “The courses change because the topics change, but the themes don’t.”

Each year, the Schedler Honors College selects 75 high school seniors from about 400 applicants. A Schedler Honors College education includes core classes, seminars, research, writing and a senior thesis. There is also a mentoring program and a living learning community in Farris Honors Residence Hall.

“I realize the rich history I learned was valuable, but the friendships I made and the memories I have at those locations are irreplaceable. The places we visited are famous across the globe because of their historical significance, but those places have taken a whole new meaning for me since I have lived experiences and shared memories in those places.”

Grayson Owens, Fall 2015 Travel Abroad Grants (Tag) Program Recipient

For those who qualify, there are also Travel Abroad Grants (TAG) and Undergraduate Research Grants in Education (URGE) available for juniors and seniors. BTÌìÌÃ
financially supports both, but the Schedler Honors College has also raised money and grown a multi-million dollar endowment for the programs.

TAG is aimed at getting students into global settings, with grants typically funding 60 to 75 percent of the trip.

URGE helps students in their development as scholars, project managers, educators or as artists. Grants can be used to go to another school to study, become involved in a major research project or work with a BTÌìÌÃfaculty member.

“Norb said to me 20 years ago or so that he thought TAG and URGE were the most important developments in the Schedler Honors College since its inception,” Scott said.

While the Schedler Honors College graduation rate is already high, students who receive a TAG or URGE grant are about 30 percent more likely to graduate.

“I learned about sustainable living and gardening, but I also was encouraged to always keep learning, and to spread kindness and education everywhere that I can…it was one of the best times of my life (cliche, but true). I would like to thank the Honors College so very much for helping me make this trip a possibility. It’s likely that I will pursue a career with the Forest Service.”

Emily Roberts, Summer 2015 Undergraduate Research Grants In Education (Urge) Recipient

“It is a very complicated thing to be a 20-year-old and be in Europe or Japan, especially if you don’t speak the language. I know it can be scary sometimes. I also know it can be scary if they are at Oxford, and they are in courses with students from Harvard, Yale, Duke and Stanford, but they are hanging in there, and they are getting the A.

“Those things are very empowering in terms of how broad they are willing to cast their horizons.”

With many going on to medical, law or graduate schools, Schedler Honors College graduates are “literally all over the world” in a variety of vocations, from business and higher education to health care, law and the arts.

Scott, who will retire after the 2016-17 academic year, said it is difficult to keep up with the nearly 1,600 Schedler Honors College alumni but many still care about the program. “It tells me this has been, for a lot of our alums, a very meaningful experience that persists years and decades later. I think that if any honors college is doing its job right, the teaching approaches and pedagogies are high impact and transformative. That’s what we’re aiming at, and I think we have a lot of good evidence that it’s working.”

With tenured Schedler Honors College faculty, an outstanding assistant dean in Dr. Patricia Smith, a living learning community and strong curriculum, Scott thinks the program is in good shape. “Our fundraising and development are going well. We’ve got a good endowment and good physical space. Our reputation in the national honors community is extremely strong.”

Sitting in an elementary or even middle school geography class of yesteryear meant learning capitals, locating countries and identifying continents.

That was the geography from granddad’s time. Today’s geography is, well, cool.

“You become an economic location theorist or a transportation analysis specialist. You can do a million different things,” said Dr. Jeff Allender, chair of the Department of Geography.

The ideology that geography is “sheer memorization” is not only outdated, but it has always been inaccurate.

“Geographers study location,” Allender said, adding that location is more than just a placement on a map. “Geographers study why things are where they are. How did they get there? Where are they going? How do they impact what’s around them? How are they impacted by what’s around them?”

Geographers are the literal “jack-of-all-trade,” working in the political, economic, cultural, government, military and environmental sectors.

“Someone looking at the flow of capital, someone studying the transport of coal by train, they are all geographers,” Allender said.

The modern face of geography is slick, modernized and hip with geographers working to pinpoint the next best location for a fast food restaurant or identifying the most likely areas for highway crashes.

North Little Rock native Hans Haustein ’94, ’13 still smiles as he recalls the bewildered looks he received anytime he mentioned his college major.

“When I mentioned I was majoring in geography, ‘What are you going to do, teach?’ is what I always got,” Haustein said. “Then it would go to, ‘Do you know all the capitals?'”

