Assistant Professor, Special Purpose
Management, Dept of
Kyle Hall 366
Box
I am an educator, entrepreneur, intrapreneur, executive, consultant, and engineer with more than 40 years of experience at six universities, including leading two entrepreneurship centers, starting up eight new ventures as an entrepreneur and intrapreneur, and as an executive and consultant in turn-around, merger/acquisition, integration, strategic change, and performance improvement contexts in a wide range of organizations.
I served as the inaugural Chief Operating Officer of the University of Wyoming Institute of Innovation and Entrepreneurship, establishing the strategy and more than a dozen programs for the institute, engaging the business community, and supporting entrepreneurship and innovation across the campus and state. I led as Director the redesign/repositioning of the Duquesne University entrepreneurship curriculum and program, developing a vision and strategy, revising the curriculum and all courses, redesigning or developing numerous cocurricular programs, developing the Center for Excellence in Entrepreneurship, and engaging my students and myself actively in the regional startup, investor, and business communities.
I founded 8 professional services and information technology businesses as an intrapreneur (within a larger organization) and entrepreneur, raised venture capital for one, led three to acquisitions, and founded a subsidiary of a professional services firm to port parent engineering, maintenance, supply, training, and other capabilities to the energy industry. I developed and managed directly or indirectly via managers more than $100 million in energy, environmental, and engineering professional services and information technology business, new products/services, and markets, more than 1000 projects ranging from $1000s to $10 million for 100s of national multiple facility or utility clients.
I turned around as president a public 350-employee, $50 million energy/environmental professional services and information technology company, returning it to profitability and redoubling share value in two quarters.
I led two dozen successful strategic consulting engagements in organizations of 1000 to 20,000 employees under direct sponsorship of executives such as chairman, president, and senior vice president during turnarounds, mergers, acquisitions, integration, and enterprise information system implementation and recovery projects. I facilitated as consultant the development of corporate energy/environmental programs for 10 national multiple facility companies
I enjoy outdoor activities. I run 20 miles per week and row in scull (single shell) on the lake on which I live. I have bare boat chartered and sailed sailboats all over the United States: San Juan Islands in Washington, Apostle Islands in Lake Superior, New England coast, west and east coasts of Florida, across the Florida straits to the Bahamas, and throughout the Caribbean—US and British Virgin Islands, St. Barts, St. Martin, and Anguilla.
ScD and MS, Engineering, MIT, Cambridge, MA
MS, Management, Sloan School of Management, Cambridge, MA
Sloan Fellow, Sloan School of Management
BS, US Naval Academy, Annapolis, MD
My areas of research focus are
· Root causes of startup failure and implications for entrepreneurship education,
· Employments and workforce economics in the knowledge economy,
· Entrepreneurship in technical professional services, and
· Entrepreneurship education and pedagogy.
Current research in progress is
Mason, J. H, and Mason, C. J. (2025), Application of Generative AI to Map Entrepreneur Experience into Education accepted as an emerging research paper for the USASBE annual meeting in 2025. Targeting ultimately the International Journal of Entrepreneurship Behavior and Research. The article explores the application of generative artificial intelligence (GAI) to the development of entrepreneurship education curricula.
Historical and Emerging Workforce Challenges:
Will Knowledge Work Go the Way of Blue-Collar Work? The article suggests a more sophisticated model of the workforce advanced finance, including options, derivatives, futures, and hedging in energy commodities, and graduate seminar on the energy industry and technology.
I am currently or will be teaching
MGNT 101 Introduction to Business and Entrepreneurship (Fall 2025),
ENTR 250 Entrepreneurship and Innovation(Fall 2025, Spring 2026), and
ENTR350 New Venture Creation{Spring 2026).
Selected publications are
Mason, J. Entrepreneurship in knowledge-based services: opportunity for accelerated new business, economic, and workforce development, Journal of Business Venturing Insights. 10, e92; https://doi.org/10.1016/j.jbvi.2018.e00092.
Mason, J. Innovation in professional services: potential productivity and trade improvement, Technological Forecasting and Social Change 42, 31-45; https://doi.org/10.1016/0040-1625(92)90071-Z
Mason, J. and Siqueira, C.O., Addressing the challenges of future entrepreneurship education: an assessment of textbooks for teaching entrepreneurship, Innovative Pathways for University Entrepreneurship in the 21st Century, Advances in the Study of Entrepreneurship, Innovation, and Economic Growth (ASEIEG) Volume 24, May 2014; https://www.emerald.com/insight/content/doi/10.1108/s1048-473620140000024002/full/html.
Mason, J., and Hornsby, J. Autopsy: Postmortem analysis of the root causes of 105 failed startups, (competitive paper), Proceedings of USASBE 2019 Annual Conference, St. Pete Beach, FL, 151-158; https://drive.google.com/file/d/1A3gyOQ50ZQr3mx_LzlFQqW6x-R4JGsCS/view.
Mason, J. Entrepreneurship in knowledge-based services: Opportunity and challenges for new venture, economic, and workforce development, (competitive paper), Proceedings of USASBE 2019 Annual Conference, St. Pete Beach, FL, 142-150; https://drive.google.com/file/d/1F-uYiUbvVwR---yAXITcGpfjp4T0DROJ/view.