By Jared M. Swain
Baltimore Watchdog Staff Writer
The keynote speaker at the 2016 Black Student Leadership Conference urged about 90 Towson University students Friday to get out of their comfort zones, do their best and never limit themselves by asking “how am I going to pay for it.”
Sherman Ragland II – the founder, president and CEO of Tradewinds International Holdings, Ltd. – also said students should pay attention to what is happening around them, adding that “if you learn how to play the game, you’ll get in the game.”
Quoting from the poet Maya Angelou, Ragland said: “Do the best you can until you know better. Then, when you know better, do better.”
Throughout the speech at Towson’s West Village Commons, Ragland used personal reflection and his high school and Towson University experiences to map out how he found himself becoming an entrepreneur.
Ragland said he began his undergraduate career as a music major at Towson, saying he worked three jobs and went on what he called “a five-year degree plan.”
“I thought I was going to be a high school band teacher,” he said. “Excuse me. I knew I was going to be a high school band teacher. And then I realized I didn’t want to be a high school band teacher. It was the scariest day in my life.”
Ragland said he sought advice from his father, who was in attendance at yesterday’s speech. Ragland Sr. told Ragland II two things: “You can be whatever you want to be. The key is to find someone who’s doing what you want to do and go ask them, ‘How’d you do it?’ Second, you need to start inside your own family.”
Ragland said he reached out to a cousin, who inspired him to become a mass communication major. Shortly after changing majors, Ragland said, “a voice” inside his head told him to go to the third-floor of the University Union, where he found himself looking through magazines about minority engineering students.
It was there that he discovered information about MBA fellowships being offered at institutions throughout the country. From that moment, he said, his biggest goal was to get into the Wharton School of Business at the University of Pennsylvania, where he eventually received his MBA in 1986, studying real estate finance and development.
“When the voice says to go somewhere, you don’t argue, you just go,” Ragland joked.
Ragland said he eventually landed an internship with IBM, first selling one typewriter a week and then selling one a day. Exceeding expectations, IBM offered him a full-time position. However, he turned it down to achieve his goal of going to the Wharton School of Business.
“When my mind was made up, it was made up,” Ragland said.
Later, in 1993, he founded Tradewinds International Holdings, Ltd., an investment advisory firm that was responsible for the disposition and privatization of over $21billion in federally owned real estate assets.
Kyaira Gordon, a student at Towson, was astounded by Ragland’s words.
“He just had me thinking,” Gordon said. “I want to open a counseling business after I get my Master’s [degree].He gave me a lot of ideas on how to do that and make money – you know, the entrepreneur’s mentality.”