Haustein would explain that geography is a “holistic view” that allows solid, spatially based decision-making. He would sometimes use the example of plotting a map between cities like Little Rock and Memphis. Geography allows more than just knowing the distance.

“What’s the number of intersections of roads that present opportunity for businesses to locate there,” he said. “It’s good economics to know these kinds of things in geography. When you put it into economic sense, that makes it very easy for folks to understand.”

Presently, Haustein is a geographic information systems (GIS) planner/analyst at Metroplan, a Little Rock-based organization that works to ensure responsible growth for the metropolitan region. Metroplan focuses on Pulaski, Faulkner, Saline and Lonoke counties.

The University of Central Arkansas boasts the oldest stand-alone geography department in the state. As such, the University has graduates who live and work around the globe, including Mark Austin ’95, who spent a major portion of his career working for one of the most well-known brands on Earth — Starbucks.

“Starbucks hired me initially as a GIS analyst,” Austin said.

In this role, he created GIS models based on market potential, least cost path analysis and hot spots in the retail market landscape. During his career, he worked to develop retail locations across the continental United States, Puerto Rico and Hawaii, as well as Australia, Thailand and several other countries.

The Little Rock native also played a primary role in locating the first store in his home state.

“The development team actually flew me out for a real estate tour, and together we picked the first location based on their experience in the analytics that I had produced to help us understand where the greatest potential was,” he said.

Since leaving Starbucks, Austin started his own firm, True North Advisors, based in Fayetteville, Arkansas. The company has worked with brands such as The Fresh Market, Papa Murphy’s, Redbox, Roti Mediterranean Grill, SusieCakes and many others.

The successful careers of Haustein and Austin are almost commonplace, as Allender can point to many more alumni who are charting new paths with their geography education, including Sharon Hawkins ’99.

Hawkins comes back to campus at least once a year to speak to students in Allender’s urban planning class.

“I like to go and show the exciting things that happen in the world of GIS and transportation to students,” she said. “As a first and second year student, it’s a big open book about what they can do. I’m sure it is a mystery for them. I think it’s important to show the different disciplinary areas where GIS is utilized.”

Hawkins is a section chief in mapping and graphics at the Arkansas Highway and Transportation Department. Her department consists of 11 individuals and eight are BTÌìÌÃgraduates.

As increasing numbers of individuals begin to appreciate and understand the breadth of the field of geography, the phones in the University’s geography department ring sometimes nonstop. Fueling interest in geography is the return of the subject to Arkansas middle school classrooms. The 2015-16 academic year was the first in about a decade during which geography was taught in schools. Allender was instrumental in bringing the subject back to classrooms.

Marci Starkey ’93 worked with Allender on developing curriculum for the class. As a 7th grade teacher at Carl Stuart Middle School in Conway, Starkey said Arkansas students are studying four main strands within the curriculum: the world in spatial terms, places and regions, human systems and environment and society.

“The students have loved learning about other countries,” she said. “They find the story of other cultures very fascinating. Many of the cultures are so different from our own, so analyzing them provides an opportunity to teach tolerance and acceptance.

“By better knowing the world around us, we can better understand ourselves and our role in the global community.”

With one final chop of the two-foot scissors splitting the purple ribbon, BTÌìÌÃDowntown officially opened.

An estimated 300 attendees roared with cheers and applause welcoming this extension of the University of Central Arkansas to downtown Conway.

“I think this sets a record. We normally have about 20 people at a ribbon cutting,” said Brad Lacy ’94, president and chief executive officer of the Conway Area Chamber of Commerce and BTÌìÌÃBoard of Trustees member. “Clearly the community voted with their feet this morning. I think people are very interested in BTÌìÌÃfirmly planting themselves in the community.”

BTÌìÌÃDowntown is a 2500-square-foot facility with space for meetings, small gatherings and lectures and displaying artwork.

“It’s like the way they formed the Reese’s peanut butter cup. You put two great things together and this happens,” said Conway Mayor Tab Townsell ’83. “When you put BTÌìÌÃin downtown Conway, the scale of vitality that BTÌìÌÃhas, and put that in a redeveloping vital downtown, it is a perfect match of energy.”

