A Conversation With ... Todd Parnell

Well, Robert Wyatt (director of Drury’s Breech School of Business Administration) is very persuasive. That would be reason No. 1. I also really wanted to work with young people. … I enjoy being around them. I find an energy there that’s catching, and I hope some of it rubs off on me. I felt that if I could spend 35 years making loans to people, I could spend the last part of my professional career helping kids get excited about starting businesses, that would be a good way to follow up. Also, the Edward Jones Co. and Beuerlein family’s financial support provided financial security to the center from Day 1 and allows us to focus on the students.

Describe the center’s mission.

I try to keep it as simple as possible. We’re going to seek to train, inspire and encourage students of all disciplines to pursue any entrepreneurial dream they might have – to help them discover, to help them find a way to pursue it. And if that includes starting a business, to prepare and help them to start their own business.

Your executive director duties begin June 1. What will you be doing?

I will teach a course each semester. In fact, I’m teaching an MBA course (in entrepreneurship management) this summer. And I’m going to teach principles of entrepreneurship at the undergraduate level. The program is ambitious, but we hope to increase the number of MBA students coming here. We hope to increase the number of undergraduates by offering an entrepreneurship minor across all disciplines. We hope to offer an entrepreneurship certification course … and I think we dream down the road to be able to help these people find financial resources to start their businesses.

Give us your professional background.

It has been exciting for me to come home, because I was away from the time that I graduated from Drury until I came back 10 years ago. I worked in Washington, D.C., for a government agency that did project financing in various countries in Africa. I worked in Los Angeles for a St. Louis bank and ultimately ended up back in St. Louis (at) several banks there.

I had the opportunity 10 years ago to join with a group of investors and help start a bank here in Springfield – The Bank – and it was a very entrepreneurial group. They gave me some insight into how they think and freed up a lot of excitement and entrepreneurial longings of my own. We were able to put a new model together for a bank, modeled after Great Game of Business practiced at (Springfield Remanufacturing Corp.) … Being involved with the board and the organization of The Bank really gave me the opportunity to pursue my own entrepreneurial dream. That was when banking became fun.

What’s the most important business lesson you were taught?

That’s a difficult question. I’ve had many mentors, from my father to some of the people … who helped start The Bank. The lessons I’ve learned that I consider the most important are that you’re always honest with the people you work with, and you try to empower the people that you work with. Because generally, they can do a better job if given the opportunity to do so. Try to give them a vested interest in what it is you’re pursuing, not only the vision … but the benefits. Those are the things that were important to me in developing my own way of doing business. Also, there’s a one-liner that I’ll always be glad I heard, attributed to Winston Churchill when he spoke to a graduating class. His talk was that he walked to the podium and said, “Never, ever, ever ever give up.”

How can a person tell if entrepreneurship is a good fit for them?

Most entrepreneurs don’t start rich. They start with an idea, a dream, and with excitement and passion and make something with scarce resources. You don’t know if it’s a good fit. I personally believe that there’s a touch of entrepreneurship lurking in everyone. It’s a matter of whether you’re able to find it, present it and pursue it. Obviously, you’re not going to find it sitting on the sidelines, so entrepreneurs are people who do things, take risks and follow dreams. Whatever lights that fire is not defined, but I hope that’s one of the things we can do at the center … help them light that fire.

Among the books you’ve written is one about your family’s Ozarks history. Can you tell us any interesting family tidbits?

There’s a parcel of property that my ancestors on my grandmother’s side bought in 1838. If you look, Drury is part of it. They owned part of the land where we’re sitting right now. (In Breech), we’re probably sitting right on the corner of their farm.