At ECSF, a downtown English language school in San Francisco, we offer a Communication for Business class that focuses on entrepreneurship and includes a string of guest speakers. Sam Catalina, an owner of Prudential Real Estate Company, spoke to the students last month about a variety of topics related to business. Afterwards, the students wrote essays summarizing and analyzing his lecture. This stellar essay was written by 3 ECers: Aynur Ismailova, Carlos Rombaldo, and Eugenia Schall. Great work, students! On February 12th, 2013, in our business class we had a special visitor Sam Catalina – an owner of Prudential Real Estate Company, a professor at CCSF City College, a director of a bank and also a good family man. He told us about his own background and his friends’ experiences. The purpose of this visit was to show us the many opportunities and possibilities that exist to start a career. Below we highlight some details about his speech. The speech was about good and bad experiences from his and his friends’ lives, showing in different ways how we can reach our dreams. A couple of words about his background. His parents are originally from the Philippines, but he was born in the USA and grew up in San Francisco area. He has been married more than 40 years, his wife is a teacher. They have 3 children: a girl – she is also a teacher, and 2 sons – one is an orthodontist, another one is a manager in a large sporting goods store. His favorite hobbies are cooking, singing karaoke and race car driving. He got in the real estate business when he saw his neighbor driving a lot of new fast cars. After taking classes and educating himself, he applied for a job … Read more