Only 13 others have earned the U.S. Association for Small Business and Entrepreneurship’s Max J. Wortman Lifetime Achievement Award for Entrepreneurship.

TAMPA – Rebecca J. White, professor of entrepreneurship and director of the John P. Lowth Entrepreneurship Center at the University of Tampa, was recently awarded the U.S.Association for Small Business and Entrepreneurship’s Max J. Wortman Lifetime Achievement Award for Entrepreneurship.

The lifetime achievement award is presented in recognition of a lifetime of entrepreneurial achievement that encompasses the ideals of entrepreneurial activity. Only 13 individuals have previously received the prestigious award.

Heidi Neck, president of USASBE and professor of entrepreneurship at Babson College, said all of the previous award recipients were outstanding.

“But,” she said, “if you look at Rebecca and her body of work to date, you not only see greatness but also boldness, imagination and impact.”

USASBE is the largest, independent, professional, academic organization in the world dedicated to advancing the discipline of entrepreneurship. USASBE is a diverse mix of professionals that share a common commitment to fostering entrepreneurial attitudes and behaviors.

White previously served as a board member and past president of USASBE, was named professor of the year by USASBE’s Women and Minority Special Interest Group and received the USASBE President’s Distinguished Service Award.

“Dr. White demonstrates an uncanny ability to develop and nurture a wide range of students at all stages of their post high-school academic careers as well as their professional careers beyond their terminal degrees,” said Alex DeNoble, professor of marketing at San Diego State University and past president of USASBE.

White joined UT in 2009. Since then she has led the revisions of the undergraduate entrepreneurship curriculum, the development and launch of an M.S. in Entrepreneurship and a wide range of co-curricular educational initiatives in entrepreneurship education through the John P. Lowth Entrepreneurship Center, which is part of UT’s Sykes College of Business. Those programs include opportunities for students through a bio-entrepreneurship partnership with Moffitt Cancer Center, a student pitch program (CREATE) and an entrepreneurship accelerator program for UT students and alumni with startup companies.

Before coming to UT, White served as a professor and director of the Fifth Third Bank Entrepreneurship Institute at Northern Kentucky University, where she built a program that was rated among the nation’s top 25 by the Princeton Review and Entrepreneur magazine. She also began an entrepreneurial business in 2006 that focused on risk mitigation in higher education.

White was a 2004 Ernst and Young Entrepreneur of the Year award winner and was named 2010 Business Woman of the Year in the education category by the Tampa Bay Business Journal. She is also a founder and director of the Women’s Entrepreneurship Institute, an educational program for female entrepreneurs offered jointly with the New York Times.

White currently serves on several boards including NorthStar Bank of Tampa and the Global Consortium of Entrepreneurship Centers.

For more information on USASBE, go to usasbe.org.

For information about the University of Tampa, go to ut.edu.

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