Air Force grads take lessons to market.

• Author: LAINSON, SUZANNE
• Position: Alumni personal narratives - Brief Article

ACADEMY PRIMES CADETS FOR ENTREPRENEURIAL CHALLENGE

THE AIR FORCE ACADEMY DOESN'T bill itself as a training ground for future entrepreneurs, but it has produced its share.

What does the academy have to offer business?

I decided to find out by talking to alumni.

TRIAL BY FIRE. Bill Coleman, founder/chairman/CEO of BEA, the huge San Jose software company, said, "At the academy we used to call all the pain 'character building,' but without it I would not have developed the focus and drive it takes to build and run a global enterprise."

Bill Stealey, a computer game pioneer who now runs ITParade.com, a North Carolina information technology equipment exchange, puts it this way: "The academy was so tough," he says, "that being an entrepreneur is easy."

MULTITASKING. Jim LeJeal, who co-founded what is now Louisville-based Raindance Communications with another academy graduate, Paul Berberian, notes, "The academy's broad education prepared me -- in ways too numerous to mention -- for the diverse set of circumstances being an entrepreneur has tossed my way."

John Morrison, managing partner of the Edison Venture Fund in New Jersey, earned an MS and an MBA. But academics were only part of his Air Force education. "In retrospect, the military and athletic programs provided a longer-term impact," he says. "Team building, multitasking, endurance, and self discipline contributed to my ongoing 25-year career as a venture capitalist, investing in over 150 private technology businesses. Most of all, I learned to be decisive and goal oriented."

ETHICS. "At the Air Force Academy the honor code was always foremost in your mind -- 'I will not lie, steal or cheat nor tolerate those around me that do.' You live it every day. It becomes second nature, says John Daly, COO and co-founder of InFlow, a co-location provider based in Denver.

"I wouldn't consider anything else because it's so ingrained, and too complicated to do otherwise," Daly says. "The biggest surprise was finding that in the business world honesty really is a differentiator."

TAKING ACTION. "The academy taught me...