Creative spark: The almost unbelievable beginning of Engineering Entrepreneurship

In 1984, Jack Matson was a tenured Engineering Professor at the University of Houston. Having already had a professional career before getting his doctorate and joining academia, he was feeling… bored. Then. Lightning struck. Literally. This fateful incident led to the eventual creation of the Engineering Entrepreneurship program that’s continuing to change lives for Penn State students today. Here’s part one of its nearly unbelievable history. 

“It was an oppressively hot summer day in Houston, Texas, I was playing tennis. A violent storm was approaching. Before I could get off the court, a lightning bolt struck me in the head. I remember falling down as the bolt exited my body to the pavement, changing me irreversibly. Much of my memory had been eviscerated by the hit,” Jack said, describing the life-changing impact.  

During his recovery process, as Jack struggled with losing so many memories, his therapist recommended he approach the future with creativity.  “The quest to understand the meaning of leading a creative life was torture because my experiments failed,” Jack said. “However, I had to survive, so I persisted. Over time, I recognized that failures gave me clues on ultimately succeeding. I coined ‘Intelligent Fast Failure (IFF)’ to describe my process.” 

Jack put his process to the test with 50 business students at the University of Michigan when he applied for and won a yearlong position there teaching entrepreneurship. “My application was titled, ‘Failure 101,’ under the premise that teaching students how to fail fast to learn from their mistakes was a key to success,” he explained. “I had no experience in business and knew nothing about it. I would have to use IFF in the classroom to figure it out.” 

Students learned the process and applied it in their own microbusinesses. They even designed a three-day conference titled “Celebration of Failure,” inviting prominent entrepreneurs to discuss how they became successful through learning by failing a lot.  

Jack’s next stop was Penn State where the Dean of Engineering was planning an Innovation Center. As Founding Director, Jack pitched the idea to establish a minor—a series of courses that engineering students could take as electives, including a course similar to what he taught at Michigan. 

Nine of the ten Penn State Engineering department heads passed on the minor. Only the head of Electrical Engineering was on board. Dubbed the Leadership Minor, it was approved by all the Penn State colleges and the Penn State Administration since it was available to all students. Courses for Leadership Minor began in Fall of 1995 and enrollment grew rapidly. After stepping down as Director, Jack continued teaching his course until 1999.  

The Leadership Minor expanded into both the Leadership Minor, focused on technical leadership training, and the Entrepreneurship Minor, focused on business skills, with both minors retaining the creative edge. Find out how the program continued to evolve in part 2 in our next issue.