Chew on this: At age 19, Justin Avery Anderson is doing something many in the business world only dream about. The freshman from Houston is an entrepreneur, selling his unique brand of soft granola at specialty stores across Texas.

A year ago Anderson was a high school student marketing an original idea. His efforts earned him recognition as a TCU Texas Youth Entrepreneur of the Year. The award led him to enroll in the Neeley Entrepreneurship Program, where’s he learning to grow the business he began cooking up in his kitchen at age 16.

You might call Anderson’s experience at TCU the ultimate work-study program. Though in existence only six years, the Neeley Entrepreneurship Program, which houses the entrepreneurial management major, the Youth Entrepreneur outreach program and much more, is considered one of the elite entrepreneurship training grounds in the nation. It was named a Top 20 undergraduate entrepreneurship program by both U.S. News & World Report and Entrepreneur Magazine.

For every Anderson, there are dozens more students with no immediate plans to start their own business. Both types can benefit. Program Director David Minor ’80 describes entrepreneurship primarily as a way of thinking. Minor, who founded and built a respected landscaping company, asks TCU’s 500 entrepreneurial management majors to think like a CEO.

“Most won’t start businesses right away,” he says. “So what we’re doing is training them to think entrepreneurially in corporate America. That’s what corporate America wants — entrepreneurial thinkers. I encourage my students to wear the hat of an owner — even if you aren’t the owner.”

From the broad-based Introduction to Entrepreneurship course, to specialized offerings such as Entrepreneurship in the United Kingdom and Technology Entrepreneurship, the entrepreneurial management sequence provides the knowledge and strategy needed to turn an idea into a company.

“I think there are some people who are born entrepreneurs. Others are trained,” says Bill Moncrief, senior associate dean of the business school. “Either way, you have to have the training.”

The course in New Venture Planning is one such tool. Students working individually or in groups must develop detailed business plans outlining a potential venture.

One group developed a plan for an upscale lounge in Dallas/Fort Worth International Airport, where businessmen and women on long layovers could get massages, change clothes or work on spacious desktops. But DFW has few long layovers and is located in a bustling metropolitan area. The plan became more viable when the group targeted Denver’s airport, which is more remote, as its hypothetical market.

The chance to rub elbows with successful business owners accentuates the Neeley edge. According to Minor, students are four times more likely to start a business if they have role models who own a business. So the Collegiate Entrepreneurs Organization Club (CEO!) brings executives of major companies to talk and dine with students.

Chris Schaum, a senior entrepreneurial management major, aspires to run a private jet service that rents out space to traveling corporate executives. He has made conference calls to CEOs of major airliners, bouncing his ideas off of them.

“I say I’m doing a class project, and that allows me to get their expert advice,” Schaum says. “If I were just a guy off the street, I would never be able to get an audience with them.”