Spring 2009 - Issue 5

The Silversword: Home > Features > Talented Chaminade junior driven to success

Talented Chaminade junior driven to success

By Suse Simoes

Chaminade Silversword

 

Samson Fleury is capable of achieving impressive success. He was part of a volunteer event that raised about $40,000 for charity, the one picked for an investing job out many professionals, and one of the most successful students at the Hogan Entrepreneurs program at Chaminade.

Fleury, a sophomore at Chaminade University majoring in business administration, came all the way from Fairbanks, Alaska. He moved to the island with the mindset of getting into real state and knowing the opportunities are greater in Hawaii. He has joined the Hogan Entrepreneurs program this semester and already stood out with his achievements.

“I would say the Hogan program started it for me,” Fleury said. “It got the ball rolling,”

His first accomplishment was working with the Lemonade Alley event and raising about $40,000 for charity with no corporate funding. The Lemonade Alley was an idea to create business through lemonade stands, which is a creative and simple way to teach kids. The winner had the most creative lemonade stand out of the 32 stands, best business plan and raised the most money. The event was held on November 12th at Iolani School. Fleury worked up to 100 hours to make this event happen.

His other achievement was getting an investing job at age of 20, hired by Michael Mazella, a nationally known real estate investor, best selling author and millionaire mentor.

“I had to climb mountains to get that I would say,” Fleury said. “The first phase of the job was to write a typical 500-word essay of why I would be the best candidate. One of the tricks though, is that it had to be exactly 500 words – which a lot of people probably messed up on.”

In the second phase, the candidates had 48 hours to plan a marketing strategy for a random house. Fleury made through the challenge, which left him with just one other competitor. Finally, the last phase was an interview on a top of a mountain, where Fleury, after such hard work, was told he was hired for the investor job.

“My competition were mostly professionals around their 30s,” Fleury said. “I was kind of the only ‘kid.’ I pretty much beat out a large of number of people just to get this job.”

These two big accomplishments were reached in the last four months. Fleury did not stop there; it was just the beginning. He wants to have a full career before he is even done with college in the fields of real estate or investing.

“If I have a strong ability, it is to get things done and to accomplish things that people assume aren’t achievable.” Fleury said.

Fleury said that one of his mentors is Denny McDonough, one of the professors from the Hogan program.

“I was not surprised when he got the job,” said McDonough, who described Fleury as intelligent, focused and success driven. “ I have hired so many people on the course of the last 30 years, and he stands out as somebody I would want to hire. So why wouldn’t Michael want to hire him?”

McDonough said besides being a good student, Fleury is very “coachable.”

He sees Fleury being initially successful in the real estate business and after owning his own businesses.

“I think he has the potential, basically to run his own script and simply step in to play,” McDonough said.