The Thomas J. & Bette Wolff Family Program in Entrepreneurship

An initiative of the Connecticut Center for Entrepreneurship & Innovation (CCEI)

The Wolff Family Program in Entrepreneurship exists to bring successful entrepreneurs into contact with the University's students. The program sponsors an undergraduate course entitled "Entrepreneurship & Venture Management" and an annual Business Plan Competition where MBA students enrolled in a business plan writing course are chosen to compete for cash prizes totaling $10,000, with the first place winner receiving $5,000. The courses and events sponsored for more than a decade by the Wolff Entrepreneurship Program provide a continuing forum for discussing the role of free enterprise in our economy and to expose budding entrepreneurs to successful business role models.

The Wolff program also sponsors an endowed chair position awarded in April 2000, to Professor Michael H. Lubatkin, who now serves as the Thomas John & Bette Wolff Family Chair in Strategic Entrepreneurship.

Thomas J. Wolff ('56)

The Wolff Program is funded from a generous endowment and annual gift from one of UConn's most distinguished alumni, Thomas J. Wolff, his wife, Bette and their children, Debra, Gary and Greg. A 1956 UConn cum laude economics graduate, Thomas Wolff is a salesman, entrepreneur, lecturer and educator who qualified for 32 consecutive years in The Million Dollar Round Table. He is founder of Wolff-Zackin & Associates, an all-lines insurance agency. Past president of the Hartford, Connecticut and National Association of Life Underwriters, he was selected by Leader’s Magazine as one of the 20 most outstanding insurance salesmen in the world. Recipient of the industry’s highest honor, the John Newton Russell Award, and the Bickley Founder’s Medal, he has authored several books on capital and financial needs analyses and asset management. Mr. Wolff has received UConn’s 25th University Medal, the Distinguished Alumni Award and the UConn Club’s Outstanding Contribution Award, he was inducted into Beta Gamma Sigma, and he was named Southern New England’s Entrepreneur of the Year. He has been an active participant in the School of Business, serving on its Board of Overseers. As a family, the Wolff’s stand among the University’s top donors, with the Wolff Family Program in Entrepreneurship representing their signature endowment.