Joy Hermsen Year Graduated from SEA: 1992 SEA Board Member

From 1992-2001, Joy worked as an intrapreneur for a large restaurant chain learning several corporate areas (operations/training & development/team building).

Feeling ready to step out in the entrepreneurial world, Joy spent the next 2 years consulting and pondering a business idea and a potential business partners. With both well in hand, she is now well into what she calls her "entrepreneurial adventure," her own company with a trusted business partner that is making money and honing its mission.

Joy credits SEA with teaching her leadership skills blended with humility that allows her to get things done with people. Her most memorable moment was hard to pinpoint as there were so many.

Joy settled on three.

Your ideas blossom, you feel like anything is possible, and you have a lot of fun working to make things happen.

Joy Hermsen, SEA Class of 1992.

• Seeing the emotion and openness with which Jim Corbett shared his story for the first time with our SEA class - powerful.
• My team, which included John Walters - we were three MBA's - started off our presentation to the Board with a slide that was a copy of the cover of a major news magazine that said, "the MBA glut" (remember, this was 1992). I still remember my first line: "it's a jungle out there." (We had a business plan to connect job seekers with employers.)
• Being asked to serve on the board as an alumna, also receiving an award from the Board as an alumna - incredible

So, Joy, why would you recommend other people attend SEA?

As a student, I decided to apply for the SEA because it sounded like a great way to get insight into the entrepreneurial experience. Once I started attending sessions and learning from everyone involved, I realized that the true spirit of the SEA is the joy, the passion, the giddiness of being around creative, driven, interested people who are a lot like you! Your ideas blossom, you feel like anything is possible, and you have a lot of fun working to make things happen. Even now, nearly 14 years after the experience and 2 years into my own entrepreneurial venture, I spend as much time as I can staying connected to the SEA and this amazing energy that it radiates.