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It started as a class assignment from Robert Hogner, associate professor in the Department of Management and International Business and coordinator of the College of Business Administration’s Civic Engagement Initiative. He told his students in his Business and Society class to design a community service project.
That’s all Gabriel “Gabe” Menocal (BBA ’96) needed to hear. Along with four of his classmates, Menocal launched what became one of the college’s most successful social justice projects—the Florida International University Foodrunners. The program organized food distribution to Miami’s homeless. Initially run by a handful of students, at its height the Foodrunners engaged hundreds of business students each year. Menocal’s initiative earned him the university’s nomination for Miami Herald’s featured student at his graduation ceremony. College provides a great education, and much more. The Foodrunners founder, who has worked in commercial real estate since his graduation, credits the experience with helping shape his beliefs about the ethics of business practice and community responsibility. He said that Hogner’s teaching had a profound impact on his life. “Hogner is one of those people who is committed to social justice and to doing the right thing,” Menocal said. “It just felt right being in his class. I am obviously in business to make money, but at the same time, I think there is a right way and wrong way to conduct business. At the end of my work day, I want to feel good about myself and the people I work with.”
Menocal describes how he stayed involved in the project even after graduation, attending Foodrunner-related events and speaking with business students about their experiences working with homeless populations in the city. “It is amazing to hear a student describe what it was like to sit down and actually speak with a homeless person and get to know them, something they might not otherwise ever have done,” Menocal said. “That experience for me when I was a student played a significant role in who I have become as a person and as a professional.” His work in launching the project carried other benefits that have proven pertinent to his career. “It was excellent training in how to plan and build programs,” he said. Menocal believes in doing what you dream. Another take-away message from Menocal’s time in the college is that “you can do and be anything you want.” That kind of thinking, according to Menocal, only reinforced his belief that life is full of opportunities, and that it’s important to pursue one’s passions. For Menocal, that has meant working in a field he loves and with clients he respects. It also has meant taking a stab at writing and playing music with Spanish rock band “Santos Renuentes.” The group plays at venues in Miami, and cut a CD that is being distributed by Sony. Will music be his next career? “If I could play music for a living, I would,” he said, “but the music business is very difficult and hard to work in. At some point, it becomes about something besides the music, and I am not really interested in that.” What may be next on the horizon, however, is a return to his alma mater, this time as a graduate student. “I would go back to the university because it has the best business school in the southeast,” Menocal said. In addition to superb academic instruction, Menocal explains that the college is unique because “what you learn there you can apply to your life—not just the technical aspects of business, but the other stuff that’s even more important.” In a nutshell, according to him: “If you work with passion and empathy and sincerity, it comes through.”
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