HWS News
16 April 2025 • Alums From Grit to Growth: Scott Martin ’90 Inspires the Next Generation of Entrepreneurs
Returning to campus as Entrepreneur in Residence, Scott Martin shares real-world lessons, raw honesty and a relentless spirit with students preparing to navigate entrepreneurship's uncertain terrain.
Scott Martin ’90 came to Hobart and William Smith this spring to serve as Entrepreneur in Residence and tell his stories from the wilds of the entrepreneurial world. They were meant to engage and enlighten any student thinking about stepping into that professional abyss, but there was one caveat: He told the students it didn’t really matter what he said, because to understand it, you have to do it. You have to live it.
“Being an entrepreneur isn’t a career,” explains Martin during an interview after returning home to Ketchum, Idaho, where he runs a company called Rescription, a low-cost pharmacy benefit manager. “You can share insight and guidance and help them prepare for it. But you need luck, you need timing, you need circumstances, you need hard work, and no one can control those.”
“The really cool thing about Scott is, you see the power of a business education located in the context of a liberal arts education,” says Associate Professor Craig Talmage. “The liberal arts is the ability to live in ambiguous circumstances.”Martin explored these topics with students engaged in HWS’ growing Business Management and Entrepreneurship programs, including a one-year, Master of Science in Management. During his jam-packed, three-day visit, he connected with students in four classes, met with three interns at the Centennial Center—HWS’ hub for leadership and entrepreneurship—and held conversations with the four student finalists in this year’s Todd Feldman ’89 and Family Pitch competition.
All the Pitch finalists “raved about the conversations they had with him,” says Kevin Miles, an Entrepreneurship Fellow at the Centennial Center and a member of the business and entrepreneurship faculty.
“His spirit was inspiring to me. He had this drive and that passion showed in that he was here helping us,” says Chloe Odell ’27, who won the Pitch competition and the $10,000 first prize for her company Mirabilia Jewelry, which transforms antique cutlery into jewelry. “As someone who is new to entrepreneurship, I found that very inspiring.”
“What really struck me about his story was the level of grit and determination that Scott had when he was starting out,” says Isabella Renzi ’24, who is working toward her master’s degree in management and is a Centennial Center intern. “That taught me a lesson. I want to go into sales, and he gave me a lot of insights into how he approaches things.”
The insights Martin shared during his visit grounded business and entrepreneurship within the broader framework of a liberal arts education. “The really cool thing about Scott is, you see the power of a business education located in the context of a liberal arts education,” says Craig Talmage, Co-Chair and Associate Professor of Business Management and Entrepreneurship. “The liberal arts is the ability to live in ambiguous circumstances.”
Martin has spent his adult life navigating exactly those kinds of uncertain, high-stakes moments. He first realized entrepreneurship was his path while sitting on the second floor of a warehouse in Queens, breathing in exhaust from the trucks below. It was the summer of 1990, just after he graduated from HWS, and he was interviewing with a company called Bunzel, which sold paper-packaging products to companies in the food industry. The interviewer, whom Martin described as “a legend in the business,” didn’t believe the young English major—with unimpressive grades from a small liberal arts college in the Finger Lakes—had what it took to succeed.
Martin started driving home but realized true entrepreneurship meant facing long odds head-on. So instead, he headed to Manhattan, walked west on East 56th Street, and pitched every food spot he passed, promising great deals from the packaging company he hoped to work for. By the West 50s, he had a stack of business cards. He called the legend, shared what he’d done, and was told to show up at 8 the next morning. Martin did–ready for his first day.
That was the springboard that led him to start four companies – Rescription is the fourth, and the first that Martin funded with outside money. “I bootstrapped the first three,” he explains. “I told the kids: An idea doesn’t come with $20 million to launch it.”
Around the time Martin was tanking his interview in Queens, he found a quote from Helen Keller that continues to guide him: “Security is mostly a superstition. It does not exist in nature, nor do the children of men as a whole experience it. Avoiding danger is no safer in the long run than outright exposure. Life is either a daring adventure, or nothing."
In his own words, that was his message to the aspiring entrepreneurs at Hobart and William Smith. “I told them, be careful what you wish for because becoming an entrepreneur takes its toll on you. If you’re not prepared to get up 10 times a day and dust yourself off, you shouldn’t be an entrepreneur.”
Martin says he hopes to continue his engagement with the HWS Entrepreneurship Program. “We’re going to have a meeting to talk about things: What can we do for the competition and the major?” he says. “I got my feet wet, and I want to continue to participate and help in any way I can.”
In the photo above, Scott Martin ’90 speaks to master of science in management students during Centennial Center Entrepreneurship Fellow Kevin Miles’ “Business Law” class.
