Businessweek
Flashpoint: Chicago's New Media
College
Media arts
& sciences academy
Howard Tullman
has been one of Chicago's most successful serial entrepreneurs, starting or
taking charge of a dozen companies over the past 25 years. At 63, he's showing
no signs of slacking off. Indeed, he opened his latest business just a year
ago: Flashpoint, the Academy of Media Arts & Sciences. The early numbers
suggest he's got another hit. The two-year vocational college, which focuses on
digital media and design, has a fall enrollment of 360, three times last year's
class, and Chief Executive Tullman predicts it'll double in 2009. Meantime, he
expects revenue to reach $7 million this year, up from $2 million in 2007.
The for-profit
school is tailor-made for the Facebook generation. It features 75,000 square
feet of soundproof recording studios, movie sets, and computer labs. Tullman
and investors spent $16 million to get it up and running. "We teach our
students to understand multiple disciplines and to work collaboratively,"
he says. "Let's say they're going into film. They have to understand
animation; they have to understand sound; they have to understand visual
effects. This doesn't happen at other schools that offer only some of these
disciplines." It isn't cheap, however: Tuition and fees run $25,000 a
year.
Tullman has a
history in for-profit education. He rejuvenated Kendall College by turning it
into a state-of-the-art culinary school. While still Kendall's president, he
founded Experiencia, an outfit that introduces school kids from poor
neighborhoods to real-life jobs. He won a Chicago Innovation Award in 2007 for
that startup.
Howard Wolinsky is a regular contributor to BW
Chicago