Originally posted as a Boston University School of Management Student Profile


Ethan DeLano, BSBA’12

March 7th, 2012


Future Entrepreneur Is Not Risk Averse



Ethan DeLano (BSBA‘12) has bungee-jumped off the Macau Tower in China, one of the tallest structures in the world. He has gone skydiving in Australia — 13 times — and received a skydiving license for solo jumps that required him to pack his own parachute. He has skydived, ridden a motorcycle, and gone scuba diving within 24 hours, cramming three of his passions into a single day.

Another of DeLano’s passions is business. He ran his own company stocking vending machines in high school. “I learned some business basics, like keeping a budget and finding the cheapest goods,” he says. “I took out a loan.”


When it came to choosing a college, a strong business program and a sense of adventure were musts. “I’d been in California my whole life,” DeLano says. “I wanted a new experience.”


Boston University School of Management (SMG) satisfied both of those requirements, DeLano says. SMG provides hands-on, team-based learning and let him start studying management from year one. Certain of where he was headed, DeLano didn’t want to have to wait two years to declare a major.


Moving to Boston provided the adventure, from a new climate that included snowy winters to a new, more intense, East Coast attitude.


DeLano jumped right in to university life. He joined the BU Student Alumni Association, (SAA), the Ping-Pong Club, and other student organizations. He took extra classes and worked for BU’s IT Help service. In search of school spirit, he attended most of the Terrier hockey home games his freshman year, and witnessed the team’s triumph in the national Frozen Four championship in Washington, DC in person. “It was just an amazing experience,” he says.


Taking extra classes allowed him to take off the second semester of his junior year from school to travel to Australia, India, and Hong Kong. At each stop he interned for two months, working at a private equity firm, a Big Four accounting firm, and a financial consulting firm.


Inspired by his extreme adventures abroad, when he returned to BU he founded the Extreme Club, organizing students for scuba diving, skydiving, and ice climbing trips.


He eventually became president of BU SAA, and that’s where he’s been devoting a good deal of energy this year. “The Student Alumni Association organizes networking events for students and alumni,” DeLano explains.


The SAA event Strike Up a Conversation jump-starts the relationship between students and alumni during the fall semester. Throughout the year, BU alumni host Dinner for 10 Terriers events that bring together students and alumni in a more intimate setting. In the spring, DeLano says, Connect for Success is a formal networking event that allows students and alumni to connect with others in their own industries.


But SAA organizes just-for-fun events, too, DeLano says, including a student-alumni broomball tournament with finals in the Agganis Arena, where the varsity hockey teams play.


DeLano has concentrations in operations and technology management and management and information systems. He’s also minoring in economics. After graduation, he plans to return to California to work for a consulting firm, which he believes will give him exposure to more facets of the business world that will build on his far-reaching SMG education.


“That’s what I really like about business: how things interact,” he says. “I like not being stuck in one area, such as accounting, but being involved in all aspects of business.” Eventually, DeLano would like to run a business of his own. He’s inspired by the way his father built his veterinary practice and by several uncles who run their own businesses.


If it’s true what they say about starting a business being a lot like jumping out of an airplane, at least DeLano has experience packing a parachute.