Colby launches laboratory training for future entrepreneurs

Photo / William Hall Colby College, in Waterville, plans to launch its Halloran Lab for Entrepreneurship next year.

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By Staff

Colby College is launching a laboratory for cultivating entrepreneurs, and to help apply the lessons of entrepreneurship beyond business.

The private liberal arts school in Waterville said the Halloran Lab for Entrepreneurship will open next year, funded by the donation of a 1984 graduate, Todd Halloran. The amount of the gift was not disclosed.

Halloran, who also earned a degree from Harvard Business School, has spent most of his career investing in and working with business leaders, entrepreneurs and growing companies, the release said. He is currently a senior advisory partner at Freeman Spogli & Co., a private equity firm that partners with management in U.S.-based consumer-related growth businesses.

The lab will offer a suite of training and practical opportunities aimed at preparing Colby students to be innovators and entrepreneurs — whether they are creating new business ventures or improving existing organizations. There will also be entrepreneurship education and training, funding for students to start commercial and social enterprises, mentorship through a dedicated network, as well as maker spaces on campus and in downtown Waterville.

Colby is considering curriculum changes and other options related to entrepreneurship, and the lab plans to develop an internal entrepreneurship “ecosystem” involving alumni, faculty and staff as well as companies and others.

The Halloran Lab will be headed by an “accomplished business innovator,” and Colby is now preparing to launch a national search to fill that position.

“Direct engagement with solutions-based work, whether to create commercial enterprises or further societal progress, is the perfect complement to a rigorous liberal arts education,” President David A. Greene said in the release.

“The work itself, from ideation and solutions development to business establishment and financing, takes deep learning and research, nimbleness and adaptability, strong communication and collaboration skills, comfort with failure, and resilience and persistence. These are traits that will serve our students well throughout their lives and will allow them to have an outsized impact on the world.

“The Halloran Lab will also have a major impact on our city of Waterville as well, where an already growing innovation ecosystem will be turbocharged by this critical initiative. Todd’s generosity to Colby spans decades, and with this gift, he will empower generations of students to enrich their education, change their life trajectories, and innovate for the greater good.”