Failure can be a critical part of success, according to Louisville Mayor Jerry Abramson

"Entrepreneurs don't always hit home runs," he told an audience in the Horn Auditorium. "But that doesn't mean you're a bum—just try to get on base and go from there."

In an event sponsored by the re-energized MBA Association, multi-term Mayor Abramson kicked off the college's new Leadership Lecture Series with a dialogue about the challenges of leading a city through merger and beyond.

"You focus on the satisfaction of bringing about positive change and making a difference," he told an audience of 120 persons. "Find a project, an industry or a business you have a passion for and become a leader."

The mayor also discounted an oft-repeated goal for cited for city administrators.

"You can't run government like a business because it's not a business," he said. "But you can apply principles successful businesses use."

He said U of L's success in drawing and retaining quality students was a major requirement to the city reaching its potential.

"The better this university is, the more opportunities we create for people to stay here and do extraordinary things," he said. "That doesn't always mean making a lot of money."

Abramson said merger at times left him feeling like Noah. "I had two of everything, and 200 years of ‘we've always done it this way,'" he said. "But in working through the details, we're creating a city and quality of life that are unique."

In detailing the city's success in dealing with potholes, he admitted the process wasn't without failure.

"We're still negotiating with the state to fill holes in state roads that run through the city," he said. "It should be as simple as them paying us for each square of asphalt we put down, but we're still working out a deal, 2 ˝ years later."

He also suggested the job of leadership doesn't come with a time clock.

"I always take a scrap of paper and a pencil with me when I go to Krogers," he said. "Everybody in the store has a question or an idea. That's the job."

Following the mayor's remarks, MBAA officers discussed the organization's networking goals and invited all prospective and current graduate students, as well as alumni, to join the organization and participate in its activities (http://business.louisville.edu/mbaassociation )

 

Additional Leadership Lecture Series events will be scheduled during lunch hours and prior to evening classes. With few exceptions they will be free and open to the public. For upcoming event information, visit http://business.louisville.edu .