Steve Mariotti
1953 – 2024)
GCSEN remembers Steve Mariotti, a mentor and advisory board member.
Steven John Mariotti (August 14, 1953 – October 20, 2024) was an American educator, activist, and businessman. He was the founder and president (1988–2005) of the nonprofit Network For Teaching Entrepreneurship (NFTE), and the author of books and textbooks related to entrepreneurship education. Mariotti was inspired to found NFTE by his early career as a special ed teacher in New York City, as chronicled in his 2019 memoir, Goodbye Homeboy: How My Students Drove Me Crazy and Inspired a Movement, BenBella Books, co-authored with Debra Devi, with a foreword by Wes Moore. After retiring as NFTE president in 2015, Mariotti served as Senior Fellow for Entrepreneurial Education at the PhilaU Center for Entrepreneurship at Philadelphia University (2016–2018), and Senior Research Fellow for Entrepreneurship at Rising Tide Capital in Jersey City, New Jersey (2018–2020). In 2020, Mariotti executive-produced the PBS docu-series Trauma to Triumph: The Rise of the Entrepreneur. In 2021, he founded the nonprofit Center for Financial Independence to provide social entrepreneurs with mentorship and fundraising training. (Wikipedia)
“It’s very healthy to teach people to be thinking of themselves as entrepreneurs.” – Steve Mariotti
Jeffry A. Timmons
(1941–2008)
Jeffry A. Timmons(1941–2008) was an American Professor of Entrepreneurship, known as a pioneer of both entrepreneurship research and education. During his career Timmons published several books and over a hundred articles and papers. He lectured on the subjects of entrepreneurship, new ventures, entrepreneurial finance and venture capital. In 2004, Timmons was named Entrepreneurship Educator of the Year by the United States Association for Small Business Entrepreneurship[1]and is said to be the first to have used the word “entrepreneurial” in a dissertation title, in his 1971 dissertation from Harvard Business School: “Entrepreneurial and Leadership Development in an Inner City Ghetto and a Rural Depressed Area"(Wikipedia)
“If you want to be an entrepreneur, fail as fast as you can. The longer you go without that experience, the more afraid you will be of it, and then you will never do it!” – Jeffry Timmons
Gregory Dees
(1950-2013)
Gregory Dees(James Gregory Dees), referred to as the father of social entrepreneurship education, was an American scientist, professor, founder and director of the Center for Social Entrepreneurship Development (CASE) of Duke University.[1]- (Wikipedia)
GCSEN Consider's Dees' Paper "The Meaning of Social Entrepreneurship" from 1999 to be the founding document of our field. Download it here.