Located in the heart of downtown Conway on Oak Street near community fixtures like Bob’s Grill and Fletcher Smith’s Jewelers, BTÌìÌÃDowntown was the vision of President Tom Courtway.

Courtway tasked Shelley Mehl, associate vice president for the Division of Outreach and Community Engagement, with executing the idea.

“I went out and kind of started looking to see who else does this,” Mehl said.

She found several existing models as many larger universities have a presence in downtown areas. The University of Richmond in Richmond, Virginia was of particular interest, she said. That space housed community activities, classroom space and event space.

“That was kind of inspiring for me,” she said. “And I said, ‘Okay, I’m getting this,’ I began to see what President Courtway had in mind.”

BTÌìÌÃDowntown hosted an Open House event in December 2015 to begin introducing the space to the community, then officially opened with the ribbon-cutting in January 2016.

Mehl said the community responded by immediately calling to book events and activities into the summer of 2016. She said one event is already booked for February 2017.

Mehl said that people were waiting “for an eclectic, perhaps more intimate space” like BTÌìÌÃDowntown, with all the swank of an uptown New York City loft complete with bright, expansive areas anchored by exposed brick walls, cherry wood beams and aluminum-tiled ceilings.

Fall 2015 graduate Nick Coltharp complimented the vintage charm of the space. “A lot of students spend a lot of their time at the coffee shops and at the donut shops and everything downtown and so it’s perfect that the University has an area in the downtown now that can appeal to the younger demographic who want to get back to the 50s style of things and the vintage style,” he said.

The Downtown Partnership hosted one of the first events in the space with a gathering of some 50 local merchants and business owners.

Zeteo Coffee was one of the businesses at the breakfast, owned by Jon Mitchell and his wife, Trina ’02. “I see this as a great partnership opportunity for us,” Trina said. “We just have a heart for this community and for this town, and we really hope to partner with people who share that same vision.”

Downtown Conway visitors will also be able to attend evening community education courses such as cake decorating, tai chi, public speaking or dancing.

“It’s another strong advocate for supporting that 24-hour lifestyle in downtown,” said Kim Williams ’85, executive director of the Downtown Partnership.

Williams said that downtown Conway routinely enjoys visitors from Atkins, Russellville, Lonoke, Maumelle, Little Rock, Searcy and other cities within an approximate 50-mile radius. “I just see even more people being in downtown,” Williams said.

While BTÌìÌÃDowntown includes the meeting and gathering spaces, the facility will also house an art gallery in the front section of the building.

“We want to share works made by beginning art students, as well as those about to graduate,” said Dr. Jeff Young, chair of the Department of Art.

Young expects to have at least three exhibits a year — one exhibit per semester and one exhibit in the summer.

“The artwork in the front, anybody who walks by, it’s gonna catch your attention,” said Kristy Grunwald, account executive with Crain Media Group, after she visited BTÌìÌÃDowntown. “So even if you don’t know what it is, it’s gonna make you stop and look at it.”

Art faculty will showcase a representative sample of works in different media such as sculpture, painting, ceramics, printmaking, photography, digital graphics works, fibers and more.

“Exhibiting work in the downtown space allows community members to see examples of student work if they aren’t able to come to campus often,” Young said.

A University employee will staff BTÌìÌÃDowntown to welcome visitors and answer questions. A kiosk will also be set up to display campus information and a full breadth of its activities, according to Mehl.

“That’s really how I see this — as another way to tell UCA’s story,” she said.

BTÌìÌÃDowntown Ribbon Cutting Gallery

Bear Tales – BTÌìÌÃDowntown Grand Opening

An entrepreneur can come from any walk of life. However, it seems that many successful young entrepreneurs have one major thing in common: each one knew they wanted more at an early age. They dreamed bigger, believed in themselves and pursued their dreams with determination and gumption. They left a net of security and took a leap of faith, turning a blind eye to doubt and the risk of failure. Creating your own business out of thin air seems daunting because it is. It takes courage of conviction and a strong will to be brave enough to take the risk involved.

It just so happens that the University of Central Arkansas is in the business of cultivating young entrepreneurs, in an effort to guarantee that each student has a personalized and unique experience to help them thrive once they break out into the great big world. A solid educational and social foundation is the cornerstone to students achieving their goals. When students feel confident in their educational backgrounds, their ambition has room to grow, and their vision has room to flourish.

