Why I Give: Gifting Inspired by Rudy Lamone’s Tireless Mentorship

Ish Dugal ’05 thinks entrepreneurship is one of the toughest career paths anyone can choose. An entrepreneur himself—having founded private investment firm GoldenArc Capital and co-founded venture capital firm IronArc Ventures—he knows entrepreneurs need a lot of support and nurturing early on to succeed. “Entrepreneurship has no clear definition for what’s possible or a clear track,” he says. “It’s not something you can learn solely in the classroom.”

That’s a key reason he and his wife, Priya Atur Dugal ’05, established the Dugal Impact Fellowship. To be selected, a University of Maryland undergraduate works with Smith’s Dingman-Lamone Center for Entrepreneurship to secure a summer internship with a startup that is a venture-capital-backed, angel-funded or early-stage social enterprise. Through the center, the Dugals provide each fellow with a stipend of up to $5,000 in place of a salary from the startup. The Dugal Impact Fellows get experience with the challenges of forming and growing new companies while startups in the Washington, D.C. region benefit from access to the university’s most talented students. 

Dugal’s relationship with his wife developed when they were undergraduate finance majors at the Smith School. He minored in entrepreneurship and information technology and says, “Those were wonderful years. Our relationship blossomed with our education.” Those fond memories are the No. 1 reason the couple so generously gives to the Dingman-Lamone Center. The second is Rudy Lamone, former Smith School dean and founder of the center. “I owe my entire career in venture capital (VC) to Rudy.” 

Lamone was Dugal’s mentor while he was at Smith and following graduation. As a sophomore, Dugal spoke with Lamone about interning with a venture capital firm so he could learn from entrepreneurs with an eye toward someday starting a company himself. Lamone reached out to a Smith grad who worked at RedShift Ventures, which was an early-stage VC based in Chevy Chase, Md.

“I interned with them my entire senior year and they offered me a full-time job as an analyst when I graduated,” says Dugal. “These people would have never talked to me if it hadn’t been for the advocacy of Rudy Lamone.”

What Lamone did for him is in large part why the Dugals support the center. “We want to continue to support others, pay it forward and contribute to the Smith School, because a lot of the opportunity I’ve had can be attributed to knowing Rudy and being involved with the Dingman-Lamone Center specifically.”

In sync with one of Smith’s guiding principles to deliver accessible business education to all University of Maryland students, Dugal says it’s important that the Dugal Impact Fellowship program is open to all majors. “Entrepreneurship has very little to do with your major. It’s a mindset,” he says. 

Some students who take part in the fellowship won’t end up becoming entrepreneurs, but they will still see priceless benefits no matter what their career path, Dugal says. “At least they have that instinct, that bug, so the experience can expose them to the kind of grit one needs to start a business.”