Tom Field is the director of the Engler Entrepreneurship program, as well as the holder of the University of Nebraska-Lincoln’s (UNL) Engler Chair in Entrepreneurship. After Paul Engler made the decision to invest in creating the Engler program, he began looking for someone to help run the program, and Field believes the position truly came to him.

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“As he [Paul Engler] made that gift, the University began to look for someone they thought, maybe was crazy enough, to come in with no framework that would be equal to his vision,” Field said. “I was not really looking for this opportunity, the opportunity maybe found me as much as I found it.”

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The Engler team knew early on that they wanted to foster a culture around helping people build entrepreneurial skills, rather than just helping startup businesses.

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“We came to the realization that our mission is to invest in people. We exist to embolden our people to courageously pursue their purpose through the art and practice on entrepreneurship,” Field said.

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After establishing the framework and starting the program, Field and the Engler staff began to notice an apparent difference between the men and women in the program.

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“Guys were launching companies faster than women, and yet there was no talent discrepancy...it wasn’t like there was a reason for that,” Field said.

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The staff began researching through blind surveys from women in the program to gain insight on why women were not launching their businesses as fast as the men in the program. They began seeing a pattern surrounding confidence and imposter syndrome.

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“A lot of women in our program were struggling with Imposter Syndrome and struggling with multiple voices in their heads. Voices about being a spouse, being a mom, not taking risks, staying closer to home etcetera,” Field said. “None of those voices were put in their heads because people were trying to limit them, they were voices of socialization.”

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After discovering the problem, Field and his team instantly got to work on launching a women’s initiative within the program to promote and support the women in the program. This initiative included the introduction of ‘Brave Conversations Over Coffee’ where women in the program could come together and share their experiences with one another.

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“One of our students, Cheyanne Gerlach, had been to a conference and had encountered a consultant who was really good at empowering and helping young women empower themselves for the rigors of entrepreneurship,” Field said. “We met Elizabeth and we loved her system and ‘Brave Conversations’ became part of our mantra. We started to invest resources to bring really smart women into the network of women here and create a community where women could find that common ground.”

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Since launching their women’s initiative, Field has seen a confidence improvement among the women in the program.

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“As we have watched that, it has been really fun because there is a lot more supporting nature, and in the leadership in our program, the women are really stepping up,” Field said.

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Through all the challenges and successes the Engler program has experienced, Field and his team are extremely happy with the growth of the program and look forward to watching where the program goes in the future.

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“There hasn’t been a single day, not one, since I took this opportunity on, that I woke up and said ‘I don’t want to go to work today’. Every single day we come here to fight for this community,” Field said.