
Ben Williams, right, mentors Chad Feather at the Henry W. Bloch School of Management. Photos by Brandon Parigo, Strategic Marketing and Communications
Ready for the World

Many successful people give generous credit for their achievements to the guidance of mentors who counseled them as young adults. At the University of Missouri–Kansas City, mentorship is a vital part of the educational experience. One of the common threads in the ongoing Our Students. Our Story. #UMKCGoingPlaces series on the UMKC site and tumblr is how students appreciate the work of their mentors.
To focus even more on those crucial mentorship relationships, we’ve created another regular feature: Dynamic Duos. In interviews and images, we’re giving you an intimate look at faculty/staff-and-student mentorship pairs at UMKC. Read the other Dynamic Duos articles.
MEET BEN WILLIAMS and CHAD FEATHER
Chad Feather started his first business when he was 12, a mere junior high schooler in Kearney, Missouri.

“I did it to fund my hobby: racing cars,” says Feather, now 20 and a Business Administration student, with an emphasis in marketing and entrepreneurship, at the Henry W. Bloch School of Management.
Feather still races cars and runs the business, which buys and then sells overstock merchandise — everything from car parts to women’s clothing.
At Bloch, Feather met a much-needed mentor in Ben Williams, assistant director of the Regnier Institute for Entrepreneurship and Innovation and global entrepreneurship instructor. After graduation in December 2017, he asked Williams when he should:
- Pursue his MBA
- Go for a law degree
- Hit the ground running with a startup
Talk about the perfect person to offer advice. Williams has an MBA, a law degree and is also an entrepreneur. One of his startups included a designated-driving service with a collapsible motorbike.
“Chad is an entrepreneur,” Williams says. “He is ready for the world and the world needs Chad.”

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