The Omaha-based Diabetes Care Foundation donated $4 million to establish the Greisch Center for Enterprise Value at Creighton University, named in honor of foundation board member and CU alum Jim Greisch. The gift will be used to advance entrepreneurial skill sets and scale the businesses of Creighton students and faculty. 

Housed at the Heider College of Business, the Greisch Center for Enterprise Value is meant to be a cross-campus hub for entrepreneurship, intrapreneurship, commercialization and career-building experiences. In its early stages, the center seeks to offer coursework, research proposals, applied learning opportunities and networking activities to Creighton students, faculty and alumni of all majors and disciplines.

Center leadership said the commitment from the Diabetes Care Foundation provides means and validation to carry out this undertaking. 

“As a Jesuit university, Creighton is particularly good at translating mission into real-world application and creating value for the communities it serves,” Greisch said in a press release. 

“The CEV (Center for Enterprise Value) is a perfect way for the University — through student, faculty and alumni innovation — to capture not only monetary value, but every variety of intrinsic value that makes communities, employers and individuals prosper,” he added. 

Greisch is an alumnus of the Heider College of Business. While the Diabetes Care Foundation prioritizes diabetes-related initiatives, the organization contributes to a range of projects for wider impact. 

Greisch Center for Enterprise Value Director Nathan Preheim is an experienced founder and leader in the Nebraska startup ecosystem. He previously served as the co-founder of The Startup Collaborative, a program aimed at improving local startup success that the Greater Omaha Chamber eventually took over. 

Preheim said his time at The Startup Collaborative, which is no longer active, initially connected him to Greisch and his involvement in the business community. To honor his support and this financial commitment, Creighton is officially naming the center the Greisch Center for Enterprise Value.

Funding the future

“I’m looking at some of the best undergraduate programs ever,” Preheim said. “Babson is famous. University of Houston is good. How can we be better?”

While teaching as an adjunct professor, Preheim said the official launch of the Center for Enterprise Value last year developed from an identified opportunity to better converge and catalyze the pockets of entrepreneurship already occurring across Creighton’s campus. 

The student-led Creighton Entrepreneurship Club, for instance, has helped young professionals  explore what goes into scaling a business through collaborating with peers, learning from guest lectures and running events. This includes an annual pitch competition for student entrepreneurs called JayTank. 

Students themselves have also come to Creighton with their own company ambitions underway before attending classes. For example, sophomore Rian Jacobs is triple majoring while operating her biodegradable fishing bobbers business. 

Jacobs said she originally came up with the idea in high school during an entrepreneurship course her senior year. She added that she had experience with 3D printing as a member of her school’s robotics team. 

“Coming into Creighton, I had some prototypes, and I just decided when I was packing for my dorm to bring those along because maybe an opportunity would pop up,” Jacobs said.

Similarly, sophomore Jack O’Neill is selling his own energy drinks while on the pre-med track in exercise science. He said he dabbled with some side hustles in high school and had the spark for his current business before coming to campus. However, he said his medical career goals were his priority.

But when his energy drinks got some initial momentum, O’Neill said he reached out to the university to see what the future may hold for him and his business. 

“Last year, I was getting to the point in my product where it started to feel real,” O’Neill said. “I wanted to see what resources I could get out of Creighton.”

“That’s where I met Nathan, and Nathan (has) helped me out immensely since then,” he added.  

Both Jacobs and O’Neill said they were appreciative of mentorship from Preheim, the encouragement of classmates and the support systems they have been involved with at Creighton. Jacobs pointed to the “mission-driven” work of her peers and said she believed the drive of her fellow student entrepreneurs was to solve real problems and create good. 

With the financial backing from the Diabetes Care Foundation, Preheim said the Greisch Center for Enterprise Value can begin to execute the various initiatives it has in progress. This includes an assessment tool for identifying leadership traits among users, as well as a university venture fund for financing student and alumni startups. 

A core interest of the center, Preheim said, is encouraging students from all majors to take on an entrepreneurship minor. Believing in the importance of “differentiating” knowledge for career and market success, he said students should consider adding entrepreneurial training to their distinct degree pathways — rather than solely studying entrepreneurship.

“The entrepreneurial mindset is going to be table stakes for all jobs of tomorrow,” Preheim said. “If we can help instill that, whether they’re nursing, arts and science, journalism, pre-med, management, marketing, finance, accounting — they’re going to have a competitive advantage.”

Preheim said he is also in the process of launching additional programs to boost business creation from the university and throughout the wider Omaha community. 

He said one pathway called Flight School would be “intensive, team-based” and require an application. This 12-month, post-graduate accelerator, he said, would consist of mentorship, curriculum and tech transfer efforts. 

The other pathway in the works, Prehemin said, would be a “90-day sprint” and target high schoolers, college students and even full-time professionals. The goal is to provide guidance on how to launch a part-time venture while “keep(ing) your day job.” 

Jacobs and O’Neill said they were both looking forward to the new opportunities on the horizon, especially what it could mean for their ventures with things such as access to capital and marketing. 

“Incoming freshmen, if they’re interested in entrepreneurship, they don’t need to be the ones to start the company,” Jacobs said. “They can familiarize themselves with entrepreneurs within Creighton’s community, within the Greater Omaha community, and see where there’s space for them to fit in.”