{"id":5084876,"date":"2016-06-09T00:00:00","date_gmt":"2016-06-09T04:00:00","guid":{"rendered":"https:\/\/ctlatinonews.com\/graduation-for-16-hispanic-entrepreneurs-in-new-britain\/"},"modified":"2016-06-09T00:00:00","modified_gmt":"2016-06-09T04:00:00","slug":"graduation-for-16-hispanic-entrepreneurs-in-new-britain","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/latinonewsnetwork.com\/ctln\/2016\/06\/09\/graduation-for-16-hispanic-entrepreneurs-in-new-britain\/","title":{"rendered":"Graduation For 16 Hispanic Entrepreneurs In New Britain"},"content":{"rendered":"<h1 class=\"title\"><\/h1>\n<article class=\"article\">\n<div class=\"body-copy column\">\n<div class=\"photo location-top small-thumb service-members p402_hide\">\n<div class=\"photo-area landscape\">\n<em>Katherine Robles receives her graduation certificate from from professor Samuel Irizarry at the Hispanic Business Entrepreneurial Program Graduation at the CCSU Institute of Technology &amp; Business Development.\u00a0\u00a0 Photo Credit: Wesley Bunnell | New Britain Herald\u00a0her with Farmington Bank held\u00a0 on Wednesday June 1st.<\/em>\n<\/div>\n<\/div>\n<p><!-- google survey --><\/p>\n<div class=\"p402_premium premium-container\">\nAs Richard C. Mullins Jr. began calling each graduate to the front of the downtown conference room, so began a commencement ceremony that hadn\u2019t occurred in the city for over a decade.\n<\/div>\n<p><!-- google survey --><\/p>\n<div class=\"ad-position standard\">The 16 graduates, who hailed not only from New Britain but from Stamford, New London, Hartford and beyond, had completed the Hispanic Business Entrepreneurial Program, the only business course taught in Spanish in the state of Connecticut.<\/div>\n<p><!-- google survey --> <!-- google survey --><\/p>\n<div class=\"p402_premium premium-container\">\nDesigned for Latinos who may not have a strong command of the English language, the 10-week course at Central Connecticut State University\u2019s Institute of Technology and Business Development aims to provide a way to tap into a growing population brimming with entrepreneurial ideas, but lacking the tools to turn those ideas into a reality here in the U.S.\n<\/div>\n<p><!-- google survey --> <!-- google survey --><\/p>\n<div class=\"p402_premium premium-container\">\n&#8220;It\u2019s to try to reach the American dream,&#8221; says Samuel Irizarry, an assistant professor of business at Asnuntuck Community College in Enfield who taught the course. &#8220;There are a lot of people who come from other countries who have ideas. They come here with a lot of skills and knowledge, but they may have a language barrier.&#8221;\n<\/div>\n<p><!-- google survey --> <!-- google survey --><\/p>\n<div class=\"p402_premium premium-container\">\nIn several Spanish-speaking countries, becoming an entrepreneur is a way of life for many, he explained.\n<\/div>\n<p><!-- google survey --> <!-- google survey --><\/p>\n<div class=\"p402_premium premium-container\">\n&#8220;You have to be an entrepreneur,&#8221; he said. &#8220;There\u2019s not a lot of employment opportunities.&#8221;\n<\/div>\n<p><!-- google survey --> <!-- google survey --><\/p>\n<div class=\"p402_premium premium-container\">\nIrizarry, who was born in Puerto Rico and came to the U.S. in 1980 at age 9 with his parents, learned English and went on to start his own business consulting service, Irizarry Enterprises, LLC.\n<\/div>\n<p><!-- google survey --> <!-- google survey --><\/p>\n<div class=\"p402_premium premium-container\">\nAlong with teaching the most recent program, Irizarry taught the first Hispanic Business Entrepreneurial Program at CCSU in 2005. The course was the result of a study funded over a decade ago by Joseph Harper, the former vice president of external affairs at CCSU, said Mullins, the executive assistant to the president at CCSU and the director of ITBD. A group including Mullins and Christine Traczyk, who then worked for TD Banknorth, traveled to Lawrence, Mass., a city north of Boston with a large Hispanic population, where a similar class was being taught. Upon their return, the group developed a curriculum with Irizarry for the first class of its kind at CCSU.\n<\/div>\n<p><!-- google survey --> <!-- google survey --><\/p>\n<div class=\"p402_premium premium-container\">\nFast forward 10 years to 2015, when Traczyk, now the executive director of the Farmington Bank Community Foundation, read an article about how virtually no technical assistance is offered in Spanish to Hispanic entrepreneurs.\n<\/div>\n<p><!-- google survey --> <!-- google survey --><\/p>\n<div class=\"p402_premium premium-container\">\n&#8220;Think about it: business concepts aren\u2019t always the most basic things to understand,&#8221; she said. &#8220;It\u2019s a great opportunity to get all of the information in the language that you\u2019re most comfortable with, and really&#8230;..\n<\/div>\n<p><!-- google survey --> <!-- google survey --><\/p>\n<div class=\"p402_premium premium-container\">\n<!-- google survey --><em>To read full story: http:\/\/www.centralctcommunications.com\/newbritainherald\/article_0d02782e-2ab0-11e6-bc84-eb37ba8c89d5.html?mode=jqm<\/em><br \/>\n&nbsp;\n<\/div>\n<\/div>\n<\/article>\n<p>&nbsp;<\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"<p>Katherine Robles receives her graduation certificate from from professor Samuel Irizarry at the Hispanic Business Entrepreneurial Program Graduation at the 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