How it started
After two years on the task force that designed the Innovation Incubator at California State University, Dominguez Hills, I became its faculty founder and the first chair of its advisory board (2017–2019), and its vice chair after that. I helped write the job description for the executive director, then recruited and onboarded the first two, Gary Polk and David Ochi. In September 2026 I became the Incubator’s interim faculty director.
Every Friday morning I trained, coached, and mentored two cohorts of twenty clients starting and growing their businesses. They learned to finance their ideas, find their first employees, and build a marketing plan. Our students worked beside the founders, so both learned.
Give people access and a mentor, and they do remarkable things.
Stories
On Ellen
El Machete 1924
Oscar Ochoa, a former CSUDH staff member, built a small-batch hot sauce company that landed on The Ellen DeGeneres Show, on the Today Show's list of Latino-owned food brands, and on KCET.
Video series
Empowering Social Entrepreneurs
A 2018 series with Incubator clients and mentors, including Gary Polk, on what it takes to build a business that serves a community.
Growth
Small Business Growth Academy
Carson celebrated the first graduates of the Incubator's academy for established small businesses.
Awards
Sunstone Innovation Challenge
The Incubator hosted the Sunstone awards, which distributed $200,000 to student entrepreneurs across CSU campuses.
Competition
Arevon AIRE
The Arevon Applied Innovation Renewable Energy (AIRE) Competition is the Incubator’s signature partnership with Arevon. Student teams from CSUDH and local community colleges pitch the best community application of renewable energy, for financial and social benefit. The 2025 competition awarded first, second, and third prizes of $15,000, $10,000, and $5,000. The spring 2027 date will be announced.
Mentoring
The Aptus Group
Cinthya Vodanovich came through the Incubator with me as her mentor. In 2018–19 alone she added five employees and two interns and grew her client list 20 percent; Aptus is now a multi-million-dollar business. She hired Yari, a student from my HRM class, and together we wrote a case on Aptus that won the 2026 Best Case Award from the Western Casewriters Association.
Bootcamp
Alpha Start
The Incubator's flagship: a ten-week course compressed into a one-day, six-hour bootcamp, with AI tools that draft the first branding and website. Eleven steps from idea to first sale, free to students. In 2024–25, 110 students came through fourteen sessions, and cohorts now run in South Korea and Colombia. Since fall 2026 it meets on Fridays while classes are in session (except fall and spring break, finals week, and commencement) as a working session built on Alpha Start: The First Inning Workbook, a ten-page founder’s workbook on the four bases of the DART Diamond.
Related
- CSUDH Innovation Incubator, the program's official site
- heartrepreneurship.com, the Incubator-aligned community site
- Faculty advisor, Toro Entrepreneur Society; Entrepreneurial Lead, NSF I-Corps at UW–Madison, Fall 2025
- Board member, CSUDH Toro Auxiliary Partners