The following stories follow the journeys of four individuals who all graduated from BTÌìÌÃand set out to turn their dreams into a reality. Even though their stories are vastly different, their goals were the same: to find success, to follow their dreams and to make a difference.

//Clay Parker ’07, ’08

When Clay Parker ’07, ’08 found out where he would be traveling with the University of Central Arkansas Travel Abroad program, he couldn’t even point to his destination on a map, and he had no idea the lifelong impact the experience would have.

“I originally thought that I would be going somewhere in Europe or some place that was a top-tier business environment,” Parker said. “But the opportunity to study in Tanzania was presented to me, and I thought it could be a good learning experience. And then I had my world rocked.”

Parker witnessed extreme poverty levels in Tanzania, leading him to make the life-altering decision he made in 2011. When Parker returned from Tanzania, he began working in Little Rock with Dale Dawson, a man who was doing economic development and volunteer work in East Africa. While Parker was intrigued and interested in Dawson’s work in Rwanda, he wasn’t quite ready to take that kind of leap. Parker went to work at Circumference Group in Little Rock in order to gain the skillset he needed and learn investment banking and financial analysis.

“I loved my job, but the whole time I was staying tuned in with what they were doing in Rwanda. Something was tugging at me to give it all up and go to Rwanda,” said Parker. “So, in 2011, I just quit my job and moved to Kigali, Rwanda and pursued doing business there full time.”

Little did he know that his decision would be so influential, not only for his own life but for the lives of thousands. Parker joined a team that processed and exported coffee in Rwanda to participate in post-genocide efforts to restore and grow the economy there. Their company is called Westrock Coffee Company, and they work directly with 70,000 coffee farmers in Rwanda.

Parker started out as the director of sustainability, working with farmers trying to build income with the coffee communities in Rwanda, and after a year, he took over the business. He currently lives full-time in Rwanda, where he runs his business, Rwanda Trading Company, a subsidiary of Westrock Coffee Company, and comes back home to visit family twice a year.

“There are 11 million people in Rwanda and 20 percent of them are in the coffee business in some capacity,” said Parker. “If they have a coffee farm, it’s a very small plot of land, 100 coffee trees or less. It’s a cash crop for them but in the grand scheme of things it’s a very small amount of income they get from it.” And that’s what Parker set out to change.

Westrock Coffee Company’s goal was to take down the coffee duopoly in Rwanda and build up the farmers’ personal income. According to Parker, everyday, Rwandan farmers were being cheated out of personal income by the two major coffee exporters, so Westrock Coffee Company decided to pay higher prices for coffee.

“Ultimately we still had to make a profit, but we knew we could pay higher than everyone else was paying and still make a profit. We’ve been able to see the results of that and the impact of that has just been incredible,” said Parker. “On day one, we saw the cash that went into the farmer’s pockets increase by 50-80 percent depending on which area of the country we were in.”

Before Westrock Coffee Company, the coffee farmers in Rwanda were selling coffee on credit, sometimes waiting up to four months to see any profit. The business model Parker implemented works on a cash-only basis and pays farmers upfront, every time, at a higher price than his competitors. If the sale goes really well, then the farmers receive a bonus payment.

“We were making money, they were making a lot more money than they were making previously, so we decided it was time to start implementing community projects,” Parker said. “We started out with agronomy training, teaching farmers new farming techniques to help them increase their yield. They didn’t have to plant anymore trees; they just had to do a few tweaks to help their trees produce more coffee.”

After the second year of training in 2015, the farmers’ yields have increased more than 150 percent, without having to plant any extra coffee trees. The agronomy training also improved the quality of the coffee significantly, so as the exporter, Westrock Coffee Company was able to charge a higher price to their buyers and come back and pay an even larger bonus to the farmers.

In addition to agronomy training, Parker’s team implements different projects as needed in every community they are stationed.

“We work on creating clean water where there isn’t clean water,” said Parker. “We partnered with Heifer International to give away cows in communities that need more protein and help with healthy eating, so they use the milk for family nutrition, and they use the fertilizer from the cows to improve their coffee trees and again, improve their yields.”

