We were delighted to read your article [“The Biz: Carland Academy’s Lessons for Area Entrepreneurs,” Oct. 31] highlighting Jim and JoAnn Carland’s new academy and their life’s work as visionary educators in entrepreneurship.
We are graduates of the first cohort of their award-winning Masters of Entrepreneurship program at Western Carolina University. We signed up for their ME program simply because we were fascinated by the Carlands’ take on entrepreneurship and were captivated by them as educators. After years in nonprofits and human-service work, we are some of the converts they mentioned who originally thought business was a dirty word. Starting a business was not our goal, but rather a distant possibility that was intriguing to us.
Our serendipitous discovery of a revolutionary biofeedback pain-relief technology from Russia, however, changed things drastically for us. (For more about our story, please see www.wnc-woman.com/0106healing.html). With the help of the Carlands and our classmates, we opened a business four months before we graduated. After three years, we have a business we love and can’t imagine a more wonderful way of life than entrepreneurship.
Congratulations to the Carlands on their new academy. To those of you who might be interested, we urge you to check it out; it can change your life!
— Kathy Austin and Penny Bond
Healing Innovations of Asheville, Inc.
Arden
