A Conversation on a Plane Becomes $250,000 for MTSU’s Student Coaching Center
Some of the best business deals start at 30,000 feet. About a decade ago, a Gallatin entrepreneur struck up a conversation with the stranger in the next seat on a flight. The stranger turned out to be Colby Jubenville, the man who now runs Middle Tennessee State University's Center for Student Coaching and Success. On Tuesday, that chance meeting turned into a $250,000 pledge.
Eric Blankenship, co-owner of All Access Coach Leasing, announced the gift on Oct. 6 in the second-floor atrium of the Andrew Woodfin Miller Sr. Education Center on East Bell Street, the building the coaching center calls home. The money will cover the center's day-to-day operations and launch a new speaker series for students, set to begin in January.
From a plane ride to a partnership
The relationship did not stop at the arrival gate. Blankenship and his business partner, Jim Borelli, later brought Jubenville in to work with their own employees, and for roughly three and a half to four years Blankenship and Jubenville met about twice a month. Watching that coaching change people inside his own company is what turned Blankenship into a backer of the campus program.
All Access is not a household name, but plenty of household names ride with it. The Gallatin-based company outfits and leases the luxury tour coaches that carry Music City artists across the country, with about 117 employees handling everything from building and mechanical work to paint, interiors, laundry and tour-level cleaning. It is the kind of behind-the-scenes Middle Tennessee business that keeps the music industry rolling, quite literally.
What the center actually does
The Center for Student Coaching and Success opened on Feb. 21, 2017, inside MTSU's College of Behavioral and Health Sciences. Students accepted into the program work with coaches one-on-one and in small groups, with a clear goal: land work in their field before they walk at graduation.
The approach rests on what the center calls its Talent Development Framework. Students work through their personal story, emotional intelligence, growth mindset, personal branding, relationship building and industry knowledge. In plain terms, it teaches the things a transcript does not show: how to explain who you are, how to build a network, and how to walk into an interview already knowing the business.
The announcement drew a crowd from across the university, including MTSU President Sidney A. McPhee, College of Behavioral and Health Sciences Dean Peter Grandjean, trustee and Ole South Properties founder John Floyd, and men's tennis coach Jimmy Borendame.
Why it matters in Murfreesboro
MTSU sends thousands of graduates into the workforce every year, and every one who leaves with a job offer is a graduate more likely to stay in Middle Tennessee. A private company putting a quarter of a million dollars behind career coaching is a bet on exactly that. Students curious about the program can find the center in the Miller Education Center on Bell Street; for more of what the university offers on the career front, see our look at the MTSU Career Development Center. And for a different kind of local story, county historian Greg Tucker's Rutherford Patchwork is out now.
Image: illustrative, AI-generated – not the actual location.
