Curtis Lavine Visits the Entrepreneurial Mindset Class-Sep 25, 2012

 

Curtis Lavine, Independence serial entrepreneur, joined the Entrepreneurial Mindset class of Independence Community College on September 25. 
 (Our thanks to Independence Reporter photographer Rob Morgan for taking these photographs.)

He said he went out on his own to escape the four-wall trap of the corporate world where he took his direction from others.  He started Kansas Aviation in the early 1992 with a partner and four employees.  At at time when the competition took four days to get an order to the shop floor,  the new Kansas Aviation was returning the overhauled parts to their customers in two to four days.  Today, his son, Toby, runs Kansas Aviation which employees around 65 people.  The company is a world leader in aircraft engine accessory overhaul services and each day ship and receive parts all over the globe.

Curtis started eight or nine other companies in the years since starting Kansas Aviation.  In a perfect example of opportunistic adaptation (part of the Ice House curriculum) Kansas Aviation was so reliable and timely that customers began asking them to solve other problems for them.  One concept Curtis developed was one of inventory management where he offered to store inventory for Cessna vendors so it would be available on a just-in-time basis without Cessna incurring the cost of holding the inventory.  (Cessna builds the Mustang jet in Independence, Kansas.) Thus was born Cornerstone Warehousing.  Today that company stores inventory in similar fashion for Boeing and Cessna as well as a couple of local and regional companies.

As with our other guest entrepreneurs so far--Kym Kays, local franchisee for Express Employment Professionals and Jim Halsey, Impresario that managed 140 entertainment acts, including Roy Clark and the Oak Ridge Boys--Curtis brought up many points consistent with the eight life's lessons in the Ice House curriculum featured in the ICC Entrepreneurial Mindset class.

Curtis was in his early 60's when he left corporate life to start Kansas Aviation in 1992.  The expansion of Kansas Aviation and the start-up of the other companies took place at a point in Curtis' life when some would have retired.  Age places no limitations on the Entrepreneurial Mindset.

I'll Have an Order of Entrepreneurship to Fix the Economy, Please

I posed these questions to my Entrepreneurial Mindset class the other day.


* How many of you think the Federal or state governments are going to end the recession?
* How many of you think the big corporations are going to end the recession?
* How many of you think the labor unions are going to end the recession?

Not surprisingly, no one raised their hand. Then I asked them who was going to end the recession and they all said it would be small businesses and entrepreneurs.

It is not the job of the government to provide jobs. The government should provide a safe environment in which small businesses can do business; the small businesses will do the hiring.

Somehow, many have gotten the idea that it's the government that owes them a job, i.e. livelihood. Part of the entitlement society we now live in, I guess.

Those of us that work with people to help them become entrepreneurs are finding that everyone comes with a built-in entrepreneur but for many the internal entrepreneur is suppressed their whole life. There are ways to free the entrepreneur inside people by helping them develop an entrepreneurial mindset. That mindset makes each a better person, whether or not they go out on their own or continue to work for someone else.

Those of us that work with aspiring entrepreneurs and small business owners can now see that developing an entrepreneurial mindset in everyone is the best way to help people all over the world better their lives. It's like the old adage of teaching someone to fish instead of just giving them the fish. People with an entrepreneurial mindset learn that it's their choices, not their circumstances that determine the outcome of their lives.

As for the politicians, it's really difficult to cut through all the rhetoric of the campaigns. Both sides have some good ideas if you can wade through all the nonsense. When it comes time to vote, though, I'm always going to vote for the side that I think most likely to work to provide a safe environment that supports entrepreneurship, one in which small businesses can do business. That is definitely not the current administration.

*Click here for more information about the Entrepreneurial Mindset class, including information on the next times and places the course might be offered.