Student, Stetson University Family Enterprise program
Will Hollis is a sixth generation Floridian and a senior Family Enterprise major at Stetson University. After his first Family Enterprise class, in which the students create a development plan, he decided to take a semester off to partake in an Outward Bound Leadership semester where he earned more than ten certifications in various Search and Rescue related fields. The following semester Will came back to Stetson University and volunteered for a Search and Rescue team where he found an interest in K9 Search and Rescue. This interest led him to an internship for a world class, family owned and operated, police and military K9 training facility. More recently, Will competed, along with three other Stetson Family Enterprise majors, in the Global Family Enterprise Case Competition in January of 2014 in which they placed in the top five finalists. Will’s family has been involved in the growth of Publix supermarkets since the 1940s. Now, in Will’s last year as a Stetson University Family Enterprise student, he is beginning to have conversations with his family about their transitioning family business and what his role in it may look like now or in the future.