Parker credits his time at BTÌìÌÃfor all of the good he has been able to do. “As my role as director of this business, I lean on my education from BTÌìÌÃdaily,” Parker said. “I knew very little about the path I wanted to follow before I got to UCA, but when I got here, my time at BTÌìÌÃpushed me in a direction that has led me to where I am now. I wouldn’t change one second of it at all.”

//Brittany Hodak ’05

Brittany Hodak ’05 was initially drawn to the beauty of the University of Central Arkansas campus when she traveled from Fort Smith to see a Goo Goo Dolls concert. But it was the Schedler Honors College program that helped Hodak ultimately decide to attend BTÌìÌÃand move to Conway.

While earning her degree, Hodak had a brilliant idea: ZinePak.

What is ZinePak? The word itself is a fusion of “magazine” and “package,” and it’s a tangible product built for music super-fans. Inside each ZinePak is a CD and an array of fan-related items such as glossy magazines, interviews with the stars and other music-related merchandise.

“I had the idea for ZinePak when I was here at UCA, when I was about 20 or 21,” Hodak said. “And I’d started working on the idea for ZinePak as the topic of my honors thesis, but then when the band, who was supposed to be the subject of the first ZinePak, broke up, I had to rush into another thesis really quickly, which I did.”

But she never forgot her brainchild, and she soon headed to New York to learn more about the music industry, make connections and network. In 2011, Hodak, along with her co-founder, Kim Kaupe, made her college idea come to fruition.

Hodak’s company took off and business was going great. ZinePak was working with well-known artists ranging from KISS to Katy Perry. “We were very fortunate that we did over $1 million in revenue in our first year. Fewer than 2 percent of women-owned businesses ever do more than $1 million of revenue, so that got a lot of people’s attention,” Hodak said. “We got a lot of great publicity, and we were on some under-30 and under-40 lists.” One of the lists they were featured on was the Inc. 35 Under 35, a nationwide list of 35 entrepreneurs of 2014.

“We were the only self-funded company on the list and that caught the attention of the producers of ‘Shark Tank,’ ” said Hodak. “Shark Tank” is a popular reality television show on ABC where entrepreneurs pitch their ideas to a panel of potential investors. “It was a really fun experience, and while I was there, I had the inspiration for a second venture that I began in May of 2015 with my first cousin, Jennifer Barker, and it’s called Per Diems Against Poverty.”

Per diems are daily allowances for expenses, often food, that are given to professional athletes, governmental figures, corporate executives and those who work in the entertainment industry. While appearing on “Shark Tank,” Hodak was paid a per diem each day.

“They were giving us around $65 a day to eat. It seemed like a significant amount of money to me, especially since I had spent about $11 feeding myself while I had been there because they had free food at craft services and we were really only responsible for our late night snacks,” said Hodak. “So I thought to myself ‘There’s got to be an organization that exists for people to donate their per diems when they get this contractual money but they don’t depend on it’… and there wasn’t.”

Since many people who receive per diems do not rely on them financially, Hodak’s hope is to one day collect these unneeded per diems to donate to those in need. Per Diems Against Poverty is focusing on professional athletes first, because most sports have contractual per diems of more than $100 a day.

Hodak’s newest endeavor is nonprofit and self-funded, and she has partnered with Feeding America.

“Since we’re not taking anything out from any of the donations, I’m just covering all of the expenses. And Jennifer is being gracious enough to work for free until we’re able to really get things to take off,” said Hodak. “We just both felt like there is so much distrust in the charity space that we wanted to make sure that it was 100 percent transparent that we were giving absolutely every dollar.”

While Hodak was at UCA, she participated in the Travel Abroad program where she traveled to Italy. Seeing a different country gave her new perspective, and Hodak suddenly realized that the environment she was living in comfortably was, unfortunately, not universally enjoyed by everyone else. She decided that she wanted to do what she could to make the world a better place.

“I certainly did not go on ‘Shark Tank’ with the intent of starting another business. I had my hands very full already with ZinePak, but it was one of those things that once I became aware of the problem, I couldn’t just ignore it,” said Hodak. “I felt really embarrassed that as somebody who had lived for almost 31 years in America, I had no idea hunger was such a huge issue.”

With nearly 50 million Americans depending on food kitchens and food pantries every year, Hodak is determined to make a difference with her company.

