Life on Campus
To say Michael Emery (’12, College of Management) loves to get out on the water would be an understatement. This surfer has been riding waves since he was 5 years old.
“I can’t even tell you how many hours, countless hours, that I’ve spent thinking about surfing, actually surfing, reading about it, studying shapes, studying professional surfers – all that kind of stuff,” Emery, who is from landlocked Haverhill, Massachusetts, says. “I thought, what would I like to do with my life? I’d like to travel the world and surf the best waves in the world, so how do I do that?”
Thanks in part to the College of Management and its Entrepreneurship Center, Emery is doing that: He is now the CEO of his own eco-friendly surfboard company, Green Lightning.
Emery and his business partner, Kevin Schoenthaler (’12, College of Management) of Derry, New Hampshire, won the Entrepreneurship Center’s first business launch startup competition in 2011. Emery met Schoenthaler in an entrepreneurship class at Essex Community College in Haverhill, and, after winning an entrepreneurship competition there, the two enrolled at UMass Boston.
“I remember being 14, 15 years in high school and thinking, I’m going to move out to California and start a surf shop,” Emery says. “I never really made progress toward doing anything about it until I came to UMass Boston. It really gave me the structure and guidance to actually set up a business because as a CEO; you have to do everything.”
Emery says the mentorship available in the College of Management, in addition to the networking opportunities available in a city like Boston, have reinforced his decision to ride the waves at UMass Boston.
And, he says, it also helps to be close to the water.
