2015 Famous Alumni, Glen Laman

Cape Charles, Virginia

Glen Laman

2015 Famous Alumni

Glen Laman's recently published book, Jamaican Entrepreneurship, has put him on the interview and lecture circuit among the Caribbean communities in the USA and Caribbean. The well-received book, which emerged from the doctoral dissertation he wrote while studying at the University of Management and Technology (UMT), examines 15 outstanding Jamaicans and their divergent paths to success.

Dr. Laman's educational journey began as a boy attending classes in open-air schools in rural Jamaica. After coming to America, he was able to complete his bachelor and master's degrees through hard work and scholarships. Ultimately, he became an executive at Coca Cola headquarters in Atlanta. While in Atlanta, he was a founding board member of the Jamaican Chamber of Commerce of Atlanta, and served as the Vice President of Membership. As he approached retirement age, he thought about achieving the pinnacle of education attainment: a doctorate. He enrolled in UMT's Doctor of Business Administration program and found himself immersed in learning how to carry out advanced research in the behavioral sciences.

In selecting a dissertation topic, Dr. Laman turned to a question that had long intrigued him: How is it that poverty-stricken Jamaica, a Small Island Developing State (SIDS), possessed so many independent small business owners who were able to survive and even thrive in a tough economic, political, and social environment? Applying the research methods covered in his doctoral program, Glen addressed this question by interviewing 15 accomplished entrepreneurs to discover what made them tick and carrying out a content analysis of their comments. The result is an original, engaging study of the human side of entrepreneurship in a poor country that identifies systematic factors contributing to entrepreneurial success. The dissertation was so well-written that the UMT faculty urged Laman to publish his findings as a book – which he did.

"Completing a doctorate was the most amazing experience. I had almost given up on the idea and was facing retirement when I stumbled upon UMT's distance education program. It changed my life."