Hogan Davidson

Entrepreneurial Capstone

April 23, 2019

Reflection on Bill Cummings

Summary

Bill Cummings went from a humble beginning in a frugal home to a billion-dollar philanthropist.
Bill was born in Somerville, MA on March 11, 1937 (Cummings, 2018, pg. 3). In his early life he lived in a
one bed room apartment above businesses. He started an afternoon ice cream business while he was a
student at Robert’s Junior High (Cummings, 2018, pg. 14). This early business proved invaluable and
gave him some experience and helped him hone his “street smarts.” Next, he worked at a movie store
and then an ice cream shop. He had great entrepreneurial experience even at a young age. Another
valuable learning tool was he would buy and sell used boats out of his backyard with his dad. With this
he learned about the importance of negotiating and finishing the sale. Bill attended Tufts University. At
the end of his first year at tough he won a national award as Tufts University’s 1955 Outstanding Air
Force Cadet of the Year (Cummings, 2018, pg. 23). His first job was a sales job with the Vick Chemical
Company. His next adventure was at Gorton’s of Gloucester, Inc., where me managed the marketing of a
new liquid fish fertilizer (Cummings, 2018, pg. 43). His career really hit off and he made his wealth from
supplying fruit punch dispensers to colleges and hospitals. He felt like he hit the market at the perfect
time and there was an aspect of luck to it. His fortunes grew due to substantial holdings in real estate.
He founded his real estate company in 1970 known as Cummings Properties. It grew to 11 million square
feet in size. This led to him being a billion-dollar philanthropist. This is what he is most proud of.

His wife Joyce and Bill started the Cummings Foundation in 1986 to give back to the community
and others less fortunate. The Cummings foundation’s first $100,000 gift was made to the Woburn Boys
Club (Cummings, 2018, pg. 193). His biggest philanthropist effort was a $50 million-dollar commitment
to help the Cummings School of Veterinary Medicine at Tufts University (Cummings, 2018, pg. 194). In
2012 the foundation started “100k for 100” program which gives 100 grants of $100k yearly. As of 2018
the foundation has donated more than $225 million dollars to charitable efforts.

Opinion

My personal opinion of Bill is that he comes off a little egotistic and self-centered. While his
contributions are astronomical and has done a lot of help to countless numbers of individuals and
organizations, I feel that he feels like he is better than everyone else. Maybe he is, it really is remarkable
what he has done. The reason I feel this way is because of his talk he had with our school at Daniels
Auditorium. In this talk it felt like he just listed off all his accomplishments and didn’t provide much
information to us listeners that we could use to try and better ourselves. He was more saying, look what
I’ve done, and look at all of these different businesses and buildings that are named after me. There was
a question that was asked him at this talk where Bill was asked what his greatest failure was. He replied
that he couldn’t think of a failure in his life. I found this kind of remarkable, that through his whole life
he felt that there was nothing he ever did that turned out to be negative or a learning lesson. Who
knows, he might be a perfect person with no failures, but I find that kind of hard to believe. He could
have also been just put on the spot and couldn’t have thought of a failure at that immediate time. It
didn’t help that his book was an absolute bore. I tried my best to finish the book start to finish but it just
ended up putting me to sleep every night.

EPS Concepts

The first EPS concept I wanted to highlight was the importance of self-confidence. Bill said that
the most successful entrepreneurs that he knows almost always demonstrate self confidence
(Cummings, 2018, pg. 55). This concept was apparent in my Sales and Marketing for Entrepreneurs
Class. In this class we were tasked with selling something to the class. Those that were confident in their
delivery and the product they were selling resulted in more interest and attention than those who were
shy and more reserved. To be an entrepreneur you have to be able to sell your product and convince the
buyer.

The next EPS concept I wanted to highlight was how charitable donations and philanthropy
associate with entrepreneurship. I felt that with his book and his speak this was the main topic that was
being discussed and I wanted to incorporate it with what I learned here at Nichols. Obviously, owning
your own business you have more flexibility and decision power to be able to donate to charitable
causes. I learned in my Business Finance for Entrepreneurs class a charitable donation is a tax write off.
Being an entrepreneur, this is beneficial because you can help a charity but also save money on tax
expenses at the same time.

The last EPS concept I want to highlight is perseverance. Like I mentioned a little in the
summary, Bill had a frugal beginning. His parents didn’t have a lot of money and he lived through the
great depression. His parents let him sleep in the bedroom of the one-bedroom apartment he rented.
He persevered in his early life and worked numerous jobs to get to the amazing point to where he is
now. Success didn’t happen over night he had to persevere and put in the hard work along the way. In
my Entrepreneurial Management class, we went over the hard work and sleepless nights that often
accompany an entrepreneur. Running your own business is hard and it isn’t for everyone. 1/3 of small
businesses fail in the first 5 years and you have to be ready to put in blood, sweat, and tears to make
your dreams a reality and succeed when you are running your own business.
 References

Cummings, B. (2018). Starting Small and making it big An entrepreneurs journey to billion-dollar

philanthropist. King Publishing.