Wayne State College’s first ever CatCHAT, featuring Scott Mueller, took place last week on Wednesday, April 2, providing Mueller’s insights for aspiring technology and business majors.
The event was hosted in Gardner Hall on Wednesday of last week. Mueller was there to offer his advice through the story of his business, Samson LLC, to the technology and business students of WSC.
According to the WSC website, “CatCHAT is a new series developed by Wayne State’s School of Business and Technology. It is designed to inspire and empower future leaders to stay in Northeast Nebraska, start businesses, and help the greater community prosper.”
Mueller is the owner and operator of Samson LLC in Columbus. He earned his master’s degree in business administration from WSC and his bachelor’s degree in animal science from the University of Nebraska-Lincoln. Mueller founded Samson in 1986 to serve producers by building innovative and sustainable agricultural systems. His success has rejuvenated downtown Columbus businesses and raised $1.7 million towards cancer research and health initiatives.
The main idea of Mueller’s presentation was to keep trying, even in the face of failure.
“I’m reminded back to the story about a man who struggled all his life,” He said during his presentation. “He struggled all his life, lost jobs, started businesses, lost his businesses, he kept failing and failing and failing. And finally, he hit sixty-five years of age, got his first check from the government for social security and he got angry, and he opened a restaurant and became Kentucky Fried Chicken.”
That wasn’t the only takeaway from the speech, however. After interviewing a few students in attendance that afternoon, a few of them had other takeaways from Muller’s speech.
“My biggest takeaway was that mistakes are okay to make,” Aiden Riddle, a student in attendance said. “It’s good to learn from your mistakes as you learn and grow.”
“Sometimes, as an entrepreneur, you need to take risks,” Luz Cabrera, another student at WSC said. “You could gain something really good from it.”
Wayne State will be hosting another CatCHAT sometime in the near future, and WSC alumni would like to extend their thanks to Scott Mueller for his insights.
Anyone looking to watch the recorded event can do so at https://vimeo.com/waynestatecollege.