In a career that started on the streets and has now turned to academia, Jeff Brice, Jr. has run his own film production company, headed a construction business, and worked on job-development with ex-convicts and welfare mothers. As an affordable housing developer, he recalls, "We'd go into drug-infested properties, kick out the dealers, and then get grants to get the buildings rehabbed."

The rough side of life was all-too-familiar territory to Jeff Brice as a young man. After a difficult childhood, he enrolled as an undergraduate at Tuskegee University. What his classmates and professors did not know was that he was homeless. For three years, he lived in a graveyard. Then he landed a job in a campus dormitory - it provided room and board. Following an entrepreneurial road upon graduating, Dr. Brice became a music video producer "without even knowing what a producer was. I had no experience in films, but I found out that you could put a crew together for $25,000, make a video in two weeks, and get $100,000 for it. I saw an opportunity and I took it." A thriving business in creating videos for 80s-era rock groups ensued. But he moved on to other fields, because "I got tired of it…. I only do things that interest me."

Eventually, what interested him was studying business at the graduate level. That in turn sparked the young entrepreneur's interest in teaching college: "Everything in the MBA program was corporate. My expertise was how to get access to capital from different sources, like grants. I thought I could bring to the classroom a more realistic view of how to build a business. My contribution could be to provide a more practical application of things."

Today, Dr. Jeffrey Brice teaches entrepreneurship at Hofstra University, where he is on faculty.

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