During high school in Troy, Missouri, Kummer Vanguard Scholar Dawson Jeffers launched his own business — three of them, actually — and he signed up for every STEM course his school offered.
“I fell in love with the design process,” says Jeffers, a sophomore in engineering management with an emphasis in mechanical engineering. “That’s how I knew I wanted to be an engineer.”
Jeffers says falling in love with design coincided with the realization that he’s an entrepreneur.
“I’m a weird culmination of interests and hobbies,” he says. “I’m pretty creative. Rather than following the rules I prefer pushing boundaries. And I love to sell.”
Jeffers began an online store selling wallets he’d made of duct tape. It didn’t generate a single sale, but it taught him about branding. Then, as a sophomore, he created 3D-printed lenticular name plates that displayed different images at different angles.
“I was selling them, but at a terrible profit margin,” Jeffers says. “I ended up paying off my product, but I knew I needed to do something else.”
True to the adage “necessity is the mother of invention,” Jeffers’ third business focused on accessories for the red, 1995 Mazda Miata he bought his junior year with money he’d earned working at Dairy Queen.
“It was so much fun to drive, even though there was not a good spot for a cup holder or a phone,” he says.
Jeffers created a mobile phone holder that attaches to the console and positions the phone to charge using the cigarette lighter. After a considerable amount of research, including buying and taking apart existing products, he introduced a wireless charging pad. That was followed by a device that can hold a cup on either side of the console.
“It took a while to develop the prototypes, but once I did, I posted on the Miata group’s Facebook page and Facebook Marketplace, and it blew up,” he says.
His first year in business, Jeffers made $1,500 in revenue and won a STEM design competition. He and his business partner used the prize money to invest in two more printers and opened an Etsy shop.
Jeffers says that one of the biggest benefits of attending Missouri S&T is meeting and working with other students who have similar goals. Many of his friends also want to launch a business of their own.
And thanks in large part to the program’s entrepreneurial core, being a Kummer Vanguard Scholar is central to Jeffers’ experience of S&T.
“The program makes getting involved mandatory, and it’s good,” he says. “Success is possible, but it’s not easy, and that’s why you should come here. You can’t become exceptional without doing difficult things.”