Zachary Davis, a 2009 GreenMBA graduate from Dominican University of California in San Rafael, and his business partner Kendra Baker, sat in the first lady’s box last night during President Obama’s State of the Union address. 

The two are founders of the The Penny Ice Creamery in Santa Cruz. Davis credits the program and professors at Dominican University of California for this once in a lifetime experience.

A graduate of the University of Washington, when Davis learned that Dominican was acquiring the trademarked GreenMBA program and was going to offer an MBA in Sustainable Enterprise, he felt it would be the perfect fit. 

“The business plan for the ice cream shop started at Dominican.” Davis told me via phone Monday night before his trip to D.C.  “I can’t say enough good things about Dominican and the program. I have to give credit to John Stayton and the ‘Strategic Enterprise Planning Program’ and Jon Ragatz who was also my mentor and instructor.” After consulting with Baker, Davis created a Capstone that was molded into a 75 page business plan and eventually presented to a bank.

“I felt prepared,” he said. “We hit the ground running. I had no formal training in food. My expertise was in marketing, finance and operations. Kendra’s was in food.” 

The Penny Ice Creamery opened in August 2010. In early November, Davis filmed a You Tube video (on his iPhone) in which he and Baker thanked the Obama administration and key politicians for its federal stimulus package.  The video shows how the SBA Recovery Act funding had allowed them to open the shop, hire 11 people, purchase American made equipment and contract local workers for the design and construction of the shop.  

By November 17, the 2-minute-23-second video had gotten so many hits that it resulted in a phone call from Vice President Joe Biden and talk of a future trip to the White House.   

“For us,” said Davis, “that call from the Vice President was plenty. The invitation to attend the State of the Union came out of the blue.” There were a total of twenty four guests in Mrs. Obama's box last night. Davis’ wife Brooke and Kendra’s husband Nick Dallant accompanied them to the White House reception.      

“This is a social issue, not a political issue. It’s neither Democrat nor Republican," Davis said. “We want to live the American dream and work hard to create a nice life for ourselves and our families. We are a small business which is the core of our economy. Small businesses are what will drive us out of the recession and get the economy back on track. They recognized part of our business is that we have sustainable business practices. We are green. We support the local economy. We buy ingredients from local farmers.   

“At the very minimum, we hope our story will inspire other folks with dreams to start putting those in place. My dream began at Dominican.” 

Before they left, Davis said, "We only found out about this a week ago. We will be back in the shop on Wednesday.”  But the memory will last forever.

I received an email from Davis sent at 1:30 a.m., Wednesday, Eastern Standard Time. I had asked if he would be willing to share his thoughts on the day and the President’s speech. Here they are:    

“It’s not yet set in enough to reflect, but I can say two things. First, it really resonated with me when he talked about the importance of having a government that lives within its means. As I learned early on in the GreenMBA at Dominican, if you're paying out more than you're taking in, you are not running a sustainable business. Second, as exhausting as it can be to run a small business, it put a lot of things in perspective to shake the hand of the President of the United States. Regardless of your political affiliation I think we can all agree that he has a job of tremendous responsibility and meeting him really motivated me to get back to the shop and keep working to make it the best, most responsible and most sustainable business I can.’