“I think about how I feel when I’m a couple hours late for lunch and how hard it is for me to think and function and perform when I haven’t eaten for seven hours. And I can’t even imagine what it must be like to not know where your next meal is coming from and to try to perform at your job or to go to school and try to learn and concentrate. That just must be the worst thing imaginable,” said Hodak. “So any little impact that we’re able to have to help people not be hungry I think is really exciting for both of us, to think that we have the ability to affect and change that statistic.”

//Chauncey Holloman Pettis ’11

At 15, Chauncey Holloman Pettis ’11 saw a problem and fixed it. When she was looking for a birthday card for her friend, she realized that the voice of her generation was missing in the greeting cards lining the shelves of stores.

“There were no greeting cards from a teen’s perspective at all,” Holloman Pettis said. “And there are very few African-American greeting card lines. I saw a problem, and I wanted to create a solution — See a need; fill a need.”

Holloman Pettis grew up in a family of entrepreneurs, most of whom are writers, so when she decided to start her own greeting card company called Harlem Lyrics, her mother took her seriously.

“I told her my idea. She thought it was a good idea, and she told me to put together a business plan. I was 15, but that’s the way my family works,” Holloman Pettis said. “I was so serious because I wanted it to be perfect and professional, so I took my time putting it together.”

But what Holloman Pettis didn’t know is that her mother was teaching her a valuable lesson in taking her time and doing her research. Years later, her mother confessed to her a big secret.

“I found out that my mother was taking that time to save money to help me. Instead of saying, ‘Chauncey, we don’t have the money to help you chase your dream right now,’ she gave me a task to make me feel like I was taken seriously and that I had to do what every other startup business owner did, regardless of my age,” Holloman Pettis said. “She was able to put together those funds, and just like that, she saw a problem and filled that need as well.”

Harlem Lyrics started with eight greeting card prototypes, which were first sold in Kroger. Holloman Pettis’ company then branched out to Walgreens, Simply Fashion, Borders and Macy’s.

“All in all, Harlem Lyrics became an integrated product line,” said Holloman Pettis. The product line developed to include clothing, stationery, school supplies and more.

Holloman Pettis always wanted to be an entrepreneur, but just as she is a fourth generation entrepreneur, she is also a third generation Bear.

“Both of my parents and my grandmother attended the University of Central Arkansas,” Holloman Pettis said. “I got my degree in mass communications and theater with a minor in marketing, and started my own business. This was my plan my entire life.”

Once she graduated, Holloman Pettis decided she wanted to pursue something new. She had never worked for anyone but herself and decided to look for a more conventional form of employment. She began working for the Small Business Development Office for the City of Little Rock.

“It was very different for me. Not only was it my first time to be working for someone else, but it is a nonprofit organization,” said Holloman Pettis. “It was a jump and a learning curve.”

The City of Little Rock offers an entrepreneur training class twice a year. There is a beginner’s course that teaches start-up businesses how to write their own business plans, and there is a growth course that teaches new businesses how to stay afloat in their beginning years.

“Every year, twice a year, I teach 24 new small business owners who are just now starting to chase their dream or trying to keep it afloat,” said Holloman Pettis. “I know how to help. It’s a passion of mine. Entrepreneurship and small business development is what I do. I’ve made this my career, which is weird to say that being 27, but I feel like I’m really lucky to be able to be able to step back for awhile and have a nine-to-five job and still be in the world of entrepreneurship while helping as many entrepreneurs as I can.”

//Susan Erwin

Playing the piano may not seem like an extreme sport, but University of Central Arkansas Schedler Honors College alumna Susan Erwin has taken the classical art form to a new level. A small-town girl from Magnet Cove, Erwin has been playing the piano since she was six years old.

“Everyone knows me for the piano,” Erwin said, “but I came to BTÌìÌÃwith the intent of becoming a doctor.” During her senior year, however, Erwin realized that even though she was making good grades and excelling in all of her extracurricular activities, she still didn’t feel like she was on the right path.

“I was the president of Alpha Sigma Tau, and I was involved with the music program. I was in the jazz band, and I played piano as an elective,” Erwin said. “I was even voted Miss BTÌìÌÃin 2001. But long story short, I ended up with a math degree, pure mathematics degree, very heavy in physics.”

