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FGCU's Institute for Entrepreneurship Offers Tuition-Free Schooling to Veterans

By Rachel Iacovone,
Mike Kiniry, Julie Glenn
Published November 6, 2017 at 12:25 PM EST
The U.S. Army
/
Wikimedia Commons
Servicemembers at a graduation

FGCU's recently established Institute for Entrepreneurship is working with Veterans Florida to offer an entrepreneurship program, which started its first class in spring 2017.

The Veterans Florida Entrepreneurship Program is free to veterans who have been honorably discharged, are active guard and reserve or are active duty within one year of separation residing in Florida. It is currently offered at six state universities.

Since its start at FGCU, 35 veterans have graduated from its campus and more than 20 businesses have been started in the Southwest Florida region by veteran graduates.

Dr. Sandra Kauanui is the director of the Institute for Entrepreneurship. She joins Gulf Coast Live to discuss the school's veteran program. She is also joined by veteran James Hardenbrook, who can speak to the program firsthand.

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Gulf Coast Life Gulf Coast LiveFGCUFlorida Gulf Coast UniversityentrepreneursVeterans FloridaVeterans
Rachel Iacovone
Rachel Iacovone is a reporter and associate producer of Gulf Coast Live for WGCU News. Rachel came to WGCU as an intern in 2016, during the presidential race. She went on to cover Florida Gulf Coast University students at President Donald Trump's inauguration on Capitol Hill and Southwest Floridians in attendance at the following day's Women's March on Washington.Rachel was first contacted by WGCU when she was managing editor of FGCU's student-run media group, Eagle News. She helped take Eagle News from a weekly newspaper to a daily online publication with TV and radio branches within two years, winning the 2016 Society of Professional Journalists Mark of Excellence Award for Best Use of Multimedia in a cross-platform series she led for National Coming Out Day. She also won the Mark of Excellence Award for Feature Writing for her five-month coverage of an FGCU student's transition from male to female.As a WGCU reporter, she produced the first radio story in WGCU's Curious Gulf Coast project, which answered the question: Does SWFL Have More Cases of Pediatric Cancer?Rachel graduated from Florida Gulf Coast University with a bachelor's degree in journalism.
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Mike Kiniry
mkiniry@wgcu.org
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Julie Glenn
(1971 - 2022)
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