BYOBiz Book Shows Champlain College Students have the Entrepreneurial Edge

Robert Bloch, director of the unique-to-Champlain BYOBiz (Bring Your Own Business) program, followed up with nine of the most recent successful young entrepreneurs from Champlain College in the fall of 2011. He conducted interviews and compiled the dialogue into a new book, My Own CEO, published by the Champlain College Publishing Initiative. My Own CEO is a second edition of the former, Outside the Box, which was printed in 2011. Additions to the second edition include the story of the student-run coffee shop and convenience store in the IDX Student Life Center — The Lodge, as well as Tips for Young Entrepreneurs.

This book features nine students including:

  • Alex Brandstetter of Entourage Marketing Group, International Business '10 — Brandstetter's passion in marketing emerged while observing his family's international designer ski clothing company and brand, Bogner. During his time at Champlain, he took a business class assignment to the next level by creating a wildly popular slam-dunk tournament to raise money for Sudanese refugees.
  • Nick Foley of Nicko Lawn Care, Business '14 — Having run a business, Nicko Lawn Care, in Eastern Massachusetts since 2001, Foley sees his business expanding into all services at a national level and being right up there with the huge household company names like Google, GE, and Nike.
  • Ginger Vieira of Living in Progress, Professional Writing '08 — Since age 13, Vieira has been living with diabetes. She knew that she could not do it alone, so she decided that helping others was her motivation. Her senior year she turned a classroom writing assignment into a freelance writing contract, then a video blog, then a career in life-coaching others with diabetes. As she continues her video blog, she is in the process of writing her second book, as well as working as a personal trainer, yoga instructor, and cognitive health coach.
  • Alex Wolff,Business '13 — Wolff chose Champlain strictly for the BYOBiz program, knowing he wanted to open a business and invest in real estate. Since his first year, he has learned a considerable amount from real estate investment mentor Scott Rieley.
  • Paxton Hall of PaxTunz, International Business '14 — After Hall missed the deadline to get a SGA budget for a ski team last fall, he discovered a niche on campus: ski and snowboard tuning. College students are often on a tight budget and time crunch, so now he offers his experience and skills right in the student life center to students for a great deal.
  • Molly McGlew of Vixxxen, Graphic Design '13 — A snowboarder grew her interest in fashion and art into an internationally popular website, Vixxxen, supported by giants in the snowboard and winter apparel world as well as snowboarders.
  • Jonathan Fischer of Wireless ESP, LLC d.b.a. Speedbump,Business '11 — With experience on his resume from robotics champion to nationally ranked junior freestyle skier, Fischer created his business, Speedbump, while in high school to balance his interests in technology and building things.
  • Marguerite Dibble of Birnam Wood Games, Game Art & Animation '12 — Changing gears throughout her college career, Dibble has always balanced creativity with entrepreneurial instincts, drive, professionalism, and leadership skills. Her company Birnam Wood Games has had success following the release of its first game, Loc, on the iPad platform in April, 2012.
  • Peter Garang Deng of New Sudan Jonglei Orphans Foundation & Peter Eagle Transportation Company, Business '11 — Deng's life hasn't been easy, but it made for a great autobiography, published by Champlain Publishing Initiative in 2011, as well as a great non-profit to raise money to educate orphans.

These determined students share how they initially got their ideas, got others on board, and created unique opportunities to learn and grow by turning their passion into a hands-on education and income.

This book was created by Bloch with the entrepreneurially minded teenager in mind, to inspire anyone wondering whether to, and how to, take his or her dreams and ambitions into action. They'll give prospective students and entrepreneurs the strength to be their own CEO.

About Champlain College Publishing Initiative

My Own CEO, Outside the Box, as well as books by both Ginger Vieira and Peter Garang Deng, were published by the Champlain Publishing Initiative, created by Tim Brookes to engage students in the field of publishing as writers, editors, designers, artists, marketers, publicists, accountants, or web designers. It gives students a supervised educational experience that is creative, demanding, and applicable to the world they meet when they graduate. Champlain Publishing Initiative's mission is to be an active part of the great experiment that is contemporary publishing, and to offer the greater-Champlain community the chance to get involved and get published. For more information, please visit www.champlaincollegepublishing.com.

About BYOBiz

Champlain College, known for its professionally oriented academic programs, has had various entrepreneurship clubs present on campus since 1985. With the increasing demand of a more professionally organized club, the group evolved into an innovative entrepreneurship education program called BYOBiz (Bring Your Own Business) in 2006.

In the BYOBiz program, one can network and learn from successful entrepreneurs and other local experts in the strategic, financial, legal, technical, operational and managerial sectors of business ownership. Director Bob Bloch acts as a mentor and guides students' ideas in the most opportune direction and connects them to outside sources.

"They are undaunted; they see possibilities and you can just feel the energy they exude and their motivation to succeed," said Bloch, "The students bring businesses from home or create new ones to add to Burlington's growing small business community. They are passionate and are willing to take risks to achieve their goals.

To learn more about the BYOBiz program, please visit their website or contact Champlain College Admissions to be sent a copy of My Own CEO by BYOBiz Director Bob Bloch.


Founded in 1878, Champlain College is a small, not-for-profit, private college in Burlington, Vermont, with additional campuses in Montreal, Canada, and Dublin, Ireland. Champlain offers a traditional undergraduate experience from its beautiful campus overlooking Lake Champlain and over 90 residential undergraduate and online undergraduate and graduate degree programs and certificates. Champlain's distinctive career-driven approach to higher education embodies the notion that true learning occurs when information and experience come together to create knowledge. Champlain College is included in the Princeton Review's The Best 384 Colleges: 2019 Edition. For the fourth year in a row, Champlain was named a "Most Innovative School" in the North by U.S. News & World Report's 2019 "America's Best Colleges,” and a “Best Value School” and is ranked in the top 100 “Regional Universities of the North” and in the top 25 for “Best Undergraduate Teaching.” Champlain is also featured in the Fiske Guide to Colleges for 2019 as one of the "best and most interesting schools" in the United States, Canada and Great Britain and is a 2019 College of Distinction. For more information, visit champlain.edu.