“BTÌìÌÃreally laid down a foundation for me and my career. My college experience and having that foundation really prepared me for the bigger picture in the great big world,” said Erwin. “I wouldn’t trade my education here at BTÌìÌÃfor anything, but specifically I wouldn’t trade my experience with the Schedler Honors College and Dr. Norbert Schedler. I just can’t say enough good things about that program.”

After graduation, Erwin landed a job as a radio frequency engineer and learned the ropes of the corporate world. “I entered corporate world thinking ‘I am going to do this until I figure out what it is… that it thing for me in my life.’ Because I always felt like there was something else for me out there,” Erwin said. “I didn’t know what it was quite yet, but I wanted to feel that calling and that gut instinct.” And then, she discovered the magical world of dueling piano bars.

“It was a very cool niche for me,” said Erwin. “I discovered it could be really lucrative. For about a year, I worked full-time at the piano bar at night, and I was in corporate world 60-plus hours a week. After a while, I decided I needed to focus solely on my creative career, and I jumped corporate ship and devoted myself to piano.”

Making the leap from the safe corporate world into the risky business of the creative arts was the best choice Erwin could have made. There were not many, and still are not many, females who play in piano bars. Erwin has traveled all over the world with her talent.

“I was a prime performer in Los Angeles for two years. Then I was able to go to Las Vegas, where I was all over the main piano bar scene for about two years,” said Erwin. “I don’t just do dueling piano bars, but I now perform my own show as a solo piano performer in places like Amsterdam, Norway, all over the Caribbean. I have performed on cruise ships, yachts, and once I played the piano while it was fork-lifted on the edge of the ocean in the British Virgin Islands!”

Her talent took her to Nashville, where she went into the recording business and cut her first album in the fall of 2014. Erwin is currently working on her second album and has even bigger plans for her future, which primarily involves moving her talent to Hollywood.

Erwin is not only a classically trained pianist with a rock and roll edge, but she also paints, writes and sings her own songs, has her pilot’s license and released her own fragrance line with a French-Caribbean company. In true entrepreneur fashion, Erwin funded her first album using the money she earned selling her paintings.

“About three years ago, I decided that I would start painting again and it was a way for me to fill time on the road to do something that was creative and fun, and I could easily travel with my watercolor kit,” said Erwin. “People just started loving my paintings, which was a great thing! I was like ‘Heck, if I could sit home and paint and make money on painting, and then write and perform on the weekends… well, it’s just a perfect fit!'”

Even with all of her success, Erwin doesn’t think of herself as a businesswoman. “I think of myself as an entrepreneur who’s an artist, all-encompassing,” she said. “Piano is definitely central… music will always be central. And then these little offshoots of things I’ve done, like my paintings or my fragrance line, kind of fit my brand as an artist and an entrepreneur. But I don’t want it to ever distract from my music because that’s who I really am and that’s what’s truly important.”

//A FAMILY PASSION

Ethan Erwin mixes music and innovation with his short bow.

Like his sister Susan, Ethan Erwin has a knack for music and innovative thinking. The younger Erwin sibling is a classically trained violinist who also had a big dream.

Ethan, a senior in the University of Central Arkansas Schedler Honors College, wanted to create an advanced bow for the violin that would allow him to sing while he played. He began designing his violin “tool” at the age of 17 and three months later, his prototype for the short bow was designed.

The short bow is worn on the violinist’s hand and allows the musician to play the instrument as if it were a guitar. Ethan received a United States patent in December 2012 for the short bow. The Arkansas Democrat Gazette selected him “Top 20 to Watch in 2013” for his invention.

Ethan has always been inventive. As a fifth grader at Lakeside Middle School in Hot Springs, he created a bait retriever and entered his invention in a National Invent America! contest. Ethan won second place and a $500 U.S. Savings Bond. He has also wrote a book entitled “Zero to a Thousand: An Educational Guide to Effectively Hunt and Shoot to 1000 Yards,” which can be purchased on Amazon for Kindle.

Ethan is studying pre-medicine and pre-dental at BTÌìÌÃand is a member of the Sigma Tau Gamma fraternity. He is an 11-year classically trained violinist, has three years of experience teaching violin students and has performed across the state of Arkansas at churches, pageants and community events.