About 170 College of Business students packed into the FSU Champions Club at Doak Campbell Stadium today as the 27th annual Real Estate TRENDS Conference got underway with an afternoon of networking and career advice from top industry professionals.

It includes faculty and staff members who help College of Business students get their career goals in order. It features alumni and business executives who offer participation in networking events and other opportunities. It even boasts liaisons who point students to comprehensive assistance at the FSU Career Center. The Center for Professional Success offers those direct services and more -- now housing under one roof programs and amenities that the College of Business had provided separately.

Danny Persaud remembers the day he became a builder of businesses and uplifter of people. He was 7 years old and on the street with his family of five, who months earlier had immigrated to the U.S. from Guyana, in northern South America. He recalled the despair, uncertainty and biting chill of that winter night. “That’s when an entrepreneur was born,” he said. “The look I saw in my parents’ faces, especially my mom’s, I vowed that day we would never go hungry. We would have everything we wanted. I would make it happen, whatever it took.”

Wendy Clark asked for a show of hands. “Anyone in the room ever been underestimated?” she asked. Dozens of hands went up. “Yes, we all have been,” she said, and she emphasized the anger it elicits. “It is ‘game on’ when somebody underestimates you,” Clark said. “So do not get angry. Do not get dispirited. Someone has lowered the bar for you in their underestimation, and now you are going to crush it.”

When it comes to diversity, equity and inclusion in the workplace, focus on company policies and don’t try to "boil the ocean."

Brett Lindquist recalled a high-energy experience as a student athlete at Florida State University, majoring in finance and real estate while competing for four years on the men’s swimming team. Four decades later, he could help make another splash at FSU.

College of Business alumnus and real estate entrepreneur Benjamin S. Macfarland III knows the value of a war room, and that’s why he has made his second significant gift to Florida State University – this one for $200,000.

You might liken gifts to name classrooms in Legacy Hall – the future home of the College of Business – to a baseball announcer calling a home run. They’re going, going … and almost gone.

The Florida State University College of Business kept its place among the top business schools in the country with a No. 1 ranking among all schools for its Dr. William T. Hold/The National Alliance Program in Risk Management and Insurance and a No. 5 ranking among public schools for its Real Estate program.

Inspired by the desire to reciprocate all he has received from the Florida State University College of Business, alumnus Jay Steele (BS Accounting ’90; JD Emory University ’94) recently gifted $100,000 to his alma mater.  The donation will go toward naming a room in Legacy Hall, the college’s new home.