Milpitas councilman's foundation donates $25k to business school

Bob Nuñez, a Milpitas city councilmember and a past public education administrator in Riverside County and San Jose contributed the funds through the Nuñez Community Foundation. The organization mentors young people to help them move past obstacles and achieve success. Nuñez said during a meeting with La Sierra students and business school Dean John Thomas that he is interested in inspiring students, particularly those who are at-risk, to run their own businesses, work their way into corporate leadership, and to impact public policy.

“This university has a really high success rate with regard to its graduates and what they do out in the community,” Nuñez said. “What I look for is this opportunity, really under Johnny’s [Thomas] guide, is to provide students the ability to go out and start their own businesses, so that you will have the [wherewithal] to go out and impact public policy,” enabling other persons who are disadvantaged to have the chance to also lead successful lives, he said.

The funds will be used for equipment and other support of the business school’s incubator program which consists of two start-up ‘garages,’ rooms on the business school’s second floor for use by entrepreneurs to launch their fledgling companies. One of the garages is occupied by the La Sierra-based Hispanic Business Incubator, a group of about 18 student and alumni entrepreneurs led by Jose Alcala, a Master of Business Administration student.

Alcala recruited the group of entrepreneurial-minded students who met in late November with Nuñez, Thomas, and Kelly Kuhn, Nuñez’s daughter who serves as the community foundation’s operational director. The students discussed their various concepts for new products and their interests in entrepreneurship, social outreach and education.

Student Paul Salazar described prototype storage cases for smart phones of various sizes he made using one of the business school’s 3D printers in the new Innovation Lab.

Josif Nieto, a member of the Hispanic Business Incubator who was also present at the November meeting founded a graphic and web design sole proprietorship the third week of January. The company is named Embarkment Design and currently specializes in web design and print materials. Nieto, a senior fine arts major at La Sierra, aims to expand into a full-service firm offering video, app development, social media services and web development. He wants to bring more students into his operation. “The idea is to get more students involved. That’s a big part of the incubator, to have everyone rise together,” he said.

Members of the Hispanic Business Incubator are developing a game app similar to the popular mobile game Flappy Bird, Alcala said. “That’s what we’re aiming for, that level of simplicity,” he said. While some students are learning to code the game, Alcala is investigating ways of incorporating advertising into the app.

Alcala’s entrepreneurial interests vary widely—he is also keeping on the back burner an idea for a device aimed at helping fishermen in Alaska more safely fillet their catch. It is a concept that sprang from a vacation in The Last Frontier state where he witnessed fishermen using floor mats along a riverbank to hold slippery, just-caught fish in place while filleting them with sharp knives.

During the meeting, Thomas spoke to the students of his goals in reaching young people and inspiring them to move ahead with their lives. “I don’t want you to come here just to get a degree. Anyone can give you a degree. I want to build in you the confidence that allows you to go out and compete in the marketplace,” he said.

The donated funds will help inspire future contributions, said Thomas, who became acquainted with Nuñez nearly 20 years ago. “It opens us to receiving donations and grants from donors, foundations and corporations from outside the region. And it moves us forward to providing start-up funding for student ideas,” he said.

Nuñez also offered to take the business students on a tour of Hewlett-Packard’s new HPE facility in Milpitas as well as Flextronics, an electronics manufacturing services provider.

Nuñez worked 40 years in public education and has served on county commissions, nonprofit boards and with social justice organizations. He is currently 1st vice president of San Jose-Silicon Valley NAACP, co-chair of the La Raza Roundtable and chair of the Santa Clara County Republican Party.

His wife, Jil Kauffman, is an alum of La Sierra University graduating in 1981. “I want to be able to honor that because a lot of her values come from here,” Nuñez said.

“There’s much more to college than four years and a degree,” he told the students. “More importantly it’s who did you reach back and pull up. I’m a firm believer that all of us have to keep reaching back and helping somebody else go up. It’s really who you help along the way that adds any real value at the end.”