About Cal Tingey, MBA
Born with a strong entrepreneurial spirit, I started my first official business at age 14 selling cans of mace to the coeds at Arizona State University. While still a youth, I had several other businesses including a paper route and buying, fixing up, and reselling cars. I had the good fortune to be individually tutored by a business professor and entrepreneur (my father) who allowed me to attend his business meetings, to sit at the dinner table when his guest speakers came to our house, and to meet many business owners who had both failed and succeeded at their entrepreneurial endeavors.
After graduating with my MBA, I continued to pursue entrepreneurial activities. A short time later, a successful entrepreneur took me under his wing with this business proposition, “You provide the sweat-equity and I’ll provide the money.” Mr. Jerry Wisotsky provided the next step in my entrepreneurial education as we worked together to build two very successful businesses.
My entrepreneurial adventures have taken me many interesting places. I have shared my expertise with government agencies, community colleges, service companies, cutting edge industries, health care facilities, power plants, Native American governments, construction companies, unions, school districts, county development groups, and many, many more.
When my wife and I decided to have children, I tried my hand at a “steady, safe, and secure” venture at a community college. I was in charge of Business and Industry Training and the Small Business Development Center. While I enjoyed the specific job duties of working with small businesses and seeing them succeed, I missed the pace, excitement and challenge of small business. After five years, I left the college to pursue small businesses success once again. I have never looked back!
Small business is my passion. I have tasted the pain of failure and I have enjoyed the thrill of success that comes with being an entrepreneur. I love sharing my expertise and watching others as that entrepreneurial flame ignites within them and they too, become passionate about what they do.
The American Dream is real, it’s achievable, and it’s waiting for each of us to pursue and enjoy. It takes effort, but the rewards can be enormous.
The National Commission on Entrepreneurship Provides an Unintended Endoursement of Cal Tingey, MBA
The five year period mentioned in this article where Farmington, NM ranked 1st in development of companies that showed 75 to 100 percent growth was the same five years I was in charge of the Small Business Development Center in Farmington.
You see, the things I was teaching these entrepreneurs worked. The information I shared with them is the same information that I’m sharing with you on this site.
An Entrepreneur's Rise From the Ashes
Cal Tingey, the winner of Principal’s Defining Moments contest, shares what he ultimately gained after losing everything as a young business owner.
A Guest Speaker at the INC 5000 Conference
Cal spoke to the CEO’s of the INC 500 at an invitation only luncheon at the INC 5000 Conference. He took his children with him – both are also entrepreneurs.